Oh, for Christ’s sake, she cursed inwardly. Not today. I’m not in the mood. Returning to the place she’d once called home had put her on edge. She leant forward and tapped one of the young soldiers on the knee. ‘Excuse me?’ she asked in her sweetest voice.
He started and his eyes snapped northward to meet her gaze. ‘Ah, yes, miss?’
‘It’s Mrs. And I just wanted to thank you.’
The young soldier looked confused. ‘Thank me, ma’am? For what?’
‘For reminding me that at least one of us has something worth drooling over.’ She offered him a handkerchief from her purse. ‘Here – I think you’ve got some on your chin. Drool, I mean.’
The soldier’s face flushed a colour that rivalled the scarlet gleam of the setting sun. Shamefaced, the two men set their eyes firmly on the road ahead.
It was unlike Essie to make a fuss about such commonplace – and common – behaviour. But she was on edge, dreading the reunion with Adam Penney. She’d spoken with Josef Garvé and arranged to meet the two men at the military base, where they were readying to embark on the aircraft carrier, HMS Theseus. From there, a helicopter would transport them into the Sinai as an advance on the general British air assault on Port Said that would occur in a matter of days. When they’d spoken on the phone, Garvé had made no reference to the reason for Essie’s sudden departure from London, other than a polite enquiry after the health of her stepmother. She’d been relieved to know that Penney might have kept the events that had occurred at his home on her last evening in London to himself. But the thought of looking him in the eye again made her feel physically ill.
She had no doubt at all that he’d put something in her drink that night with the intention of raping her. And that knowledge made her burn with a blinding rage. Most women had men to fight their battles for them – fathers; brothers; husbands. She had nobody. If she wanted someone punished for mistreating her, the only avenging angel she had to call on was herself. But she was also a pragmatist. Although every instinct urged her to strike out at Adam Penney, she knew that if she did want to get her hands on the Emerald Tablet and the financial windfall it would deliver – not to mention the freedom she now so desperately wanted – she’d have to find some way of stomaching being around the man. As difficult as she knew it was going to be, she was damned if she was going to let him strip her of her prize.
Watching through the windscreen as they approached the intimidating defensive measures protecting the headquarters of Britain’s Middle East armed forces, Essie braced herself.
It won’t be long. And once this is over, you’ll never have to look at that pig of a man again.
Notified by the guardhouse of Essie’s impending arrival, Josef Garvé and Adam Penney were waiting for her by the mess hall. Garvé stepped forward as the jeep came to a halt and opened the door for her, extending a hand to help her down from the tray. She didn’t need any assistance but accepted it anyway.
The chagrined soldier took her case from the back of the vehicle. ‘There’s quarters set up for you in the estate with the airmen’s families, ma’am. I’ll take your gear there.’ He couldn’t bring himself to meet her eye.
‘Fine. Thank you,’ she snapped.
‘Difficult trip?’ asked Garvé, sensing her discomfort.
‘No worse than usual,’ she responded. ‘At least – nothing I can’t handle.’ She couldn’t bear to look at Adam, who she sensed hovering just behind the Frenchman like a mosquito waiting to strike. No more avoiding it, she thought as he took a step towards her.
‘Essie!’ Penney gripped her firmly by the upper arms and planted a wet kiss on each cheek. ‘Darling lady.’ He dropped his voice and looked at her from beneath hooded lids. ‘I was so delighted you decided to join our party the other night. And you seemed to be having so much fun!’ he purred. ‘Then you left in such a hurry . . . well, I was concerned.’
She squirmed and extricated herself from his grasp. ‘No need to worry about me, Adam. You shouldn’t have wasted the energy. I was tired. Bed was calling.’
‘Bed? Yes – I noticed,’ he smirked.
She glared at him.
Penney turned to Garvé. ‘I saw a different side to our Mrs Peters the night she visited my home. I doubt I’ll ever be able to look at her the same way again.’
‘Is that a fact?’ The Frenchman glanced at Essie. ‘Well, she is quite the woman of mystery.’
‘That she is.’ Adam chortled coarsely. ‘That she is.’
