The Boudicca Parchments dk-2

by Adam Palmer

  But the other rabbis agreed that it was permitted if it was in the service of Hashem. And so he authorized it. But evidently, HaKadosh Baruch Hu was displeased with them, for he reached out and smote them, foiling their endeavours. Only there must have been some human agent involved. For when Hashem sends down the Angel of Death, even against the Jews, it is through the hand of man that he works.

  And then HaTzadik realized that there was one man who was not of their people who knew at least part of what they were planning. That man supposedly did not speak Hebrew, but maybe he understood more than he let on. And that man was standing only a few feet away from him now.

  Shalom Tikva put the phone down and turned to Sam Morgan with a look of anger in his eyes.

  “It was you wasn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Morgan, the apprehension rising in his voice.

  “It was you who betrayed us! You warned them what we were planning!”

  “Planning? I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  “Klein’s niece! You knew we were planning to kidnap her!”

  “What!”

  “You warned them.”

  “Warned who?”

  “The police! Or some one!”

  “I didn’t! I swear!”

  The fear in his voice was palpable. But that meant nothing to HaTzadik.

  “You were the only one who knew! The only one who could have told them.”

  “I didn’t know. And I can’t believe you would do such a thing. But I… I…”

  “Ata medaber Ivrit? Yiddish?”

  “I… I don’t understand”

  Shalom Tikva was testing him to see if he understood either Hebrew or Yiddish. Because they hadn’t actually told him the plan. So the only way that Morgan could have told anyone was if he had overheard them talking and understood.

  But then something else occurred to HaTzadik. Who would Morgan have warned? If he had told Daniel Klein or his family, they would have avoided the area altogether and not let it come to the brink. And if he had told the police they would have relocated them and put them under police protection. They would not have used the little girl as bait. And if they had then the place would have been swarming with police and Baruch would not have been able to get away as he did.

  No, this plot was foiled by just one man, on a motorbike. And the last one had been stopped in exactly the same way. And this man on the motorbike had been highly proficient with a gun.

  Could it be some one from Israel perhaps? A former soldier or some one from Israeli intelligence? If so they were doing pretty well, considering that they were operating in foreign territory. But then again that’s what intelligence people were trained to do. But therein lie the problem for Shomrei Ha’ir. For neither Baruch, nor any other member of their sect, was trained to operate in England.

  Now they did have members in London, in the Stamford Hill area to which Baruch had quickly moved, in order to avoid Golders Green where his cover might have been blown. But they were as unworldly and closeted as Baruch. They would hardly be in a position to do anything remotely resembling a covert operation — especially when their beards and black frock coats made them stand out like a sore thumb. No what they needed was some one who could blend in — some one who had already shown himself to be a man of cunning and duplicity.

  Shalom Tikva looked at Sam Morgan.

  “I want you to go back to England and join Baruch.”

  “Why?”

  The fear on Morgan’s face was obvious. He and Baruch Tikva had never really liked each other.

  “I want you to work together.”

  Chapter 38

  Before Sarit had rushed off after the phone call, she had told Daniel how to log on to her eMail. After she left, he had downloaded the witness statements and pathologist’s report on Costa that Dovi had retrieved and forwarded. Daniel had printed them out and was now reading the post-mortem report, very carefully. As he had expected, and as the police had told him, the cause of death was a series of violent blows to the head, not the fire or even smoke inhalation.

  But the state of the body — the burns, etc — might give some indications about the fire and possibly about how long he had been dead. Unfortunately, the report made it clear that the fire actually made it very hard to establish the time of death. The report concluded that Costa could have been killed just before the fire, but could just as easily have been killed hours, days or even weeks before.

  Daniel’s mind was working along the lines of a theory that Costa may have been killed immediately after sending the picture — hence Daniel’s call going straight to voicemail. As he read on he came across a short paragraph that said that one of Costa’s hands was curled up and traces of fibres were found underneath his fingernails. That could indicate a struggle. But were the fibres from clothes (which might indicate what the killer was wearing) or flesh, which could give the police an exact DNA profile of the killer?

  Daniel flipped on ahead, seeking out the page with the lab analysis of the fibres. And it was at that point that he got quite a shock. Because what it said was that the fibres were cowskin. But before he could process the information, his attention was caught by something else.

  The plasma TV was on in the background and something on the wide screen caught his attention. He looked up to see the face of his sister, Julia. And she seemed to be agitated. He grabbed the remote and turned up the sound. But what he heard was not her voice but a TV reporter’s voiceover.

  “It is not clear if this was a crude murder attempt or an equally inept abduction. What is clear is that but for the prompt thinking of a good Samaritan on a motorbike, something very unpleasant could have happened to a young mother and her children.”

  Daniel was unable to contain himself. He wasn’t prepared to risk using the house phone, but he grabbed the mobile that Sarit had left for him to be used “in emergencies only,” keyed in 141 to withhold the called ID and then called his sister.

  “Hallo?”

  It was a nervous voice, but it was Julia.

