by Adam Palmer
“Where did it go?” asked eight-year-old May.
“I don’t know,” Daniel replied with an innocent shrug.
The glass that seconds earlier had been on the table under the scarf had vanished.
“How did you do it, Uncle Danny?” asked Shir, May’s twin, giving Daniel a hug in the hope of bribing the answer out of him.
“I don’t know,” he said in that tone of wonderment that they loved almost as much as the tricks themselves. “It must be magic.”
Daniel Klein was in California for a conference. He had been staying at a hotel in Berkeley, but he had flown down to the basin this weekend to visit his sister and brother-in-law and nieces. They lived in London, in the affluent Jewish area of Golders Green. But this summer holiday they were here in Anaheim, visiting Disneyland and their paternal grandparents. The twins had “invited” Uncle Danny down to see them. He had actually tried to get out of it, explaining that the Bay area was a long way away from where they were staying, even if it was also in California. But try explaining California distances to a pair of enthusiastic eight-year-olds from London!
So now, here he was, entertaining his nieces with some of the magic tricks he had learned as a teenager more years ago than he cared to remember. It was a skill that he had acquired in another phase of his life, and it seemed almost a world away now. But he still had the old sleight-of-hand to draw upon when he needed it.
“Do it again! Do it again!” said Romy, excitedly. Romy was the little one, the five year old who had to compete with her older siblings to get the attention she craved.
“Ah no, a magician never repeats a trick in the same show.”
Daniel had started developing an interest in magic thirty two years ago, shortly after his tenth birthday. At the time, he had not yet put on his adolescent growth spurt and was not the tallish, blue-eyed, dark haired, smooth-looking, confident young man that he was to become in his student years. In primary school, he had been a spotty, nerdy boy and although not exactly the one to get picked on, he was the boy most likely to be ignored. Neither fat nor awkward, he was nevertheless not particularly good at sport, at least not until he discovered a talent for cross-country running. Neither for that matter was he tremendously academically gifted. That too came later. He was intelligent, but a chronic underachiever.
But he was good at chess: good enough to get into his school’s first team. And it was around that time that he had also developed an interest in magic after watching another boy, a few years older than himself, amaze a group of his peers with a series of card tricks, exhibiting feats of legerdemain that astounded him.
For a while, Daniel wanted to be a professional magician when he grew up. So he borrowed books about magic from the library and spent long hours practicing and developing his sleight-of-hand skills. At some point he got to be good enough to have the confidence to show off his skill to his peers and not just his parents. And sure enough, they were impressed.
For the first time in his life, it gave him a sense of power. He could actually hold others in his thrall. He had never really got that from chess. True, he could win about ninety percent of his games, but it never gave him quite the same sense of satisfaction. When he scored a victory at the chessboard, he was beating other people like himself and there was no particular joy in that.
But when he impressed his classmates with sleight-of-hand, using anything from cards to coins to pencils, he felt a sense of victory over the indifference of others that had made him such a loner.
Daniel’s trip down memory lane was brought to an abrupt and unceremonious end by the childish, innocent nagging of his nieces.
“Show us another trick,” said Shir. “Do the one with the coin!”
“What, you mean this one,” said Daniel, pulling a coin out of Shir’s ear.
“What about me?”
“Oh, you also want a coin?” he said, duplicating the trick with May, before she could catch a glance of the concealed coin in his left hand.
Both girls giggled. Little Romy just smiled and whispered in Danny’s ear.
“I saw how you did it.”
Wise beyond her years, thought Daniel.
“Come on now girls,” said Julia, their mother. “The cake is ready.”
“Cake!” all three girls screamed in unison and ran off to the table where orange juice and chocolate cream cake were waiting.
Daniel and his sister exchanged a smile. It was her quiet way of thanking him for keeping the little ones entertained, while she had a chat with her American father-in-law.
They were about to exchange a few words, when Daniel’s mobile phone alerted him to an incoming message. He noticed that the number displayed was unrecognisable. It appeared to be from abroad. But he saw that it was a picture not a text message. He tried to open it, but it was so large that he could only see part of it on the screen unless he shrunk it. When he did so, he noticed that it looked like some kind of a manuscript. He enlarged it again and scrolled around it, but saw that even though the image was large, it was not really in focus.
But the thing that was most puzzling was the fact that there was no covering message — no explanatory text. It was as if the sender had expected him to understand it, without offering him any explanation or summary. The problem was that he didn’t. Because the blurred image — though obviously containing some form of writing — was unreadable.
Perhaps the sender doesn’t know that the image is out of focus.
That was the other problem. He didn’t know who the sender was. The sender’s number had shown up on his system but it wasn’t some one in his address book — at least not with this number — because no name showed up with it.
He pressed the key to return the call. It went straight to voice mail.
“Hallo, I am unable to take your call at the moment. Please leave a message and I will get back to you.”
