The Last Secret Of The Temple (23 page)

'So,' said Father Sergius, motioning her to the bench she had sat on earlier and lowering himself down beside her, 'that's your side of the bargain. Now you'll be wanting to know about William de Relincourt. I'm not sure there's much I can tell you, but ask away. I'll be as much help as I can.'

Layla pulled out her notebook and pen and, crossing her legs, rested the book on her knee, biro poised above a blank page.

'The first thing I wanted to ask was about sources,' she said. 'I've been looking on the internet and as far as I can make out de Relincourt is only mentioned by two medieval writers: William of Tyre and . . .'

She leafed back through her notes, trying to find the name of the Jewish traveller.

'Benjamin of Tudela,' said Father Sergius.

'That's the one. You know the passages?'

'Not off by heart, but yes, I've read them. A while ago, mind you.'

Layla bent down and pulled a crumpled sheet of paper from her bag.

'I printed them off last night.'

She handed him the sheet. Holding it slightly away from him to catch the light, he read through it. When he'd finished he passed it back to her.

'So far as I can make out,' she said, 'Baldwin, or Badoiun as Benjamin calls him, was king of Jerusalem from 1100 to 1118.'

Father Sergius nodded.

'Which means that both Benjamin and William of Tyre were writing, what, sixty, seventy years after the events they were describing.'

He thought for a moment, then nodded again. 'Correct.'

'So is there anything else?' she asked. 'Any other chronicle that mentions de Relincourt, gives more information? Anything to corroborate the story?'

The priest clasped his hands on his belly where they sat like large pink crabs sunning themselves on a rock.

'Not that I've ever heard of. Certainly none of the early crusader chroniclers mention him. Ekkehard of Aura, Albert of Aachen, and . . . oh, what's the other one's name? . . . Fulcher of Chartres, that's it – all completely silent. William of Tyre and Benjamin of Tudela seem to be all we've got.'

'And only Benjamin says anything about a hidden treasure,' said Layla. 'William of Tyre just mentions that de Relincourt and King Baldwin had some sort of dispute.'

'I expect they probably heard different versions of the story,' he said. 'You often get that with medieval chroniclers. Especially when they're writing years after a particular event, describing it at second or third hand. They have different sources, pick up different details. It's simply a matter of emphasis.'

'So which version's more reliable in this case?'

He raised his eyebrows. 'Difficult to be sure, although on balance I'd say probably Benjamin of Tudela. Admittedly he was only passing through the Holy Land, unlike William of Tyre, who actually lived here. But the extra detail suggests he probably heard a fuller version of the story. William's account sounds like he's just repeating an old rumour.'

Layla scribbled a note in her book.

'And you think the story's true?'

Father Sergius shrugged. 'Who knows? There's no physical evidence to support it, but then that's no reason to discount it. Benjamin was an extremely scrupulous chronicler. Didn't go in for legends or old wives' tales or any of that sort of thing. Always checked his sources. I believe him.'

There was a sudden burst of flashing as a group of Japanese tourists trooped into the Rotunda, snapping pictures of the dome and Aedicule. Layla curled one leg underneath the other, resting her notebook on her knee.

'Which begs the obvious question,' she said. 'If Benjamin's story
is
true, what did William actually find? What was this . . .' She glanced down at the printed sheet. 'This "treasure of very great power and beauty, unlike any treasure that was known before"?'

Father Sergius smiled and, reaching behind his head, started fiddling with the band of his pony tail.

'As you say, the obvious question. And the one I can't answer, I'm afraid. Although I think you'll find it wasn't a spaceship.'

He chuckled to himself, fingers tweaking at the band, trying to arrange his hair more neatly. In front of them the two women came out of the Aedicule, their prayers finished, and the Japanese tourists started filing inside, the shrine's cramped interior only large enough to admit four of them at a go. The singing and chanting that Layla had heard when she first entered the building had died away, leaving just the echo of chattering voices, as though the church's stones were whispering to one another.

