The Jerusalem Puzzle. Laurence O’Bryan

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СКАЧАТЬ your results,’ said Isabel. ‘Have you bred the perfect red heifer?’

      He rubbed his chin. ‘We’ve bred over a thousand red heifers. The question is, are any of them perfect? The standard is high, very high. Not one single hair can be black or brown or white, God forbid.’

      ‘If you do breed one, a lot of people are going to claim the end of the world is nigh,’ said Isabel.

      ‘People are claiming that all the time. I don’t think it will lead to a panic.’

      Isabel had come around the table and was looking closely at the slide on the screen. She spoke in a low voice. ‘Let’s hope you’re right.’

      ‘Can you tell us anything else about Max Kaiser?’ I said. It was time to get something out of all this.

      ‘With all due respect, you are strangers here, Dr Ryan. Our police are the best people to look for your friend Susan Hunter. I think you must talk with them, for your own good.’

      Talli was standing beside us now. ‘Did you know Dr Ryan’s organisation, the Institute of Applied Research, runs one of the best academic conferences in the UK these days? Many of the world’s leading researchers attend. So I’ve heard.’ She gave me a tentative smile. It crossed my mind that maybe she wanted to speak at one of our events.

      ‘I wouldn’t want to make an enemy of them, that’s all I am saying, Simon,’ she continued.

      Her description of our conference would have been disputed by some, but many cutting-edge researchers would have agreed with it. We’d built a reputation for having fun too, and avoiding some of the boring stuff you’d expect at such conferences.

      Simon looked at me with an interested expression. Was this the route to get him to help us, or should I press another button?

      I peered at the laptop screen. ‘You’re laser splicing at the single nanometre level, aren’t you? That’s unprecedented. What’s the damage threshold?’

      ‘Lower than your dreams.’

      ‘You’ll be looking for Nobel prizes, if you can get the right people to promote your case.’

      His expression bordered on conceit now. No wonder he wanted to show me what he was up to. Not a lot of people would understand the real breakthrough he’d achieved.

      ‘How did you get to this point?’ People like Simon usually yearn for an audience, people who will hear them out and understand how truly clever they are.

      He looked pleased as he began to tell me the history of their project.

      I let him talk. He loved listening to himself. His eyes grew wider, as if he was in the headlights of a truck, as he went through the ins and outs of his work: how he’d discovered the breakthrough himself, how a colleague had let him down in the early stages, had even disputed his findings. And how he’d been vindicated in the end. It was the usual academic front-and-back-stabbing stuff.

      When he’d run out of steam, Isabel said. ‘You should definitely be at the institute conference next year. Shouldn’t he, Sean?’

      She had an enthralled look on her face. I hadn’t known she was so interested in optical science.

      ‘I forgot to ask, do you remember where Kaiser was staying the last time he was here?’ she said.

      He smiled at her, answered quickly. ‘Somewhere on Jabotinsky.’

      ‘What number?’ I said. I hadn’t heard of the place, but I assumed you’d need more than a street name to find out where Kaiser had been staying. Jabotinsky could run all the way to Tel Aviv, for all I knew.

      ‘I don’t remember.’ He shrugged dismissively.

      He knew more. He had to.

      Isabel was still looking at the screen. ‘Did you meet him there?’ Her tone was soft, friendly.

      ‘I picked him up a couple of times, no more than that. He was, without doubt, the most arrogant archaeologist I’ve ever met.’

      ‘How were you helping him?’ asked Isabel.

      ‘He used my name to get himself admitted to a dig. I got a call from someone checking up on him, to see if he was who he said he was. They didn’t say where the dig was though. But they’d heard of me.’

      ‘Do you even know what section of Jabotinsky he was staying on?’ said Isabel.

      ‘Somewhere near the middle. Honestly, I can’t tell you any more. I was never in his apartment. I picked him up on the street, twice. Once at a bus stop near the middle. Another time at a coffee shop at the end. Maybe if you go door to door someone will remember him.’ He gave Isabel a sympathetic look.

      ‘It’s a very long street,’ said Talli, looking at me. ‘There are lots of apartment buildings. If you go door to door you’ll be days at it.’

      ‘I can’t help you any more,’ said Simon. He looked at his watch. ‘My meeting is starting soon and …’ He didn’t finish his sentence. It was clear he wanted us to get going. There was tightness around his eyes, as if he was about to miss the last train home for Yom Kippur.

      ‘We’re out of here,’ I said. ‘Thanks for showing me what you’re working on. It was interesting.’ I gripped his arm.

      Seconds later we were standing by the lifts. There were two dark-suited men in the corridor outside the room we’d just come out of. One of them had cropped hair. The other had longer hair and was younger. Their eyes were watchful. They looked as if they’d be suspicious of their own wives.

      ‘Is that the local CIA?’ I said, half jokingly, as the elevator went down.

      ‘Shush,’ said Talli. She glanced up at the small black dome of a security camera in a corner of the elevator.

      When we got down below she turned to me. ‘That was the Security Service. I’d bet my pension on it.’

      ‘Simon is an important guy?’ asked Isabel.

      Talli shrugged.

      That was when I spotted the knot of people, maybe six or seven, waiting by a table near the revolving glass doors leading from the outside. Two blue-shirted female police officers were waving two-foot-long wands over people, before letting them pass in or out. We joined the queue.

      I’d never seen people being checked leaving a place as well as entering it.

      Talli threw her gaze to the ceiling as she waited. She whispered, ‘You never know what the Security Service is going to do next here.’

      I was dealt with first. The older looking of the two officers held her hand out. ‘ID?’ She said. I gave her my passport.

      She couldn’t have been much older than me, maybe a year of two, no more than forty for sure, and she was attractive. She had thick brown hair, big soft eyes, glowing skin, and an authoritative manner. She stood with her legs wide apart and her head back, as if she might bellow a command at me at any point.

      ‘What were you doing in this hotel?’ СКАЧАТЬ