  “Julie, it’s Daniel.”

  “Daniel!”

  “Are you able to talk?”

  “Yes. But quickly. They’re in the other room. Checking out the security.”

  “Who?”

  “The police.”

  “I just wanted to know if you’re all right.”

  “I’m fine… just about. Who was that man?”

  “Who?”

  “The man who tried to kill us… and grab Romy.”

  “I don’t know. But I think he’s the same man who killed Martin Costa.”

  “If it hadn’t been for that guy on the motorbike — ”

  “It wasn’t a guy.”

  “What?”

  It was a blushing moment. Daniel remembered that well-worn phrase of Hagrid from the Harry Potter books: I should not ‘ave said that!

  Except that he had. And it was too late to take it back.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Daniel, do you know something about it?”

  He had to think quickly

  “I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but I’m getting help from… the Israelis.”

  He decided not to use the word Mossad.

  “As long as you’re — sorry, gotta go.”

  She ended the call. Daniel realized what had happened. She had spoken too loud when he had let the cat out of the bag about the “guy” on the motorbike and caught the attention of the cops in the other room.

  The question was, would they treat her with kid gloves or take the phone off her and pressure her for answers?

  Chapter 39

  They pitied him, but they didn’t try to comfort him. Instead they merely ignored him, or at least pretended to.

  Baruch Tikva was standing in the front row of the small shul — synagogue — in Stamford Hill. The synagogue was little more than a large room and it belonged to Shomrei Ha’ir. But the locals did not
know this man. All that they knew of him was what they could see and hear. That he was a member of their sect — they could tell that from his attire — and that he was tormented by sadness and feelings of guilt.

  This was not a formal prayer time, and there were only three others in the synagogue, the shamas — an official who assisted in the day-to-day matters of the synagogue — and two others who were there to make arrangements for other members their families.

  He stood before the Ark of the Covenant — Aron Hakodesh (literally the “Holy Cupboard”) with tears in his eyes, his voice choking on his words, as he addressed Hashem in Yiddish, confessing to his failure to do the word of the Holy One Blessed Be He. As the words flowed through his constricted throat and stumbled out of his mouth in a tangle of guttural Germanic sounds, he expressed his guilt at letting down not only his father but Shamayim — Heaven — itself.

  “I have failed as Jew!” he exclaimed through a flood of tears that he couldn’t dam up at source. “I have failed in my piety! I have not lived as a good Jew should live. I haven’t prayed as good Jew should pray. I haven’t served you as I should have served you. I have not found grace in your eyes. I have been tempted by the stranger’s ways. I have made myself unclean before you. I am impure. My heart is corrupted. I have betrayed when I should have served. I have doubted when I should have believed. I have been depraved by all that is profane and not kept faith with all that is holy.”

  He broke down again, crying a river into the side of his clenched fist.

  The other three men present felt truly sorry for him. He was a fellow Jew who had fallen on misfortune and he was to be helped, if help could be given. If his hardship had been financial, they would have given him tsedaka — charity. If his hardship had been medical, they would have given him advice or drawn on their network of contacts.

  But it was clear from what he was saying that his crisis was not material but spiritual. What ailed him was not from without, but from within. Whether it was a trouble in the family or bereavement or just some personal inner feeling of failure, there was nothing they could for him unless he asked. He was praying to God and his fate was in the hands of the Almighty. If he had asked for spiritual guidance and support, they would have summoned the rabbi, who was no doubt nearby.

  But he asked for nothing of them. He asked only of God.

  But his next words troubled them.

  “Help me to kill Daniel Klein.”

  Chapter 40

  “What’s up?” asked Sarit, noticing the distressed look on Daniel’s face as she walked through the door.

  “I saw the news… about my sister.”

  Sarit — who had been in the process of removing her biking leathers — stopped stone still and looked at him.

  “She’s okay.”

  “I know! I’ve — ”

  He was about to say “I’ve spoken to her,” but she would probably then go into panic mode about him using the phone. So he had to think quickly.

  “I’ve seen on the news. They said she was unharmed.”

  Sarit carried on stripping down to her indoor clothes.

  “They also said the attack was foiled by a man on a motorbike.”

  Sarit, who was by now back in a T-shirt and shorts smiled alluringly.

  “I’m flattered.”

  Despite his anger at being kept out of the loop, Daniel couldn’t help but smile back at her.

  “You might have told me.”

  “Told you what? And when? I only just got back.”

  “You could have told me before you left.”

  “Before I left I didn’t know what was going to happen.”

  “I could have come with you.”

  “And done what? Get in the way? Get yourself caught? Slowed me down? Look Danny, these people want to silence you. They’ve tried once already. This time they were going to grab one of your nieces for leverage.”

  “So it was an abduction attempt.”

  “Of course it was.”

  “Not a murder attempt.”

  “How would it help them to kill anyone else in your family? You remember the old dictum of Capablanca, the chessplayer — the threat is greater than its execution? That was their game. They wanted to grab one of your nieces to use her as a bargaining chip.”