But Daniel decided not to leave a message, for two reasons. First of all, he was responding to something that had been sent to him. It was for the sender to explain his reasons and tell him what this was all about. He didn’t have to leap through hoops for the anonymous sender. Secondly, the sender was no longer anonymous. It had taken him a few seconds, but as the voice mail announcement played out, he recognized a voice from the past.
It was some one whom he had no particular desire to talk to.
Chapter 3
In the hut at the edge of the dig site, the man was standing over the body and agonizing with indecision. The mobile phone showed that the message had gone through. Whether the recipient had seen it was another matter. He looked at the image and saw that it was blurred.
Will he be able to read it?
The man realized that even if the recipient couldn’t read the text, it was clear enough to arouse his curiosity. And that meant that he would follow it up. So the question was, what to do next?
Right now he found himself with a body and this presented him with both a problem and an opportunity.
From his pocket, he removed another phone and selected a name from an address book. He pressed the button and his phone called a number in Israel.
“Hallo?” said an old man at the other end of the line.
“It’s Morgan… Sam Morgan.”
“I know. Why are you calling me at this time?”
Irascible as ever. That was the only adjective to describe the man. And “foreign” of course. Even from the few words that he had spoken, the thick accent stood out.
“We’ve got a problem. I’m at the dig site. One of the digging team found a scroll.”
“Why did you wait till this unearthly hour to call me?”
“Because he only just found it.”
“What, now? What time is it there?”
“Nearly midnight. He was digging after hours. I think he wasn’t part of the official team. But I know him. He’s a sleazy little man called Martin Costa.”
“And where is he now?”
“I’ve dealt with him.”
“How?”
“Permanently.”
“Then why did you call me?”
“Because he took a picture of it with his mobile phone and sent it to some one else?”
“Do we know who?”
Morgan hesitated for a moment. This was it — the crossing of the Rubicon moment.
“Yes. A man called Daniel Klein.”
“And who is this Daniel Klein?”
“He’s a professor or Semitic languages at University College London.”
“And you think he’ll be able to interpret the scroll?”
“The image was too blurred. He probably won’t be able to read the writing.”
“Then I return to my earlier question. Why did you call?”
“Because if he can read even part of it, then it’ll arouse his curiosity and he might start snooping around.”
“Well then I suggest you deal with this Mr. Klein.”
Chapter 4
Martin I Costa.
Daniel Klein remembered the name all too well. But it was a name that he would rather forget. He had crossed paths with Costa more than once. And every time, his opinion of Costa had diminished a little more.
Martin Ignatius Costa had started out legitimate enough. He had been an Associate Professor of Theology at Cambridge, with a strong interest in archaeology. But he also had a gambling habit that had proved something of a drain on his academician’s salary. So he had taken the expedient solution of augmenting that income by doing a little business on the side, forging historical artefacts and “discovering” them at dig sites. He didn’t, at this stage, try to sell them privately. He confined himself to cashing in on the prestige of their discovery and writing paid articles in the popular press.
Unfortunately this line of business could only carry him so far and at a certain point he over-reached himself and committed the cardinal sin of getting found out. That pretty much put the kibosh on his academic career. Sacked in disgrace, he was, quite naturally, blacklisted by the rest of the academic community, and found himself with no income but with a mountain of debt that was growing by the day.
A lucky win at the racetrack enabled him to clear the decks regarding his debt and for a while he was able to supported himself as a lowly tour guide, giving guided tours of famous historical sites. But the lure of the nags and the roulette wheel proved too much for him and he found himself once again lapsing into debt, this time supporting it by a lucrative trade in stolen artefacts and Romano-British treasure found on other people’s land and removed without the landowners knowledge or consent.
He steered clear of forgery, because if he got caught — even once — it would destroy his reputation amongst the clients of stolen artefacts. It was enough that he had to convince them to ignore his unceremonious dismissal from academia. At least on that occasion he had avoided a criminal conviction. If he now got busted for forgery, he would never again be trusted when he tried to sell stolen items to rich corrupt collectors, or to claim insurance reward money.
There might be no honour among thieves, but there was certainly a keen sense of self-preservation.
Over the years, Daniel had had various brushes with Martin I Costa. A couple of times, Costa had come into possession of items stolen from digs that Daniel was working on. On one occasion, Daniel had even been implicated as an accomplice. In the end, Daniel had managed to clear his name. But the bitter after-taste of the experience had left him wary of coming into any sort of contact with Costa. He wasn’t afraid of Costa, except in the sense that a man might be afraid of fleas. But as fleas go, Costa was particularly irritating.
So why had Costa contacted him now? And what was this picture that he had sent him?
Daniel had been ready to ask Costa straight out if the call had got through. But he wasn’t prepared to talk to a machine. If Costa wanted to talk, it was up to him to make himself available. Daniel wasn’t going to chase him.
But something about this image fascinated him. And he did not know why.
