The Boudicca Parchments (8 page)

“By an
anonymous
witness.”

“Whether we can use it in court will be up to the judge. In the meantime, I’m not satisfied that you’ve given us all the answers you
can
give.”

“All right then,” replied Daniel combatively. “But perhaps you’ll give
me
an answer. How did this…
anonymous
witness identify
me
? Does he claim to know it was me that he saw – as opposed to just ‘a man’?”

“They showed your picture on the news… the famous ancient language expert from that big case in Egypt. He phoned Crimestoppers after that and told them. He recognized you from the picture on the news.”

“
Crimestoppers?
”

Crime stoppers was a charity that worked with the police to pass on information that was given to them anonymously by members of the public. They did not trace incoming calls or even record them. That meant there was no possibility of identifying the man who had called in and claimed to have seen Daniel siphoning off petrol from the hired Audi A4.

But one thing Daniel knew for sure: whoever it was who had made that call, had murdered Martin Costa.

And he also tried
, thought Daniel,
to murder me.

Chapter 17

“ ‘And I will set aside for thee two hundred silver
zuz mohar
due thee for thy maidenhood…’”

“Two hundred what?” asked Morgan.

HaTzadik was translating from the parchment scroll that Sam Morgan had brought him, while Morgan held it open and looked on eagerly.

“It’s a unit of currency,” HaTzadik explained. “The zuz was a Tyrean coin… used in Biblical times.”

“Does that mean this is a document from
Biblical
times?”

“Not necessarily. But they refer to a Biblical coin because for this type of document they wanted to emphasize that it was a Biblical obligation.”

“What do you mean?”

“After the Bible and the oral law, the great sages created two documents of scholarship and commentary about it, called the
Gemara
. The Gemara, together with the written law or
Mishneh Torah
is called the Talmud. But there were
two
Talmuds: the Jerusalem Talmud and Babylonian Talmud. The Babylonian was seven times the size of the Jerusalem and much more coherent. But on the subject of the bride price, there is an ongoing dispute between the two Talmuds about whether this was a
Biblical
obligation or one decided by the rabbis at the time of the
Sanhedrin
. However, they all agreed that the protection of the rights of the wife was vitally important to the Jewish people. So it was decided to use this language in the marriage document – referring to a Biblical coin – so as to clearly imply that it was a Biblical obligation.”

“And what does it mean ‘I will set aside’?”

“It means he doesn’t have to pay it at the time of the marriage. It was a conditional promise for the future, if they get divorced.”

“Oh so it’s like a prenuptial agreement?”

HaTzadik looked at Sam Morgan irritably.

“You could say that. It’s more like a prenuptial
clause
within the
marriage
certificate.”

“What else does it say?”

“It continues – again referring to the Torah to emphasize the venerable nature of the husband’s obligations:
‘which belong to thee according to the law of the Torah, and thy food, clothing, and other necessary benefits which a husband is obligated to provide; and I will live with thee in accordance with the requirements prescribed for each husband.’
”

“What are these other requirements prescribed for each husband?”

“Apart from food and clothing you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Well basically it’s his conjugal duties.”

HaTzadik looked embarrassed when he said this.

“That’s a religious
obligation
?”

“For the
husband
. For the wife it’s a
right
.”

“What if she’s not in the mood?”

“She can say no.”

“What if
he’s
not in the mood?”

Again Shalom Tikva looked uncomfortable.”

“He’s supposed to do it when she wants.”

“What…
whenever
she asks?”

“He’s… not supposed to wait for her to ask. He’s supposed to look for signs that she wants it and then offer it.”

“
Cor blimey!
Who needs feminism when they’ve got Judaism?”

“There were subsequent clarifications of the law in the
Shulhan Aruch
.”

“What’s that?”

“A codified form of the Jewish law, stripped down to the essentials. It basically describes a man’s conjugal obligations in terms of where he works and how far he has to travel to work.”

“You mean… like… it takes account of whether he’s too tired?”

Morgan was grinning from ear to ear, both at what he was hearing and at HaTzadik’s discomfort at talking about it.

“Basically yes.”

“So if his missus was in the mood, he couldn’t refuse point blank… but he could say he was shagged out after a hard days work?”

The puerile grin remained on Sam Morgan’s face.

“Except on the Sabbath.”

The grin vanished – replaced by a look of confusion.

“But I thought the Sabbath was a holy day? Aren’t you people supposed to be thinking about God and all that holy shi – holy stuff?”

HaTzadik looked at Morgan with growing irritation.

“Between a man and his wife, sex
is
a holy act. Now will you please drop the subject.”

“Okay,” said Morgan, nodding slowly. “But does that mean that this parchment is what I
thought
it was.”

Again HaTzadik thought carefully before speaking.