'No,' repeated Father Sergius, having adjusted the band to his satisfaction and laying his hands back down on his belly, 'I have no more idea what William de Relincourt found than the thousands of other people who have speculated on the subject over the last nine hundred years. Maybe some ancient relic, maybe the bones of an early saint, maybe a treasure from the original Byzantine basilica – you name it. We simply don't know.'

Layla was tapping her pen on her thigh.

'And you say there's no physical evidence. Nothing in the church itself?'

He shook his head. 'If William de Relincourt was ever here he left no traces.'

She raised the pen and scratched at her eyebrow.

'What's underneath us?' she asked. 'What would have been there when de Relincourt was working?'

He stared up at the domed ceiling for a moment, fingers drumming on his belly, then heaved himself up and, indicating that Layla should follow, waddled across to the entrance to the Rotunda where they had a clear view of both the Aedicule and the church's main doorway.

'A quick tour,' he said. 'Just to give you the background.'

He spread his arms, taking in the building around them.

'At the time of the crucifixion, so far as we know, this entire area used to lie outside the walls of the city, which were a hundred metres or so to the south.' He nodded to indicate the direction.

'According to the Bible and early Christian writers, Golgotha, the hill where the crucifixion took place, stood over there.' He pointed towards the elevated chapel Layla had passed on her way in. 'While over there' – he pointed back towards the Aedicule – 'lay an abandoned quarry in which various wealthy Jews had cut tombs for themselves. It was in one of these tombs, that of Joseph of Arimathea, that our Lord's body was laid to rest.'

The last of the Japanese tourists emerged from the Aedicule and trooped off into the Katholicon, cameras still flashing.

'For a hundred years after the crucifixion all this area was a place of pilgrimage and prayer for early Christians,' he continued. 'In AD 135, however, the emperor Hadrian levelled it and built a temple to the gods Juno, Jupiter and Minerva. That stood here for a further two hundred years until Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor, tore Hadrian's temple down and built a magnificent church in its place incorporating all the holy sites.'

Again he pointed towards the elevated chapel and the Aedicule.

'Constantine's church was in its turn destroyed in the Persian invasion of 614. It was rebuilt two years later, knocked down by an earthquake, rebuilt, knocked down by the Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim, rebuilt and knocked down several times more before finally the crusaders arrived and erected the structure we see today, which was completed in 1149. Even this has had extensive alterations in the intervening years. The dome of the Rotunda, for instance, and the Aedicule both date mainly from the nineteenth century.'

Layla was furiously scribbling in her book, trying to keep up with him.

'The point I'm making,' he said, stamping his foot on the floor, 'is that beneath us lie the remains of over a thousand years of building and rebuilding, right the way down to the original bedrock. Who knows what de Relincourt found when he started digging? Jews, Romans, early Christians, Byzantines, Persians, Muslims – any one of them could have buried something here which William subsequently unearthed. And of course before that there were Canaanites, Jebusites, Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians and Greeks. They've all been in Jerusalem at one point or another. The fact is we simply don't know what was down there, or who left it there. And to be honest I doubt we ever will. Which is, of course, part of the story's appeal.'

He fell silent, fiddling with a button on his robes. A pair of Coptic monks hurried past wearing their distinctive black skullcaps and carved wooden crosses. Layla finished scribbling and stared down at her notes, intrigued and frustrated in equal measure.

'It's like trying to put together a jigsaw where half the pieces are missing and you don't even know what the overall picture is supposed to be,' she muttered. 'And doing it blindfold.'

Father Sergius smiled. 'Such is history. A giant jigsaw puzzle.'

From somewhere behind them came the faint clack of a walking stick on stone, the sound growing louder until eventually an elderly man hobbled past them into the Rotunda and made his way across to the Aedicule. His back was bent, the skin of his face slack and covered with liverspots. He stopped in front of the shrine, produced a
yarmulke
and a small black book, and started to pray, bending stiffly back and forth, mumbling to himself, leaning heavily on his stick.

'That's the one I was telling you about,' said Father Sergius quietly. 'Every day he comes in, regular as clockwork. Convinced de Relincourt found the Ten Commandments, or the Ark of the Covenant, or King David's sword – I forget which. Some ancient Jewish thing. That's what these sort of stories do, ultimately – fulfil some inner need, some hope that can't be resolved in the real world.'