Garvé raised an eyebrow. Essie responded with a curt and furtive shake of her head. She knew he wouldn’t care what had happened unless it was relevant to the business at hand, which it wasn’t.
‘I’ve had news from Cairo,’ Garvé said. ‘Both the Americans and Russians have stepped up their activities. Seems they’re closing in on your Dr Hitchens. If you’d like to join me for dinner on my yacht, Essie, I can let you know what’s been happening.’ He pointedly excluded Penney from the invitation.
‘Thank you, but no. The only thing I need to catch up on is some sleep.’
‘I’ll just look after myself then, shall I?’ grumbled Penney.
‘It would be a fine gesture to show some support to the men in uniform, Adam,’ Garvé said in a conciliatory tone. ‘They’re about to go into battle, after all, and I’m sure it’d bolster their morale no end to have someone from Whitehall join them for their evening meal.’
‘Yes . . . well, now that you mention it . . . yes, of course. Fine idea. Fly the old Union Jack and all that,’ he preened. Essie recoiled.
‘Now, Essie,’ continued Garvé. ‘The orders to move out may come at any moment. Unfortunately, we don’t have any control over the timing. We’re just waiting for our friends in London to give the go-ahead. Operation Musketeer is what the military have called the invasion, apparently. The three musketeers – Britain, France and Israel. Has there ever been a less likely alliance? Anyway, you’ll need to be ready to leave.’
‘I’m ready now. If it was up to me, we wouldn’t be waiting.’ Anything to avoid hanging around a military base populated by lecherous soldiers and a would-be rapist.
24
Jerusalem
The rosy stones of Jerusalem’s Ottoman city wall gleamed in the sun’s white glare as blinding shafts of light shot in beams from the Dome of the Rock’s golden cupola. Ben and Ilhan travelled in silence, slumped back onto the taxi’s rear seat. They were both exhausted after the long passage across the rough seas between Alexandria and the remote beach of Palmachim on the Israeli coastline, where they’d disembarked in the shadows of a ruined fortress on a promontory overlooking the Mediterranean.
The taxi flashed by ancient walls whose worn and weathered surfaces were blemished by bullet holes and divots gouged out by shrapnel. Ahead loomed the multistoreyed splendour of the King David Hotel, the fresh limestone bricks in the south-western corner of its façade dazzling next to the older stonework on the rest of the building – a scar left by the 1946 bombing attack on the hotel by a Zionist paramilitary group that had killed ninety-one people. Not that Ben needed it, but it was a grim reminder of how troubled the region was that they’d just entered.
Sweeping into the hotel’s circular driveway, the cab pulled up beneath the grand porte-cochère. ‘Decided we deserved a treat, did you?’ asked Ilhan, clearly impressed as a solemn doorman wearing a peaked cap and a long coat with gold braid and buttons opened the taxi’s door.
‘Always wanted to stay here,’ said Ben. ‘Last time I was in Jerusalem, I was a student. Didn’t feel comfortable with the grandeur. But these days . . . hell, why not, I say?’
Ilhan caught sight of the healthy wad of US banknotes Ben handed the concierge, who accepted his offering with a nod and a tip of his cap. ‘A bit excessive?’ the Turk murmured.
‘My rule of thumb is to always look after the man who’ll be looking after me,’ Ben responded. ‘Just wait. Bet my generosity will buy us one of their best rooms overlooking the old city.’
Ben leant back in an armchair and took in the hotel’s imposing decor as he waited for the hotel manager to connect his call to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Ilhan had already left to explore the tiny antique shops lining the narrow laneways they’d seen on their taxi ride into the city. ‘You can waste your time with your pointless search,’ he had cried as he disappeared around a corner. ‘Just watch! I’ll make something out of this yet!’
The hotel’s interior was a theatrical confection of historical details. A finely woven red carpet stretched through the hotel’s monumental lobby, where the walls had been embellished with richly coloured icons including Solomon’s shield and abstract representations of the ‘seven species’ – the seven agricultural products described in the Tanakh as Israel’s natural bounty and the only sacrificial gifts that could be brought to the altar of the Holy Temple. With Egyptian revival and Phoenician architectural features interpreted in an Art Deco style, it was a mishmash of cultural references that Ben assumed were meant to carry the viewer back to a time when King David ruled the city.
