The Labyrinth of Osiris (32 page)

In the early days – blank, grey, disbelieving days, like a monochrome dream from which he could never wake – all he had been able to think about were the times he had scolded Ali; the occasions, too numerous to count, when he had not been the father he would have liked to be.

As the days slipped into weeks and the weeks into months, happier memories had come back to him. The rag-tag games of football they used to play; family holidays by the sea at Hurghada; the day he and Ali had been given a private tour of the closed tombs in the Valley of the Kings by his Egyptologist friend Ginger; visits to the Luxor McDonald’s, which if Khalifa was honest with himself had given the boy more pleasure than all the monuments of Egypt put together. So many happy memories. A whole lifetime’s worth.

Not enough, though, to absolve Khalifa of the guilt he felt that the last words he had ever spoken to his son had been words of admonishment for not doing his homework.

Nor to block out the image that lived with him day and night of his boy flailing frantically beneath the waters of the Nile – alone, frightened, dying.

Nor, of course, to ever bring Ali back. For all their worth, memories did not have the power to raise the dead.

He was buried in a small plot on a headland overlooking the Nile, not far from the inlet where he and his friends had set out that night on their great expedition. It was a beautiful spot, with flame trees and hibiscus bushes, and wonderful views across the river to the Theban massif and the desert beyond. Khalifa liked to think that from his final resting place his son could look out and, in his own special way, dream of adventure.

No formal inquiry was ever held into the accident, no action ever taken against the barge’s captain or owners. One of the largest transport companies in Egypt, they were not the sort of people you went up against. Some facts of life even a revolution didn’t change.

J
ERUSALEM

‘Oh dear God, Khalifa, I’m so sorry.’

Ben-Roi paced along the street to a bench and sat down, hunching forward.

‘I’m so desperately sorry,’ he repeated. ‘For your loss, and also for going on about . . . you know, Sarah and me, the baby . . .’

‘You have no need to apologize, my friend. If anything it is me who should be saying sorry. For . . . how do you say . . . dampening your wonderful news. I am happy for you. Truly happy.’

Ben-Roi stared down at his trainers, trying to think of something appropriate to say, feeling like the biggest shit in the world for misreading Khalifa. He wasn’t good in these sorts of situation, always managed to come out with the wrong thing. In the end he just said sorry again and asked if there was anything he could do to help.

‘You are very kind, but no, we are OK.’

‘You want me to get on a plane, come over?’

‘Thank you, but it is not necessary.’

Ben-Roi leant to the side and rested his elbow on the arm of the bench. He found himself thinking about his own loss, when his fiancée Galia had been killed in the bomb blast, five years ago now. How the kindness and sympathy and words of condolence had somehow only made the whole thing worse, served to emphasize the enormity of the tragedy that had befallen him. Nothing, he knew from experience – no words, no cards, no prayers, no flowers – could help ease the pain of these situations. You were on your own, just had to ride it out. Grief, when all was said and done, was a profoundly solitary business.

‘I’m here if you need me,’ he said lamely.

‘Thank you. You are a good friend.’

They fell silent. Not the awkward silence of a few moments ago, rather the silence of two people who cherish each other’s company and are secure enough in their relationship not to need to talk if they haven’t got anything specific to say. An elderly
Haredi
man shuffled past, his walking stick clacking on the pavement; a moment later there was a low whoosh and one of the new Jerusalem trams hove into view further down Jaffa, coming his way, its sleek silver and glass body looking somehow out of place against the crumbling Mandate-era buildings. Old and new, past and present, ancient and modern – in Jerusalem everything seemed to bleed into everything else. Literally.

‘You wanted to ask me something,’ said Khalifa eventually.

‘Sorry?’

‘About a case you were working on.’

‘Oh right. Yes.’

Ben-Roi had completely lost track of why he had called. After what he’d just heard, it seemed totally irrelevant. Inappropriate, too, to be asking the Egyptian for help what with everything else he was having to deal with. He could go through official channels, palm it off on someone else. It would slow things down a bit, but that was no great disaster. Even he accepted there were times you had to ease off (shame he hadn’t realized that when he’d been with Sarah).

‘Forget it,’ he said.

‘Come on, Ben-Roi.’

‘No, honestly, forget it. It was nothing. Just an excuse to get in touch.’

‘Sure?’

‘Sure.’

There was another pause – the whoosh of the tram growing steadily louder as it swept along the tracks towards Ben-Roi – then Khalifa said he ought to be going.

‘I don’t like to leave Zenab for too long,’ he explained.

‘Of course, I understand. Please give her all my best wishes. And again, I’m so very sorry about Ali.’

‘Thank you, my friend.’

‘We should try not to leave it so long.’

‘Absolutely.’

A hesitation, then Khalifa added: ‘It’s good to hear your voice, you arrogant Jew bastard.’

