The Jerusalem Puzzle (22 page)

After ten minutes with no sign of her, and with anxiety gathering fast inside me, I went back into the apartment. I rang her mobile phone. I heard it ringing from the bedroom. She’d left it behind.

‘I’m going to see what’s happened,’ I said.

‘She must have gone to the shop behind it. If they don’t have fresh bread in, they tell people to go to the next shop.’ He looked at his watch, seeming puzzled. ‘They should have had their deliveries by now,’ he said. Then he waved his hands in the air.

‘Maybe the bakeries are slow today. What with everything that’s been happening.’

When I exited Simon’s building, I noticed remnants of the graffiti he’d spoken about. I hadn’t seen it in the dark. Someone had painted over a section of the outside wall of the building already, but the colours didn’t quite match. You couldn’t exactly make out what the paint had covered, but you could see dark shapes, curved lines.

I didn’t bother examining them. I walked fast. I didn’t care what the shapes meant. I wanted to find Isabel. Simon’s ramblings the night before were echoing in my brain. Alarm signals were jangling through my mind. But another part of me was saying,
stop, stay calm, she’s okay
.

But she wasn’t crossing the road, as I’d hoped she might be. And she wasn’t outside the shop. A car beeped at me as I ran across.

And she wasn’t inside the shop. I raced down its two aisles, almost knocking over an old man in a baggy black suit carrying a giant bottle of water. He eyed me suspiciously. I wanted to explain what I was doing, but I didn’t have time.

Where the hell was she?

I spotted another exit. I ran out, started towards the next shop. It was fifty feet away down the side street. Then it came to me. I had to check if the first shop had fresh bread. If they hadn’t, I could keep looking for a shop that had.

I went back, feeling stupid. My heart was beating tightly in my chest, as if something was binding it. I headed down to the back of the shop again.

Yes, there it was. There were two tiered sections with a dozen different varieties of loaves. A heavy weight was crushing against my chest.

Why wasn’t she in the shop? I looked from left to right, wondering if my eyes were deceiving me. A small woman wearing all black was standing staring at me. She said
something
to me. It must have been in Hebrew. I couldn’t understand any of it.

I waved a rude
no
at her and ran for the door.

Maybe Isabel was back in Simon’s apartment waiting for me. She’d smile at my distress, then hug me. We’d talk about it over breakfast. I’d laugh at their gentle ribbing. But she’d be there.

She had to be.

I rang Simon’s doorbell and was buzzed into the building. I ran up the stairs, taking two at a time. My heart was thudding as I knocked on his door.

I heard him talking.

That meant there was someone with him. That meant Isabel was here. Thank God!

Simon swung open the door.

‘Where’s Isabel?’ he said.

‘She’s not here?’ My voice sounded odd, the words tumbling out too fast.

I stood there looking at him, fear spreading from my heart. My face felt odd, stiff.

‘She didn’t come back?’

‘No.’

‘Who were you talking to?’ Was he playing a game
with me?

‘A rabbi friend of mine, Jeremiah. He dropped by. Come in, meet him.’

I walked inside in a daze. It felt as if someone had knocked me over the head. I was listening for the doorbell, for me to have made a stupid mistake in that shop, for Isabel to arrive back. Simon was saying something. I only caught the end of it.

‘Jeremiah, you tell him,’ was all I heard.

Jeremiah was wearing a black suit. He had a thick black beard and ringlets of black hair running past his ears down to his shoulders. On his head there was a black velvet yarmulke. He was about my age, mid-thirties, but his skin was rough, as if he had eczema once for a long time. His eyes were electric blue.

‘We have watered the garden from a pool that is running dry,’ he said. His voice was low.

Was this guy for real? I looked at Simon. I didn’t need this.

‘Jeremiah is the most persecuted rabbi in the whole of Israel,’ said Simon, as if that explained everything.

‘You look unwell,’ said Jeremiah.

‘I’ve lost my girlfriend,’ I said. He smiled at me forgivingly.

‘You checked if the bread had arrived?’ said Simon.

I nodded. My throat was dry.

Simon shook his head. He looked worried now. Panic was rising inside me. I wanted to turn back time. Then I got an urge to run back to the shops, to check them again, properly.