It was not clear enough for him to make out the content. But there was something about it that suggested that he shouldn’t ignore it. So he uploaded it to his Cloud account, to make sure that it was properly and adequately backed up and also to ensure that he could access it from anywhere in the world.
But at the back of his mind, he was wondering why Costa had sent it to him. He was still wondering when he got a text from Costa.
“Low on credit and juice. Did you get the picture?”
That was no doubt why he hadn’t answered the phone. Daniel felt like telling Costa to get lost. But it was hard to do that when his curiosity was aroused. So instead, he replied:
“Yes Costa. What is it?”
The reply came two minutes later.
“Need to meet you. Will tell you then.”
Daniel wasn’t going to be pressured into any meetings. He was not going to play the role of Martin Costa’s puppet — dancing to his tune. But the fact that Costa was anxious, gave Daniel at least the opportunity to probe a little further. He texted back.
“Is it a manuscript?”
This time the reply came even more quickly.
“Yes. Can you come to Ashwell tomorrow morning.”
The guy was a complete pain in the ass.
But then again, Costa had no way of knowing how far away Daniel was. He probably assumed that Daniel was in London. Not that Daniel was inclined to come running just because Costa wanted to meet him, even if he had been in London. Again Daniel texted back quickly.
“Am in America. What is the manuscript and why is it so important for you to meet me?”
An eternity seemed to go by, leading Daniel to believe that he succeeded in giving Costa the brush off. He didn’t know whether to feel regretful or relieved. On the one hand, Costa was a source of trouble and irritation to more or less everyone he came into contact with. On the other hand, there was still that enigmatic, blurred picture of a manuscript. And Daniel wanted to know more.
Just when he had convinced himself that it would be all for the best if Costa took the hint and dropped the matter, another text message came through.
“The manuscript is from a site in England. But look at the writing!”
Of course Daniel couldn’t look at the writing. It was too blurred. He debated asking Costa to send it again. But that would show weakness. On the other hand, how did he know that there was anything in the writing worth seeing? At the moment he only had Costa’s word for that. And Costa’s word didn’t count for much in Daniel’s books.
No, the way Daniel saw it, if Martin Costa wanted to meet him, then it was up to Costa to persuade him. And so far, all he had offered was a blurred manuscript. Daniel decided to lay his cards on the table.
“Picture too blurred couldn’t read a thing.”
He expected Costa to resend the picture. Instead all that came through was a message that chilled Alex to the bone.
“Why would a Romano-British site have a Hebrew manuscript?”
A Hebrew manuscript? In a Romano-British site?
Of course it all depended from what part of the Romano-British period. The period extended from the first to the fifth centuries. And in that time, Christianity had come to England from the Roman province of Judea. Most of the early Church writings were in Latin or Greek. But given the provenance of Christianity, it was not unreasonable that some of the very early writings were in Hebrew or Aramaic. And both languages were written with the Hebrew alphabet!
Could Costa have found an early Anglo-Christian manuscript written in Hebrew or Aramaic?
If he had, it would be something of a coup. For years scholars had speculated about the so-called Q Gospel — the hypothesized original gospel that supposedly supplied the material for Matthew and Luke that was missing from Mark. If such an early gospel existed, it would presumably have been written in one of the local languages of Judea — either Hebrew, the language in which they prayed and studied or Aramaic, the language of
everyday speech. Even Mark’s gospel was believed to have been written first in Hebrew before being translated into Greek, even though there were no extant copies of it in Hebrew.
But maybe now there were.
Could Martin Costa have found an original gospel?
Forged one, more like, knowing Costa! And why would it be in England? Could it have been brought there to bring the word to the ancient Britons? A Latin translation would have been more useful. After all many of the Britons spoke Latin by this stage because their conquerors were Roman. And the more educated among them could surely read the language. It would make more sense to translate the gospel into Latin and then bring it to England.
Besides, how would Costa even know that it was Hebrew? His scholarship did not extend that far. He might recognize the alphabet, but he wouldn’t know Hebrew from Aramaic. Maybe it was Aramaic. Or maybe it was Hebrew. Either way, if it was found at a Romano-British site that would be interesting.
Of course Costa could be lying. But what if he was telling the truth? If Costa had found — as distinct from forged — such a manuscript, his only angle would be financial. He would need to have it validated and then sell it to the highest bidder. But to Daniel the value of any such manuscript inhered in the knowledge that it would provide, not its financial value to some wealthy dilettante. Daniel didn’t care who owned the manuscript. It was a valuable chattel, but still — at the end of the day — just a chattel. It was the knowledge that it contained that imparted value to it. And as long as that knowledge was able to enter the public domain, it didn’t matter to Daniel who owned the chattel.
But first, Daniel had to know if Costa was on the level. He texted back.
“Will be back in three days. Cannot meet you till Tuesday.”
This time the wait was long. At the table, the girls were getting fractious and Daniel knew that any minute now, Julia would send them over to him and he would have to give them his undivided attention. Just before that happened, Costa’s next message came through.