  “But how did you know? In advance I mean?”

  “I’m not really supposed to say. Can’t you guess?”

  “No.”

  He looked pitiful — angry, but pitiful. She wasn’t supposed to say, but after a few seconds, she did.

  “Intercepts.”

  “You’re tracking them and listening in?”

  “Project Echelon — an alliance between the NSA, GCHQ and the Urim monitoring station in Israel.”

  Daniel was amazed.

  “Then why don’t you just tell Scotland Yard and get them picked up?”

  “We can do that and get Baruch Tikva. But we also want to get the people behind him. Some of them are here and some of them are in Israel. We want to get all of them.”

  “And how many of them are there?”

  “Well there are several organizations involved. It’s not a simple case of one organization. There’s Shomrei Ha’ir and then there are some anti-Semitic lunatics here in Britain. And they in turn work with holocaust deniers, the Iranians and fascist and neo-Nazi groups. It’s all one big network of meshuganas.”

  “And you think you’re going to get all of them?”

  “Well obviously not all of them. But we hope to bag a few of them, if we can hold off and find out what exactly it is they’re after.”

  “And in the meantime I’ve just got to sit tight while you babysit.”

  “I’m afraid so. Did you have a chance to read through the witness reports?”

  She walked further into the room as he sat down at the coffee table and picked up one of the printouts.

  “Not yet. I was concentrating on the post mortem report.”

  “Anything interesting?”

  “Their were traces of animal fibres under his fingernails.”

  “What animal?”

  “Cowhide — unsplit, untanned cowhide.”

  “You think he might have been on a farm?”

  Daniel smiled.

  “No you don’t understand. We need to get them to carbon date those fibres.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t think they were from a living animal — or even a recently killed animal. I think they were from old parchment.”

  “And what makes you think that?”

  “You have to understand something about Jewish scribes and Jewish religious law pertaining to religious documents. All Jewish documents were handwritten by scribes on parchment made from cowhide.”

  “But I’ve seen Jewish religious books printed on paper.”

  “Yes, but those books are not originals. Prayer books and books for scholarship are another matter, but actual religious artefacts like torah scrolls have to be handwritten by a scribe and made from parchment. The same goes for the text inside a mezuzah that Jews put on their doorposts — and also tefillin.”

  “To fill in what?”

  “Not ‘to fill in’ — tefillin. Those leather boxes that orthodox Jews strap to their arms and foreheads when they recite morning prayers. They have pieces of parchment inside them with certain paragraphs from the Torah. And there are special rules about what type of parchment can be used for what items. For example the parchment in the mezuzah can be made from either the inner or outer part of the hide or from the unsplit hide, a type of parchment called gevil. Torah scrolls are supposed to be made ideally from the gevil — the unsplit hide — but can be made from the outer hide or klaf. And tefillin can only be made from the outer hide.”

  “Why such complex rules?”

  “Well for tefillin, space was at a premium and the outer skin was thin and so it made good, efficient use of the available space. For a Torah scroll, the main concern was durability, because the scroll is t
aken out and read from and rolled on from one week to the next. So they wanted something that would last a long time. The main advantage of gevil was that it had precisely that durable and long-lasting quality. Also of course, a complete Torah is too long for a single animal hide, so they had to make it in several pieces and stitch them together. It’s easier to stitch together when it’s a thick, unsplit hide. Most of the Dead Sea Scrolls were written on gevil.”

  “So do you think that this manuscript Costa found might have been a Torah scroll?”

  “It’s possible. Or maybe the parchment from a mezuzah.”

  “But why would he have fibres under his fingernails?”

  “Well, let’s not forget he was killed by some one — quite possibly over the parchment. Maybe there was some sort of fight… a struggle for the parchment. Costa must have tried to hold on to it and the other person killed him.”

  Sarit nodded.

  “That makes sense.”

  “And now the manuscript is gone and our only hope of finding out what it was is if your boffins at the Mossad managed to enhance the image sufficiently to make the writing legible.”

  Sarit perked up at these words.

  “You’re right. They should have finished the image enhancement by now. I’ll check.”

  She logged on from the tablet and a smile lit up her face.

  “Take a look at this,” she said, handing him the tablet.

  He looked at it and what he saw amazed him. The letters had assumed a new clarity under the skilled hand — and computer software — of the experts who had worked on the digital image enhancement and what he found himself looking upon was a page of a manuscript in the form of the Hebrew alphabet that was used in Judea circa the first century. But the language was Aramaic. And as he started translating it, it dawned on him what he was reading.

  “Holy shit!”

  Chapter 41

  “Come in, quickly,” called Bar-Tikva from the top of the stairs after buzzing him in.

  Bar-Tikva had rented a one-room bed-sit over a shop in Stamford Hill, but he had no desire to let anyone see a goy entering his home. Who knows what gossip, what lashon hara — “evil tongue” — it would lead to. Sam Morgan closed the door quickly behind him and began climbing the stairs.