No, maybe I should wait here a bit longer, stay calm. There had to be a rational explanation for this. I went out onto the balcony so I wouldn’t have to talk, so I could see the road, the shop.

I stared at it.

Simon was standing beside me.

‘I don’t think anything’s happened to her,’ he said. His words were calming, but there was a definite note of worry in his tone.

I was staring at the shop. Every time its front door opened my heart opened with it. Then another voice spoke behind me.

‘She was in that shop?’ said Jeremiah.

‘We think so,’ said Simon.

That was it, I was going back to it. ‘I’m going there,’ I said.

‘I was in that shop five minutes ago,’ said Jeremiah.

‘Did you see anything suspicious?’ I said quickly.

Questions were spinning in my mind. Could she have gone off for some reason? Could she have been kidnapped? I felt ill. I wrapped my right fist in my left hand, made a conscious effort to gain control of myself. I would be no use to Isabel if I panicked.

‘No, no, nothing.’ He shook his head.

‘Did you see a European lady? Black hair, tall, slim?’

He paused. Come on, I wanted to shout, answer the question. I pressed my lips together.

‘I do not look at women. I am sworn against such things.’

‘Was there anyone in the shop?’ I was almost shouting. No, I was shouting. I put a hand out, felt for the balcony door, gripped it.

‘Yes, I am sure there was.’ He rubbed his forehead.

‘Do you remember who you saw?’ I knew Jeremiah wasn’t responsible for what was going on, but I was finding it hard to contain my frustration.

He looked sad as he looked at me. ‘I remember an American. A big man with a white t-shirt with something on it. He pushed past me.’

‘What was on his t-shirt?’ I said.

‘I don’t remember.’

A crazy idea came to me. I took my phone out, went to the photo of the burnt H sign. ‘Was it something like this?’

Jeremiah looked at my phone, his eyes were red-rimmed. Red veins ran through them as if he’d been up all night studying the Torah.

After what seemed like forever, he said, ‘I don’t remember.’ He shook his head.

‘But it could have been?’ I said.

‘Maybe. Maybe not.’ I wanted to shake him. Instead I pushed past him and headed for the door.

‘I heard her on the phone last night,’ said Simon.

‘What?’ I stopped, turning back.

‘I wasn’t going to say it, but it was a little odd. She was in the bathroom. It was in the middle of the night. I heard her talking. That’s all. Maybe it means nothing.’

But maybe it did mean something.

Who had she be calling like that, from somewhere I couldn’t hear her? Was this why she’d disappeared? Had she made an appointment to meet someone? I felt disconnected from reality, as if I’d discovered her secret life.

‘Did you hear what she was saying, anything at all?’

Simon shook his head. Then something else strange about last night came back to me.

‘What were all those tanks I saw at 4 a.m.? There was a heck of a lot of them.’

Simon stared at me. It looked as if he knew exactly what was going on, but was struggling to find a way to phrase it.

‘There’s a storm coming,’ said Jeremiah. ‘They are its messengers.’

‘What the hell does that mean?’ I said.

Jeremiah recoiled from me, took a step back.

‘I speak what I see.’ His eyes were penetrating me, as if uncovering my faults. ‘Would you prefer lies?’

‘No, I just want to find Isabel.’ I put my hand to my forehead. I had to stay calm. I had to find her. Quickly.

‘Jerusalem is on the edge of a precipice, Sean,’ said Simon.

It was 11.30 a.m. on Saturday morning in London. Henry Mowlam’s weekend had got off to a bad start. And not just because of the monsoon-like rain. He’d been summoned.

The underground offices in Whitehall were relatively quiet on a Saturday, which was good, but the tea was still as bad as it had always been, and the reports from around the world didn’t stop coming in just because it was the weekend.

Henry had promised his wife that they would go shopping that afternoon in Oxford Street. He was hoping to confirm what time he would meet her in the next hour, as soon as he finished the handover report for the weekend monitoring unit.

And that was taking longer than it should have. Mainly because he was worried about what might happen over the next day or so.