Ben-Roi smiled. ‘Yours too, you cheeky Muslim you-know-what.’

They promised to stay in touch, said their goodbyes and Ben-Roi started to lower his phone ready to ring off, only to suddenly slam it to his ear again.

‘Khalifa!’

Four years ago, when he had been down in the abyss, still poleaxed with grief at his fiancée’s death, the Egyptian had got him involved in the Hannah Schlegel investigation, and through that involvement Ben-Roi had found renewed strength and purpose, begun the slow climb to recovery. The situations were different, of course, but maybe, it struck him, just maybe he could return the favour. He doubted it would do much good – to lose a child, dear God, how deep an abyss must that plunge you into? – but if nothing else it might provide Khalifa with a brief distraction. He sure as hell couldn’t think of any other practical way of helping his friend.

‘There is something you might be able to help me with,’ he said.

‘Of course. Anything.’

Barren, Nemesis, the Sinai route, Kleinberg’s flight to Alexandria – all those Egypt links could be followed up in other ways. There was one thread, however, that seemed tailor-made for Khalifa.

‘Have you ever heard of a guy called Samuel Pinsker?’ he asked.

Khalifa hadn’t.

‘He was a British mining engineer. Disappeared from Luxor some time in the early twentieth century. His body was discovered in a tomb in 1972.’

‘I’m intrigued.’

‘Me too. He seems to connect with a murder case I’m working on, although how or why I’ve no idea. I thought maybe, what with you being in Luxor . . .’

‘I could do a little exploring.’

‘If you’ve got too much on your plate . . .’

‘No, no, I’m happy to help. Can you send me some details?’

‘I’ll e-mail them first thing. For God’s sake don’t waste too much time on it, just enough to . . .’

‘Solve your case for you?’

Ben-Roi chuckled. ‘Exactly.’

He was silent for a few seconds, gazing down towards the Old City, its monumental stone-block walls glowing orange in the light of the floodlamps that lined them. Then, hit by a sudden rush of affection for his old friend, he blurted: ‘How about this, eh, Khalifa? You and me working together again. The A-Team. Just like old times!’

The Egyptian’s response was less buoyant. ‘Nothing will ever be like old times, my friend. They are gone for ever. I’ll get back to you as soon as I have something.’

And with that he rang off.

PART 2

F
IVE DAYS LATER

You take care of the small things and the big things will take care of themselves.

That is what my parents taught me. I still live by the same rule. I am getting on with things – the small things, the daily routines – and trusting that the issues surrounding the cathedral cleansing will sort themselves out. As they seem to be doing. There have been no phone calls, no unexpected arrivals, no troublesome contact from outsiders. The dust appears to be settling. Normally I dislike settled dust, but in this instance it is something to be welcomed.

My parents influenced me greatly. Continue to do so, each in their own separate ways, for good and for ill. I hear their voices often. Smell their smells, too. I have always possessed a keen sense of odour, and the scent of my elders lives sharp in my memory. That is why, in the cathedral, contrary to normal practice, I lay with the fat woman a while, beneath the table, after I had dragged her under there. I turned off my pocket torch and curled beside her in the dark, holding her hand, pressing my face against hers, breathing in the delicious almondy scent of her hair. It was almost as if my mother was back with me, which I found reassuring. Although responsibility for the family has long been mine and mine alone, I still need reassurance at times. Need to know I am serving to the best of my ability.

I need it more than ever at present, what with the decision I am being required to make. The big decision – bigger by far than the one I took in the cathedral, when I performed the cleansing sooner than planned. A decision upon which the whole future of the family rests.

Get it right and the future is secure. Get it wrong . . .

In a sense, of course, I have already made my choice, but I still find myself troubling about it. Wondering what my parents would have done in my position. They placed the family above all things, as I do, but even so – to act within the circle: that is unheard of. Such are the dilemmas of duty. It is not merely about obeying. It is about deciding
whom
to obey. And for what reason.

Tradition has not prepared me for such challenges. There is no comfort in precedent. I call to my forebears, but they do not answer. I am alone. I know what must be done, for the well-being of the line, but still I am troubled.

Although on one aspect at least I am settled. If and when I do act, it won’t be with the garrotte. In this instance, even greater discretion than usual is required.

Now, however, I must get on. I have things to attend to. Routine things. Small things. The big ones, hopefully, will take care of themselves.

T
HE
N
EGEV
D
ESERT
, I
SRAEL

The runner moved swiftly, traversing the moonlit desert with panther-like agility. Every now and then he stopped and scanned the rocky slopes, listening. Then he moved on, angling towards the steep, flat-topped hill that dominated the landscape. He came to the base of the hill, stopped again, for longer this time, catching his breath, then climbed swiftly to the summit, the barely audible hiss of trainer on gravel the only indicator of his progress. At the top he slid a Glock 17 from his knapsack and tracked to the summit’s far edge, gun held in front of him, eyes jerking left and right.