‘Excuse me, sir?’ The manager summoned him from the front desk. ‘Your call is connected.’ He indicated a bank of telephone booths against the wall in the hotel’s foyer.
Ben levered his broad-shouldered frame through the narrow cedar doorway, ducking his head to avoid hitting it on the roof. He picked up the handset. ‘Hello?’
‘Yes.’ It was a female voice. ‘How may I help you?’
‘I’m calling to speak with Professor Cohn. I was a student of his . . . many years ago.’
‘I’m his secretary. I’ll see if he’s available. Your name?’
‘Dr Benedict Hitchens.’
‘Give me a moment.’ Ben heard the clack of heels on a timber floor and a murmured conversation. There was a clatter as the woman picked up the phone again. ‘I’m afraid he’s too busy to take your call. You’ll need to try again another time.’
‘Well, what I’d really like is to meet with him. I’m here in Jerusalem. It’s a matter of some urgency. Could you please ask him if I might come in to see him – perhaps some time this afternoon or this evening?’
‘I’m terribly sorry, Dr Hitchens, but he’s a very busy man –’
‘Please. Could you please ask him again? Tell him it’s about Balinas . . . Balinas and the Emerald Tablet.’
The woman on the other end of the line let out an exasperated sigh. ‘Fine.’ The sound was muffled as she covered the mouthpiece of the phone with her hand. After a few seconds, her voice came back on the line. ‘He said you can come in the afternoon. Late. Do you know where we are?’
‘Yes. Yes, I do. Thank you.’
‘My pleasure.’ The woman hung up with a force that showed it was anything but.
25
Jerusalem
If ever a building embodied the contradictions of this city, this would be it, Ben thought as he walked towards the temporary accommodation of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s humanities department.
In the most contested city on earth, Christians, Jews and Muslims had done everything they could to make a mark. That urge found its expression in construction as well as destruction. In the Terra Sancta building, the monks of St Francis had conceived an edifice that established an enduring presence in the Holy City, but the building’s destiny had proved to be as chequered as the city itself, and part of it had been requisitioned as a campus of the Hebrew University. From the summit of the four-storeyed building that had been constructed in the Italianate style from rough-hewn limestone blocks, echoing the construction of Jerusalem’s great walls, a haloed statue of the Madonna stood on the belltower’s cupola, her hand raised in blessing over the serious-faced Jewish students flooding out of the front entrance at the day’s end.
Ben hailed a young man passing by, a pile of books clamped beneath his arm.
‘Excuse me? Where’s Professor Ethan Cohn’s office?’
The student’s forehead crinkled above black-rimmed glasses. ‘Professor Cohn . . . what does he teach?’
‘Archaeology.’
‘Ah – that’s why I haven’t heard the name. I’m in philosophy. Archaeology . . . take the stairs to the third floor and head towards the back of the building.’
Finding his way to the Department of Archaeology was, appropriately enough, like negotiating a labyrinth. The hallways were stacked with books and boxes hemmed in by clusters of gesticulating students squabbling over the volumes they wanted to take home to study that evening.
He pushed past the sparring students and caught the attention of one boy standing on the fringe of the group. ‘Ah . . . Professor Cohn’s office?’
‘Cohn?’ He indicated an office door further down the corridor. ‘That’s him.’
The frosted glass door was shut and Ben could see no movement within. Raising a hand, he rapped on the glass.
A shadow passed before the door, then another. It opened a crack and a flinty-faced woman wearing tortoiseshell spectacles on the end of her nose looked out. ‘Yes?’ she snapped.
‘Ah – I’m Dr Hitchens. I think we spoke earlier. I’ve an appointment with Professor Cohn.’
Her chin tilted back and eyebrows shot skyward. ‘Dr Benedict Hitchens, you say?’ She looked him up and down. ‘Well. I’ve heard a fair bit about you over the years . . . Not how I imagined you. Give me a moment.’ She slammed the door and retreated into the room.
