The Jerusalem Puzzle. Laurence O’Bryan

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ immediately for dinner, eating in near silence, the fatigue of the journey capturing our thoughts. Back at our room I scoured Israeli websites for any news about Dr Hunter. There was nothing about her disappearance mentioned anywhere in the last few days. The only thing I found were the original articles about her going missing.

      The main story on the Haaretz website was about a Jewish family that had been burnt to death in an arson attack the night before in a settlement near Hebron. The horror of it leapt off the screen. Pictures of a small blackened house with an ambulance in front of it, surrounded by Israeli soldiers, filled the news page. Isabel looked over my shoulder as I read it.

      ‘They’re blaming some local Palestinians,’ I said.

      ‘How many more people are going to get burnt to death?’ said Isabel.

      ‘You can get shot out here too,’ I said. I pointed at another article. It was about a funeral of a Palestinian youth who’d been shot in the back after being part of a demonstration in a village sandwiched between Jewish settlements. A Jewish settler was being blamed for that death.

      ‘It’s all sickening,’ said Isabel.

      ‘There’s a vicious fight going on here, unbending hatred,’ I replied. Opening my email, there was the usual array of special offers from every hotel, airline and social network I’d ever used and some I hadn’t. I spotted an email from Dr Beresford-Ellis. It had an attachment. I clicked on it. The message wouldn’t open. The screen just froze.

      Had the internet stopped completely? I went to another tab and tried to download a page. It wouldn’t work either. Nothing would. I waited another minute.

      ‘I’ll go down and see if they can do anything about the signal; find out if it’s better in the lobby,’ said Isabel.

      ‘Can you see if you can get some fruit, I’m still hungry?’ I said.

      The internet was still off ten minutes later and Isabel hadn’t come back. I let the door bang as I left the room, pushing the old-fashioned key into my pocket as I waited for the lift. I was hoping it would open to Isabel’s smiling face, but it was empty when it arrived.

      In the lobby there was no sign of her either. I went to the reception. The dark-haired girl who’d checked us in was gone. In her place was an older guy with a bald spot he was trying to hide by brushing his hair over. He was standing in a corner of the reception area that was walled with blue and white Ottoman-era tiles.

      ‘No, I haven’t seen a lady in dark blue jeans with straight black hair,’ he said, after I described Isabel. His expression was quizzical, as if he was wondering whether I was asking him to find me a date.

      ‘Maybe she went to the shop. It’s down the road. Not far.’ He smiled, showed me his yellowing teeth.

      ‘Is there a problem with the Wi-Fi?’ I asked.

      ‘No, sir. It’s working perfectly.’

      ‘Not for me. How far away is this shop?’

      ‘Not far.’ He pointed towards the front of the hotel, then to the left.

      I walked to the glass front door, then up the steps to the road to see if Isabel was coming. I’d never been this protective of Irene, my wife, a doctor who’d volunteered and then been murdered in Afghanistan two years before, but after what had happened to her my urge to look after Isabel couldn’t be ignored. Irene had been robbed of her life. I couldn’t bear for anything like that to happen to anyone else.

      It was dark outside.

      I had to tell myself to stop being paranoid. I looked back down at the hotel doors.

      A man’s face was peering up at me through the glass door.

      ‘What are you doing out here?’ said a friendly voice behind me. ‘Did you miss me?’

      I turned. Isabel was coming towards me from the other direction to the shop. She had a brown paper bag in her arms. ‘I got you your fruit.’

      She held the bag forwards, smiled, then touched my arm as she passed. A ridiculous iron weight of fear lifted from my chest. When we got back to the room the Wi-Fi was working perfectly.

      ‘I got a call from Mark while I was out,’ she remarked. ‘He’s stationed in Cairo these days. Not a million miles from here.’

      I spoke slowly. ‘Why does he keep calling you? I thought you two were over.’

      She’d dumped him a year ago.

      ‘You are so jealous!’ she said. There was a sympathetic note to her voice.

      I gave her my best see-if-I-care smile.

      ‘He wants to meet me again.’ She shook her head as if the idea was outrageous.

      ‘What?’ This was getting annoying.

      ‘I’m not going to, don’t worry.’

      I opened the balcony door and went outside, staring over the lights illuminating the Old City walls. Isabel didn’t just have skeletons in her cupboard, she had live exhibits, waiting to be set free.

      I felt a hand on my back and Isabel whispered in my ear. ‘Come to bed, Sean. I want to prove to you that there is no one else.’ Taking my hand she pulled me back inside. It was another hour before I got to sleep.

      7

      Arap Anach took the thick yellow candle from its holder. It burned with a blue-white flame and gave off a sweet scent; olive oil mixed with myrrh, the ancient incense Queen Esther had bathed in for six months to beautify herself for her Persian King.

      Myrrh was used at times of sacrifice. Arap knew its scent from his childhood. One man in particular had smelled of it. A man who’d brought pain.

      He closed his eyes, breathing the ancient smell in. Myrrh came from a thorny shrub which wept from the stem after it was cut. Some varieties are worth more than their weight in gold.

      He put his left hand out and held it over the flame. The pain was familiar. The walls of the room danced around him as the shadows from the candle played on the walls. He wrenched his thoughts away from the flame, focusing on the wall hangings. The thick red one with the stylised flames embroidered on it was the one he liked most.

      He bent his back. The searing pain in his hand grew in steps, as if ascending towards an ultimate crescendo. He threw his head back and opened his eyes. Not much longer. Seconds. One …

      The low white roof, its plaster filled with tiny cracks, swam in his vision. The cracks were moving. It always amazed him what pain could do to your consciousness.

      His need to take his hand away was making his arm tremble now. It was moving, rocking as muscle spasms from the pain were shooting up his nerves. He kept his hand to the flame.

      He had to. It was the only way. He had to know the pain he would inflict on others, the better to enjoy inflicting it when the moment came.

      He jerked his hand away, breathing in and out slowly. It was time to make the call.

СКАЧАТЬ