by Menon, David
‘Can you please identify the two men in the picture please, Mr. Goldstein?’ Sara asked.
‘You know who they are’ said Yitzhak, quietly. ‘My wife told you’.
‘But I’d like you to confirm it’.
‘They’re my sons, Ehud and Benyamin! There, are you satisfied!’
‘Calm down, Mr. Goldstein and no, I’m not satisfied, far from it. I want you to tell me why you said previously that you didn’t know them?’
Yitzhak looked up to the heavens as if he was searching for some divine assistance to get through what he knew was going to be a very rough ride. He turned to Solomon Levy who was sitting beside him and then came the outburst that Sara had been waiting for.
‘I wish to make a full and complete statement, detective’
‘Excuse me’ said Levy. ‘Detectives, I’d like a moment with my client, please’.
‘Oh shut up, Solomon!’ Yitzhak roared. ‘There is no justification for what they’ve done and I, their father, am going to make sure they pay for their crimes!’
Solomon Levy looked like he was about to explode.
‘Just get out, Solomon’.
‘What?’ asked the lawyer, incredulously.
‘I said get out! I’ll speak to the detectives on my own’.
Sara looked triumphantly at Levy and watched the self-satisfied arrogance being wiped right off his face by Yitzhak Goldstein’s stance. He collected his papers together with obvious irritation and gave Yitzhak a look before he left. Sara couldn’t read it and wondered what was being communicated silently between these two men.
‘Mr. Goldstein, for the benefit of the tape, I do need you to confirm that it was your decision to ask your legal representative to leave?’ said Tim.
Yitzhak cast a completely uninterested eye in the direction of the tape recorder sitting at one end of the table and muttered ‘Yes, I confirm everything exactly as you just said’.
‘Mr. Goldstein?’ said Sara. ‘I’m waiting to finally hear the truth of what you’re involved with?’
‘Ehud and Benyamin came over from Israel’ Yitzhak began. ‘It was about two months ago. Of course we were delighted to see them but we, that’s Hettie and I, wondered why they hadn’t brought their families with them. They said they’d come on business and that it wouldn’t have been fair to uproot their wives and kids, especially as they didn’t know how long they were going to be here’.
‘So what kind of business did they say they were dealing in?’
‘Detective, it is not very easy to report your own sons to the authorities as I’m sure you can appreciate. I will tell you what I know but I ask that you be patient with me’.
‘It is not very easy to tell someone that their loved one has been tortured and murdered, Mr. Goldstein, so forgive me if I have to work at offering you any sympathy’.
‘I sincerely hope that Jacob Abrahams appreciates the harder side of you, detective’.
‘That is not relevant to this interview, Mr. Goldstein’ Tim interrupted. ‘Stick to what is relevant if you don’t mind, please’.
Yitzhak felt lost and woebegone again. There was no point in delaying things any longer. He had something of a story to tell and they wouldn’t rest until they’d got it all out of him. But it was the way the female detective had used the words tortured and murdered in relation to what his precious sons Ehud and Binyamin had been doing. A father doesn’t expect his sons to be involved in anything like that, not when they’ve grown up in an apparently civilised country like Britain. He and Hettie had brought up all their children to love and respect other people. Even in Hettie’s more angry moments when she felt the Jewish people were being persecuted unjustly she would never stand by as her children allowed feelings of bitterness to turn into violence against others. Yitzhak’s heart broke.
‘Alright, detective’ said Yitzhak. ‘I’ll stick to what’s relevant’.
‘We would appreciate that, sir’ said Tim. ‘And take your time’.
‘All I know is that they were here on a mission for the Israeli intelligence service’.
‘Mossad?’ said Tim.
‘That’s right’.
‘But what would Mossad want here and more importantly, how was a foreign intelligence service allowed to operate in this country?’
‘Those are questions that cannot be answered by me, detective’ said Yitzhak. ‘However much I want to bring this whole matter to an end’.