It wasn’t that he had any doubts about the weekend unit’s efficiency. No, it was the implications of what the rising tension in Egypt might mean. You couldn’t watch as countries slid towards war without feeling apprehension. It was a very different thing watching war on TV at home. That was more like entertainment, war planes going out and coming back, politicians making rousing speeches.

But when you saw pictures of men, women and children mutilated by bombs, the type of images TV executives had long since considered too shocking for Western viewers, the entertainment value lessened.

Henry had seen the slide to war enough times to know that what was happening in Egypt was not good. All the noises were ominous. A bomb had exploded in Cairo. Policemen were dead. An Iranian submarine was reported to be nearing the entrance of the Suez Canal.

Reports of tension in the Egyptian air force had come through too. One informant had speculated that a rogue air force general was planning a pre-emptive strike against
Israel, to secure his popular appeal amongst the Egyptian masses.

That report, circulated late the previous day, had led the Israeli high command to commence troop movements, to reinforce defensive positions, and to disperse armoured units.

Other reports, from inside Egypt, were worrying too. Despite most imams there warning against war in their Friday prayers, tension on the streets was still high. A demonstration near Rafah, where the Israel, Gaza and Egyptian borders met, was attracting a big crowd. Rumours were circulating on the internet. There’d been a report in the Egyptian press about Max Kaiser’s death in Jerusalem.

The report implied that Israeli intelligence might have been behind Kaiser’s horrific death, so that they could blame the Muslim population of the Old City. It also claimed, without evidence, that plans were afoot for arrests and house
clearances
in Jerusalem in response to the murder.

That section of the report was based on the fears of a few residents who had seen more Israeli policemen than usual patrolling Aqabat at-Takiya, but none of that mattered to the readers.

As Henry watched the newsfeed he feared he might not be seeing his wife for quite some time.

‘What exactly does that mean?’ I said.

Simon held the top of his head in his hands.

‘There have been developments, Sean. There’s a general mobilisation of the Tzahal
,
our army
.
The radio this morning said the armour division we call The Steel has been sent to Jericho, near the border with Jordan. It all seems to be connected to what happened in Cairo.’

‘What happened in Cairo?’ I said.

‘You didn’t watch the news last night?’

I shook my head.

‘Seven policemen died in an explosion at the police headquarters there. They are blaming us. Can you believe it!’ He put his hands high in the air, as if gripping an invisible ball.

‘They closed the pyramids and the border. Some people are calling for a general strike there. There is pressure for the Egyptian army to take action against us.’

‘What has that got to do with Jordan?’

‘Military units are being mobilised everywhere. That is the way things are here. We are surrounded. You must know that.’

‘My worry is Isabel. I can’t even think about anything else.’

I headed for the apartment door.

As I walked across to the shop I took it slower this time, trying to figure out if I was missing something. Was this really so out of character for her? Hadn’t she disappeared for a day in Istanbul?

Sure, we’d been living together since we’d returned from Turkey, but during all that time she’d seemed reluctant to tell me much about her life before I came into it. That couldn’t be denied.

I’d put it down to her training. She’d been a mid-level staffer at the British Consulate in Istanbul, which meant she’d had a grounding in what many called
the dark arts
. And from what little she’d told me about it, one of the key things she’d been trained in was how to talk about herself without giving away anything personal.

She’d left the Foreign Office on a generous redundancy package. She’d said she’d had enough of them. But it had crossed my mind that there was other stuff going on that she wasn’t telling me about, or couldn’t tell me about. My biggest suspicion was to do with Mark. Was there more going on between them that she wasn’t telling me?

And there was another conversation I kept thinking about. One of our best researchers at the institute, Will Stone, who I got along well with, had joked that Isabel had probably just gone underground, when I told him about her resigning. He joked that she hadn’t resigned at all, she’d just taken up deep cover. We’d laughed into our pints. That laughter echoed inside me now.

I was walking slowly around the outside of the shop as my mind wandered. Then I went inside. She still wasn’t there.

I stood at the front of the building looking at the
occasional
car going by. It was the Sabbath, and the street was quiet, but I was still hoping she might arrive, jumping out of a taxi. I was taking big breaths and holding them in, dampening my panic down.