They stood watching the man for a while, then Layla looked back down at her notebook, flicking through the pages.

'Benjamin of Tudela says that de Relincourt was "by no means approving of the treatment of the Jews",' she said. 'What does that mean?'

Father Sergius smiled sadly, gazing up at the dome above.

'The crusaders treated the Jews appallingly,' he said with a sigh. 'Slaughtered thousands of them as they made their way across Europe. Tens of thousands. When they captured Jerusalem they herded the city's entire Jewish population into the main synagogue and burnt them all to death. Men, women, children. Every one of them.' He shook his head. 'Did the same to the Muslims. The mosques were ankle-deep in blood, it was said. You would have thought something like that, such shared horror, would draw the two religions together. But then you look at what's happening today . . .' He raised a hand and rubbed his temples. 'God's Holy Land, and so much pain. Always so much pain.'

He continued rubbing his temples for a moment, then lowered his hand and turned to Layla.

'It's time I started preparing for the midday service.'

'Of course,' said Layla. 'Thank you for your time.'

'I'm not sure I've been any help.'

'You have,' she said. 'A lot.'

She returned her notebook to her bag and swung the bag over her shoulder.

'Keep up with the writing,' he said. 'It will make a difference.'

She smiled and, raising a hand in farewell, turned to go.

'One interesting fact for your article,' he called out after her. 'Hitler was obsessed with him, apparently. William de Relincourt. Had a team of academics researching the story, trying to find out what de Relincourt found and what happened to it. Was convinced it was some sort of secret weapon he could use against the Jews. Or so the stories claim. Like I said, de Relincourt attracts all sorts of strange people. I wish you all the best, Ms al-Madani.'

He nodded at her and, clasping his hands behind his back, wandered off into the Katholicon.

'Hello? Hello? Yes, my name is Inspector Yusuf Khalifa of the Egyptian Police Force. I think I spoke to you . . . Khalifa. No, Khalifa. Khal-ee-far. Exactly. I am trying to find someone who can help me with a case I am working on involving an Israeli national. What? No, a case I am working . . . Do you speak English? What? . . . Yes, OK, I will hold, thank you, thank you.'

Khalifa cradled the telephone receiver between his head and shoulder and, reaching out, pulled a cigarette from the packet in front of him, clicking his tongue in frustration. He had spent the best part of an hour vainly trying to track down someone in the Israeli Police Force who could help him with background details on Hannah Schlegel, being shunted from department to department, office to office and person to person before eventually ending up back where he'd started, at the National Police Headquarters in Jerusalem, with a woman who hardly seemed to speak any English, let alone Arabic. He had the distinct feeling that because he was Egyptian they were not taking him as seriously as they would if he had been, say, American or European. He lit his cigarette, drew on it and exhaled an annoyed billow of smoke, listening to the silence at the other end of the line.

'Hello?' he called, thinking maybe he had been cut off. 'Hello?'

The line clicked back into life.

'I ask you to hold,' came the woman's voice, sharp, as though she was talking to a naughty child. 'Please do this.'

The line went dead again.

'Dammit,' muttered Khalifa, chewing on the filter of his cigarette, jaw tight with annoyance. 'I'm trying to
help
you, for God's sake. I'm trying to help you, woman!'

He took another drag and slumped back into his chair, looking up at a faded poster of the Step Pyramid of Djoser on the wall opposite, and then down at his desk, where the items he had brought back from Jansen's house were arranged in a neat line in front of him – the photographic slide, the flyer, the will and the pistol. The only thing that was missing was the gold bar, which he had entrusted to a certain Mr Mohammed Hasoon, bullion expert at Banque Misr, who had promised to try and find out more about the eagle and swastika legend stamped into its surface.