‘Why do you say that?’ asked Sara.
‘Look, my sons and my Hettie all worshipped my father like he was some kind of hero. But he wasn’t a hero. He was a killer! He murdered that innocent soldier and yes, I have a lot of sympathy with Gerald Hill and his anger at politicians like Craig Sutherland’.
‘Why didn’t you tell us about Gerald Hill in the first place?’ Tim wanted to know.
‘Because I wanted to keep you out of our affairs as much as possible. I wanted you to investigate the acts as if they’d been made on the entire Jewish community. I didn’t want you to know that my family had been singled out because that would have led to difficult questions that have now resulted in my wife blurting everything out’.
‘Why did they ask you to hide their weapons?’
‘It was the one place where they didn’t think you’d look’ said Yitzhak. ‘My wife Hettie genuinely didn’t know until after you first arrested me. They must’ve been in contact with her somehow and told her’.
‘But she knew we were looking for your sons?’
‘Oh yes, she knew that’ said Yitzhak. ‘Of course she did but she didn’t know why so, like me, she denied she knew who they were on the printouts. As I said to you before, detective, my wife has no conscience about what is done in the name of Israel. She feels we were persecuted enough not to have to answer for our actions now’.
‘Even when it means the murder of innocent people?’
‘You heard what I said, detective, I’m not going to repeat myself’ said Yitzhak.
‘Do you accept that we’re talking about the attempted murder of Jacob Abrahams which resulted in the murder of the young student, the murder of Melanie Sanders, the abduction, torture and murder of both Robert Jackson and James Henderson. Do you accept, Mr. Goldstein that we’re talking about all of these cases when we talk about what we’re alleging your sons to have done?’
‘Yes’
‘So where are they now?’
‘I don’t know, detective’.
‘Are they still in the country?’
‘Yes, I believe so’.
‘I don’t suppose you have contact numbers for them?’
‘You suppose rightly, detective’.
‘Well it won’t be difficult to check the numbers on your phone records’.
‘I’m now beyond the stage of caring’ said Yitzhak. ‘If my sons have taken on the same twisted notions my father had about acting for the state of Israel, then I can do no more to protect them’.
*
‘You were right’ said Sara. She was talking to Jacob who’d called round to her office. ‘Everything you gave me as that wild, far-fetched theory is coming true’.
‘Well this whole thing has got Mossad written all over it’ said Jacob. ‘Word got back to me after a couple of my previous death threats that Mossad were behind them. That’s why I set you down that path’.
‘Well it’s led us to where we are now’ said Sara. ‘But how can they operate inside another country? That’s what I don’t understand’
‘They have ways, believe me’ said Jacob. ‘And they’ve got form. Starting with the kidnapping of the Nazi war criminal Eichmann from Argentina back in 1960 right through to the murder of the Palestinian politician in a Dubai hotel room a couple of years back. With Eichmann it could be argued that it was justified. But this lot don’t mess about and their more recent operations are questionable to say the least’.
Sara sighed. ‘I don’t think their actions can be justified when innocent people die because of them’.
‘Well you need to find out what the bigger picture is here’ said Jacob. ‘They tried to kill me because they don’t like what I say about Israel and wanted rid of me and they’ve tried before. But what’s really important is the big political secret that was discovered by Robert Jackson and which they must have tortured out of him’.
‘A secret they’re prepared to kill for so that it doesn’t get out’ said Sara. ‘Not to mention the death of Andy Masters which I’m convinced they were behind’.
‘Well that’s what you’ve got to find out, detective’ said Jacob.
‘Great. No pressure then?’
‘They will have contacts’ said Jacob. ‘They will have people here who are helping them. And I don’t mean their parents. They will have operatives who are sympathetic for some reason but who are not Jewish. That’s where you’ve got to mine for gold, Sara’.
Just as Jacob was finishing there was a knock at the door and Tim Norris came breezing in. The two men initially glared at each other, both of them knowing the history they shared with Sara, but then Jacob told himself he was being a twat and offered his hand. ‘Hi! I’m Jacob Abrahams’.