The ground dropped away abruptly here, stepping down in a series of broad rock-shelves to the tarmacked thread of Route 40 below. His target was sitting on the uppermost shelf, her head tilted back, her eyes closed, a pair of iPod headphones drilled into her ears.

For a moment the man stared down at her, the crown of her head just a few centimetres from his shoe-tips, the tinny echo of music just audible through the headphones. Then, grinning, he bent and scooped a fistful of gravel in his free hand. He aimed the Glock and extended his arm, ready to start dribbling the gravel down on to her hair.

The woman moved so swiftly his brain didn’t even have time to register she
was
moving. One moment she was sitting there below him. The next she had launched to her feet and spun, in the same movement somehow sweeping the phones out of her ears. He tried to scramble backwards out of her way, but she had already locked a vice-like grip round his wrist. With her other hand she snatched at his jumper and yanked him forward off the lip of the summit. For a brief, surreal instant he felt himself being guided through the air like some sort of circus acrobat before he was slammed down on to his back – hard enough to wind him, not so hard as to cause any real damage. A foot pinned his right wrist, a second Glock appeared out of nowhere and hovered an inch above the bridge of his nose. From the dangling earphones came the muffled pulse of music – Pink Floyd: ‘Breathe’.

‘You want something?’

It was a few seconds before he was able to do what the music was telling him. When he did manage to get enough air into his lungs to speak, his voice was throaty and hoarse.

‘Thought I had you that time.’

‘You didn’t.’

‘So I noticed.’

For a moment he lay staring up at her, her face pale and intense, a faint smile playing across her lips. Then, raising his free hand, he slid it across her cheek and round to the nape of her neck. She allowed it to sit for a couple of seconds before gently brushing the hand away and backing off.

‘Don’t you ever give up, Gidi?’

‘Don’t you ever give
in
, Dinah?’

‘Not tonight, lover-boy.’

He laughed at that. ‘God, you’re sexy. I’ve got a hard-on for you from here to Haifa.’

She gave a weary tut. Gideon was always trying it on with her, had been for the four years she’d known him. Just as he was always trying to catch her out when she came up here for a bit of head space. He meant no harm by it, and she took no offence. Gidi was a good man. The best. It’s just that good men weren’t really her thing.

She clicked off the iPod and dropped it into the knapsack resting against the back of the shelf, followed by the Glock. Gidi heaved himself into a sitting position, rubbing his wrist.

‘How did you know I was there?’

‘Caught your aftershave.’

He grunted. ‘Beaten up for smelling nice.’

She slid the knapsack on to her shoulders and held out a hand. He grasped it and she yanked him to his feet.

‘Race you back?’ she said.

‘I reckon I’ll sit out here a while. Smoke a joint, watch the stars, deal with the rejection. It’s a beautiful night.’

He was still clasping her hand.

‘Stay with me, Dinah. No funny business. Just sit with me. The cathedral thing . . . at least allow me to hold you.’

She stood facing him, making no move to break his grip. The moonlight seemed to amplify the fineness of her features, the delicate cheekbones, the large, sad eyes. A few seconds passed. Then, squeezing his hand, she leant forward and kissed him on the cheek.

‘I’ll see you back at the compound.’

And with that she was gone, leaping down the rock steps towards the highway beneath.

‘From here to Haifa!’ he called after her.

‘Stick an ice pack on it!’ her voice drifted back.

When she reached the flat she skirted the hill and picked up the track that led off Route 40 and out across the desert, the only sounds the crunch of her feet and the distant melancholy howling of a hyena. The track ran straight for a few hundred metres, bordered with boulders and the occasional flaccid cactus, then dipped through a narrow cleft and dog-legged sharp right. Ahead, just over two kilometres away, gleaming in the moonlight, sat a huddle of buildings: domed roofs, whitewashed walls, like a scatter of sugar-cubes. She increased her pace.

They’d been out here for three years. In the early days, the four of them had operated from her apartment in Tel-Aviv. There had been too many eyes, too many opportunities for their comings and goings to attract unwanted attention, especially as their missions had grown more daring, the heat on them more intense. They’d decamped to a rambling villa on the outskirts of Be’er Sheva. Then, wanting still more privacy, out here.

Back in the 1960s the place had been a thriving, if remote,
moshav
. It had long ago been abandoned, its buildings taken over by scorpions and salamanders, its vegetable plots lost beneath a blanket of dust and weeds. They’d picked up the lease, knocked it into shape, installed solar panels for electricity, a satellite system for phone and internet. They wouldn’t stay here for ever. Rule One in this business: never put down roots, always be ready to move at the drop of a hat. For the moment, though, it suited their needs perfectly.