Ben waited, tapping his foot. Curmudgeonly old bastard, he thought. Looks like you got yourself a secretary after your own heart.
The door swung open again. ‘Come in.’ The woman took an overcoat from a stand beside the door and slipped it on, swinging a purse onto her shoulder. She addressed someone, unseen, in the corner of the room. ‘If there’s nothing else you need, professor, I’ll be going home now.’
A familiar voice rang out, stern and sonorous. ‘Fine. Thank you, Mrs Levin. See you tomorrow.’
Ben entered the room. It was high-ceilinged and spacious with windows overlooking the busy promenade below. Glass display cabinets filled with ceramic vessels, terracotta figurines and stone tools lined the walls. Hanging in a tiered display by the door was a collection of what Ben recognised as Roman weaponry – swords, daggers and javelins. But the floor was stacked with so many piles of paperwork and storage boxes full of ancient artefacts that it was difficult to see a way into the room. He caught a movement out of the corner of his eye.
‘Well. Benedict Hitchens. What brings you here?’
With his prematurely silver hair, grizzled brow and sternly set lips, Ethan Cohn had always looked older than his years. Looking at him now, Ben realised his age had finally caught up with his appearance.
‘Ethan. It’s . . . it’s been a while . . .’
Cohn said nothing, just stared at Ben with a detached expression on his face.
‘How’s everything? How’re Esther . . . and the children?’ Ben stumbled over his words.
Ben’s former mentor took a deep breath. ‘“How’s everything?” you ask? Even you, in your self-absorbed world, would have heard what’s been going on here. How do you think “everything” is, Benedict? Esther and I moved here from Crete during the war. The university campus on Mt Scopus was a sanctuary – a beacon for us as we fought for the liberation of Israel from the British. And today? The road to the mountain is in Arab hands. Seventy-eight of my colleagues and students were slaughtered in a medical convoy on that road. Our classrooms . . . the books . . . everything we fought for. Gone.’
Ethan gestured to the streets outside. ‘Out there, along that street, there’s a wall. You probably walked past it to get here. Well, six months ago, that wall wasn’t there. You would’ve been taking your life into your own hands if you’d walked that street. Arab snipers from the battlements of the old city made no distinction – old men; women; children. Anyone they could get their sights on. But Jews will never again be victims. In one night, we built that wall . . .’ Ethan held his gnarled hands out before him.
‘These hands – they know dirt and they know stones. Perhaps they’re doing something useful at last.’ He dropped them back to his side. ‘So. That’s how “everything” is. Now, why are you here?’
‘Ethan, I’m sorry we lost touch. I’m not even sure how or why it happened.’ Though that was anything but the truth. Any desire Ben might have had to keep in touch had evaporated once he learnt that Ethan had been bad-mouthing him to anyone who’d listen. He gritted his teeth. Conflict had always brought out Ethan Cohn’s bull-headed and intractable side. Ben knew the only way he’d convince him to help would be if he took a conciliatory stance.
‘I can tell you exactly why it happened,’ the older man scoffed. ‘You lost direction – lost sight of the noble purpose of the work you were doing. Instead of searching for truth and fulfilling your promise – making the most of the gifts you were given – you were more concerned with getting your face in the papers.’
And that’s the crux of it, isn’t it, old man? You were just bitter that I was getting the attention you thought should have been yours. But Ben knew there would be no benefit in pointing out that fact.
Two leather armchairs were jammed beneath the sills of the room’s two windows. Ben gestured towards them. ‘Could we sit down for a moment, Ethan?’
‘Yes – if you would please stop wasting my time and tell me why you’re here. Esther’s waiting dinner for me . . . the only reason I managed to find time in my very busy schedule is that you mentioned you had something to tell me about Balinas.’
The two men took up defensive positions facing each other.
‘So. Tell me,’ Ethan said curtly.
Ben took out his transcription of the hidden manuscript from the Topkapı Palace archives and held it in front of the older man.
Peering through his spectacles, Ethan studied the document intently. Startled, he pulled back. ‘Where did you find this?’
The Emerald Tablet Page 18