Tim offered his hand in response, though more cautiously than Jacob’s initial approach. ‘And I’m Tim Norris’.
‘Good’ said Sara. ‘I’m glad you two have met. It saves me the bother of introducing you’.
Jacob smiled at his lover. She had a way of cutting through crap that he was starting to become really entwined with. It was such a refreshing change from some of his previous relationships where women had gone out of their way to make the simple sound complicated. His last girlfriend had been exasperating to try and have a conversation with because she had an obsession with always wanting to be objective. So even if someone had stabbed her in the back she would try to look for the angle of why they’d done it because she refused to be judgemental about anyone. It meant that she never came down on an opinion about anything and Jacob had got fed up with it in the end and called their relationship a day. And even then it took two hours of going round and round the houses in conversation whilst she tried to understand why he didn’t want to see her anymore, instead of just accepting that it was because he couldn’t stand the annoying bitch any longer. But he had none of that from Sara who was practical, had van loads of clear, straight thinking and went right to the heart of everything.
‘Yes, well, I guess it was inevitable that we would’ said Tim. ‘Sara, we’ve traced the one unknown mobile phone number on the phone records of the Goldstein’s and it turns out that it was a pay-as-you-go phone bought from a small electrical shop in Levenshulme. We sent uniform down there and the shop owner says it was a cash purchase but he did give us the CCTV tape for that day’.
‘And don’t tell me?’
‘It was Ehud and Benyamin Goldstein’ said Tim. ‘And they haven’t been in the shop since’.
Sara leaned her head back and sighed. ‘Why did I just know that’s what you were going to say’.
‘There is something else though which is rather more exciting’.
‘Well?’
‘The tail we’ve had on Solomon Levy ... ‘
‘ ... Solomon Levy?’ Jacob interrupted.
‘Yes, do you know him?’ asked Tim.
‘Only because he’s one of the most prominent Jews in the northwest’ said Jacob. ‘He absolutely hates me and he recently made a speech in which he savagely criticised Barack Obama for being, what he called, too pro-Palestinian’.
‘Okay’ said Sara, thoughtfully. When she was a little girl she played a game involving a large plastic frame into which you had to slip different coloured plastic circles one by one until you were able to get a line across, down, or diagonally, of the same colour. In her mind she could see that game and all the green circles falling into a line. She could see that line now. She’d finally worked it all out. ‘Excuse me a minute, boys’ she said as she stood up and walked out of her office and into the main squad room. She went up to where Adrian Bradshaw was busy at his laptop. ‘Adrian, you know that document in Hebrew that Luca Johnson handed over to you? Have we had the translation back yet?’
‘No, ma’am, it’s due in this afternoon’ said Adrian. ‘But there’s something here that you definitely need to see’.
Sara rested her hands on the back of Adrian’s chair and leaned forward. On the screen in front of him was the picture of a suburban street with rows of very neatly kept terraced houses on either side. At the bottom of the street was a wooded area. Adrian clicked and clicked until the focus was on number sixteen at the end.
‘So what am I looking at?’ Sara asked.
‘These have come from the surveillance guys who are tagging Solomon Levy’ Adrian explained with his finger still on the mouse click. ‘This was last night at just after eight o’clock. Solomon knocks on the large red door of number sixteen, looks around a little uncomfortably and then is let in by a woman who we only get a brief glimpse of’.
‘Have we done a number on the address?’ Sara asked as she felt her blood begin to pump just a little bit faster. Adrian wouldn’t have asked her over to look at this shit if it wasn’t worth her while. ‘Yes, and I’ll tell you about that in a minute. Just look at this first’.
Adrian carried on clicking and there, out of the wooded area at the bottom of the street, two figures appeared and ran into number sixteen where the door had clearly been left slightly open.