She’d paid for it all, as she did for everything. She didn’t tell them how, they didn’t ask. Rule Two: no unnecessary questions. The four of them were close, a family, but there were still parts of her life she needed to keep private. They didn’t even know her real name. Which was exactly how it was going to stay. The past was the past.

She reached the compound in under eight minutes, sprinting the final four hundred metres. Tamar’s light was off – she must have turned in early. Faz, to judge by the ghostly grey flickers emanating from its window, was in the tech room, as he always was, hunched in front of one of the screens trawling the nether regions of cyberspace. Faz was the black sheep – Arab-Israeli, surly, introverted. He was also a tech genius, one of the best hackers in the business, so the fact that he rarely said anything was irrelevant. They all served in their own way. He could hack, and plant a virus, and use a gun. That was all that mattered. At the end of the day, none of them were in it for the conversation.

She leant up against a wall by one of the 4x4s and stretched out her calves, drawing air into her lungs, then crossed to the tech room and stuck her head round the door. Faz was sitting with his back to her, eyes glued to the screen, his head haloed with cigarette smoke.

‘Anything?’

He extended an arm and jabbed a thumb towards the floor, like a Roman emperor signalling the termination of a gladiator’s life. It had been the same for the last six days, ever since news of the murder had broken and they’d hacked the Israel Police mainframe to keep tabs on the investigation. Whatever else they were doing, the dickheads in blue certainly weren’t getting any closer to the perpetrator.

‘Barren?’

Another thumbs down.

‘Sure?’

‘Yes.’

That was as much as you were ever going to get from Faz. She told him to keep on it, backed out and crossed the yard to her own room where she stripped and went through into the shower. Pulling the curtain closed, she turned the taps and stepped straight underneath the showerhead, not waiting for the water to run warm, dropping her head back and allowing the jets to play across her face and breasts. A minute went by. Then she suddenly tensed and swung as behind her a figure loomed through the curtain’s opaque plastic. Instinctively her fists came up to fight him away, then dropped at the sound of Tamar’s voice.

‘It’s only me. The door was unlocked.’

She reached out and drew aside the curtain, doing nothing to hide her naked body. Tamar was standing on the other side: lithe, dark-skinned, hair cropped short, baggy white T-shirt falling to just above her knees.

‘You OK?’ Tamar asked gently.

Dinah nodded.

‘I’m worried about you.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

They stood looking at each other, water continuing to cascade down Dinah’s head and back, splashing out on to the bathroom’s tiled floor. Then, smiling, she took a step to the side. Tamar reached down and lifted the T-shirt over her head, revealing small firm breasts and wisps of dark pubic hair. She came into the shower and the two women embraced.

‘We’ll get them, Dinah. I promise you, we’ll get them.’

She said nothing, just pulled the curtain closed with one hand while with the other she stroked her companion’s hair and drew her close.

Neither woman clocked the camera in the extractor vent above the shower. Nor would they have done even if they’d been looking directly at it. It was too well concealed. Like all the other cameras. The watcher watched, and no one was any the wiser.

B
ETWEEN
L
UXOR AND
Q
ENA
, E
GYPT

Yusuf Khalifa pulled on his Cleopatra and gazed out of the window as the train clanked its way slowly northwards. Mud-brick villages drifted past, fields of maize and sugar cane, a butcher’s kiosk hung with a morbid bunting of tripe and severed sheep’s heads. At one point the train juddered to a halt and he found himself staring at a group of boys playing on a makeshift raft in the middle of an irrigation canal. He stiffened, fighting the urge to push his head through the window and scream at them to get off the water. It was a struggle – every reminder was a struggle – and he breathed a sigh of relief when the train jolted forward and the scene slipped away behind him. He dragged on the last of his cigarette and ground the butt out beneath his heel, taking care not to disturb the elderly man performing his noonday
salat
on the carriage floor in front of him.

There had been no further developments at the Attia farm. He was still waiting on his friend Omar for the results of the water analysis, but he was increasingly coming round to the opinion that Chief Hassani had been right and the whole thing was a wild-goose chase. He’d put out a few feelers on the missing Karnak
talatat
blocks, and chased up the stories of a dope-dealing ring operating out of the Luxor souk, which had turned out to be just that – stories. Otherwise his desk had been clear, and with the chief and most of the rest of the station obsessing about the museum opening in the Valley of the Kings, he’d been free to do some digging for Ben-Roi without anyone paying him any undue attention.

And unexpectedly interesting that digging had proved to be.

The Israeli had sent him over a basic outline of the case, including a possible connection with a company called Barren Corporation. The same Barren Corporation who were responsible for the new Valley of the Kings museum, which was a very curious coincidence.