Of the remaining objects, Jansen's will had proved the most immediately informative. It set out detailed instructions for the sale of the dead man's property and possessions and, from the proceeds thereof, the granting of bequests to various individuals and organizations, including the staff of the Menna-Ra, the dead man's housekeeper, the Egyptian Horticultural Society, Luxor Museum and, somewhat incongruously, the Brooke Animal Hospital for Horses and Donkeys.

By far the largest bequest – comprising, so far as Khalifa could make out, the bulk of the dead man's estate – was to an Anton and Inga Gratz 'for the support of those causes that we all hold so dear'. Carla Shaw, the manager of the Menna-Ra, had mentioned friends of Jansen's, one of whom was called Anton, and Khalifa presumed these must be the same people. More interesting, 16 Orabi Street, the address given for the Gratzes in the will, was in the El-Maadi district of Cairo. The payphone whose number had figured so frequently on Jansen's telephone bill was also in that district, and after checking its precise location with Egypt Telecom Khalifa had found it was located literally just across the street from the apartment block in which Mr and Mrs Gratz resided, suggesting that they were the people Jansen had been speaking to on such a regular basis. Some further checking had revealed that the Gratzes had no private telephone number – presumably why they used the payphone – so Khalifa had contacted the neighbours to either side of them in the block, asking them to put a note under the Gratzes' door requesting them to contact Luxor Police immediately. He had, to date, heard nothing back.

Of the other items, the pistol had been identified by Mr Salah, the station ballistics expert, as a 9mm Walther P38 semi-automatic – a make rarely seen these days, apparently, although they were, according to Salah, much in demand among firearms collectors, the Walther P38 having been the official sidearm of the German military during World War Two. The gun had been kept clean and oiled and was in perfect working order, its eight-bullet magazine full. As with so many other aspects of Jansen's world, the information had raised more questions than it answered.

There had been no time to find out anything about the final two objects, the flyer and the slide, and, leaning forward now, Khalifa picked up the latter and held it to the light, puffing on his cigarette, the phone still clutched in his left hand. The image of the dark, narrow tomb doorway at the foot of a vertical wall of rock meant nothing to him, and after staring at it for a moment, wondering whether it had any relevance, he laid it back on the desk and took up the flyer instead, reading slowly through it, struck, as he had been the first time he'd looked at it, by the incongruity of someone of Jansen's evident breeding mixing with a fundamentalist firebrand like Shaykh Omar Abd-el Karim. He was just scribbling a note to himself to look in on the meeting the flyer was advertising when the line finally clicked back into life.

'Have you speak to Israeli Embassy in Cairo?'

'It was the Israeli Embassy in Cairo who gave me your number,' replied Khalifa, banging his cigarette out into the ashtray, trying not to lose his temper.

She put him on hold again, only for fifteen seconds this time, then came back and asked if he knew the victim's last known address, or rather her 'place of living before death', which he took to mean the same thing. He reached across the desk for Schlegel's murder file and leafed through it.

'Forty-six O-hor Har Chime Street,' he read, struggling with the unfamiliar words. 'Flat four.' He had to repeat it twice before the woman recognized it.

'Ohr Ha-Chaim,' she said. 'This is Old City. You must speak David Police Station.'

She gave him a phone number.

'Do you have a contact name?'

'You speak investigation department. They help you.'

'If possible I'd like a name,' pushed Khalifa, aware that without one he was liable to end up being fobbed off by some secretary. 'Someone I can speak to directly. Anyone. Please.'

The woman let out an annoyed sigh, making no effort to disguise the fact that she thought he was being a nuisance, and put him on hold for a third time, eventually coming back and reading out a name, which Khalifa wrote down on the pad in front of him.

'And this is a detective?' he asked.

'This detective,' she said curtly, and rang off.

He downed the receiver and lit another cigarette, grumbling to himself, all his worst suspicions about the Israelis confirmed. He took a couple of deep puffs, then picked up the phone again and dialled the number the woman had given him. The line rang seven times before someone answered.

'Good afternoon,' he said. 'My name is Inspector Yusuf Khalifa of the Egyptian Police Force. Can I please speak to . . .'

He squinted down at the pad in front of him.

'Detective Ar-ee-ay Ben-Ro-eye.'