‘Ehud and Benyamin Goldstein’ said Sara, slowly as if she was savouring every letter of each word she uttered. ‘When did they leave?’
‘About an hour later’ said Adrian, clicking the slides forward until the door of number sixteen opens again and they come out and head back for the woods. Solomon Levy followed them five minutes later, got into his car and drove away.
‘So who lives in what is now to us the most interesting house in Manchester?’
‘According to the electoral role it’s a Mr. and Mrs. Barry’ said Adrian. ‘The first names are Colin and Nina. We’re checking out their background now’.
‘Good’ said Sara. ‘Because they’ll soon be getting a visit’.
*
Nina wasn’t looking forward to the task in front of her but it was necessary. When somebody within a trusted circle speaks loosely outside that circle then they have to be dealt with. It was part of her role and it didn’t matter what she thought about it.
And yet it did.
She welcomed Solomon Levy into her house for one more meeting. He hadn’t stood up to Yitzhak Goldstein and prevented him from talking. She then watched as Ehud and Benyamin Goldstein took him by the neck and broke it. There was no blood. There was just the bulging eyes of shock as he stared into Nina’s face with what remained of his soul. He hadn’t expected this to happen. But that was his biggest mistake.
TWENTY
Luca Johnson was about to head off to the gym when he got a call on his mobile.
‘Hi!’ the familiar voice said. ‘It’s Howard’.
‘Hello’ said Luca, cautiously. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m alright’ said Howard, ‘Why the caution in your voice?’
‘You’ve been all over the papers, Howard. You’re hot news’.
‘And that means something because?’
‘Well a boy would like to keep himself out of trouble’.
‘It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it? Considering the business you’re in?’
‘I just meet people for conversation and intellectual exchanges’.
‘You also suck cock for cash’ said Howard. ‘And you’re very good at it’.
‘Well thanks for the feedback but I’m actually busy this morning’.
‘You might want to reconsider that decision’.
Luca’s mouth went dry. There was something in Howard Phelps voice. ‘Why?’
‘I’m sitting in my car outside’.
‘So?’
‘Then shift your arse and let me fucking in!’
A feelin
g of dread ran through Luca like someone had just stepped over his grave. Howard must’ve found out that Luca had been to the police with the file. He ran around and made sure a couple of large kitchen knives were in places that only he knew about. Then he heard the knock at the door and breathed in deep before letting Howard in. He locked eyes with Luca who stepped back, feeling the weight of menace in Howard’s stare.
‘As they say in all the old war films, my friend, I have ways and means to make you talk. You see, knowledge in itself is not what’s important. It’s what you do with it that has consequences’.
‘You’re not making sense’.
‘No, but you’d better’.
‘I don’t know what you mean?’
Howard punched Luca in the stomach. Luca bent forward in agony. He was winded and shocked. He hadn’t expected Howard to get violent so soon. Then Howard grabbed Luca by the throat and held him up against the wall.
‘Now if you want to keep those good looks, pretty boy’ Howard warned. ‘Then you’ve got to give. You’ve got something of mine and I want it back’.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’.
‘Oh full marks out of ten for bravery, young man, but be careful what you say whilst you can still talk. You’ve got a file of mine and I want it back’.
‘What makes you think I’ve got it?’
‘Don’t play games with me, Luca! I’m really not in the mood for a pathetic little working class northern boy like you to mess around with me’.
‘You didn’t mind any of that when you were in bed with me’.
Howard punched Luca in the stomach again only this time with even more force and Luca could barely move let alone talk. He held his stomach as he tried to straighten himself up and watched as Howard charged down to his bedroom. He could hear stuff being thrown about and he staggered after him to see what the hell Howard was doing. When he got there he could see that Howard was going through his things like some burglar in a hurry. He was opening every drawer and throwing it on the floor so that the contents would spill out. Then he did the same with the clothes in Luca’s wardrobe. He tore the sheets off the bed and lifted up the mattress. The room looked like a bomb had dropped on it.