“It would appear to be.”

The look on Shalom Tikva’s face was grave. But before either of them could say any more, the tension that hung in the air was broken by a loud knock on the door, and a voice shouting from outside. The voice was that of Baruch Tikva – Shalom’s son.

And he sounded agitated.

Chapter 18

A wry smile came to Daniel’s lips as he lay on the bunk in the police cell bed looking up at the ceiling. He was imagining how his spoilt, pampered ex-wife would cope if she banged up in such austere conditions as this police cell.

She’d go out of her mind.

For Daniel it was different. He had never developed a taste for luxury. He could enjoy it when it was presented to him on a plate. But he could manage equally well without it. He remembered how, not long ago, he had slept for several days on the open deck of a
felucca
– a river boat on the Nile. And then for the next few days he had slept under the stars in the Sinai Peninsula, travelling towards Sharm-el-Sheikh by camel with a Bedouin caravan.

Charlotte would probably have mocked him with some cutting remark accusing him of masquerading as Lawrence of Arabia.

He stopped thinking about her. There were more important things to think about. Like when they were going to release him.

If
they were going to release him.

Up until the end of the last interview, he had been sure that they would. Indeed it looked like they didn’t have a choice. But now he was not so sure. When they told him about the “witness” who had “seen” him siphoning off petrol, it had completely blindsided him. He would have dismissed it as a police trick designed to elicit a confession. But unlike America, the British police are not allowed to use such trickery and any evidence obtained thereby is inadmissible in court.

But it all fell into place when the police had used the words “anonymous tip-off.” That alone made it clear what was actually happening. Whoever started the fire had also called the police afterwards. Presumably, thought Daniel, the original plan had been to kill both of them and then when that failed, the killer did the next best thing and framed him.

But there was more to it than that. Daniel had seen the protruding feet and thought that it might be a dead body. Sergeant Connor had confirmed that he was already dead and that he had been bludgeoned to death. So presumably whoever killed him had either killed him there at the house or brought the body there and then prepared the place for the arson attack. That would make perfect sense, because the fire would also conceal the time of death.

Of course, it would have been quite hard to get the body there. For a start, there was no access by car. The house was only accessible via a long footpath. Lugging a body there undetected in broad daylight would have been even harder than siphoning off petrol from a car without being seen.

On the other hand there was a parallel road nearby and the body did not have to have been brought there in daylight. It would all depend on when Costa was killed. A determined killer could have parked nearby and carried the body (possibly wrapped in a blanket) up the slope and through the bramble that separated the road from footpath. It would have been awkward but not impossible.

But the question then was
when
was Costa killed?

Whoever killed him and set this up would have to have known about the meeting between them. Of course the killer might have killed him and then taken a look at the text messages on his mobile phone. They might have killed him to shut him up and taken his phone to see who he had contacted. That would have told them all they needed to know.

But then another thought struck Daniel.

What if the killer had killed him as soon as he sent the original SMS. If everything came down to that SMS with the picture – if this whole thing was about damage limitation and suppressing something that some one wanted to keep secret – then maybe Costa was killed right after he sent the message. That would explain a lot of things. Why he didn’t answer the phone when Daniel called back. Why he replied by text, insisting that he was short on credit and that the battery was low. That way he could avoid talking. His voice would have given away that it wasn’t Costa. But the
texts
betrayed
nothing
.

It was a trap all along!

But who had set it? Who had killed Martin Costa and used his phone to lure Daniel into a trap that nearly cost him his life? Who had made that call to frame Daniel? Who wanted to suppress whatever it was they feared that Daniel might reveal? And perhaps more important
what
was it that they wanted to suppress?

The image on the phone had been blurred and unclear. Had the meeting gone ahead he might have been able to see the original. But presumably that was gone now. Whoever had killed Costa had surely made off with the document that Costa wanted to show Daniel. It might have been possible to study the image from the phone at leisure. But Daniel had dropped his phone in the burning building and it had presumably been incinerated.

At the back of Daniel’s mind was the thought that there might be a solution to this problem – and even that the solution was starting him in the face. He was still thinking about this when he heard a clanking sound. He sat up on the bed as his cell door opened. Standing there in the doorway was a smug-looking Sergeant Connor and a dour-faced Chief Inspector Vincent.

“It’s not looking too good for you sunshine,” said the sergeant, obviously enjoying himself as he put on his best tough-guy voice. “We’re charging you with murder.”

Chapter 19

Sam Morgan had stayed in the living room while HaTzadik had gone to answer the door. The voices were raised… agitated. More than that… there was anger. Both men were shouting.

Morgan didn’t have a clue what it was about. He didn’t speak a word of Hebrew – or was it Yiddish? In any case, it was quite frightening, the level of anger that seemed to have been generated between them. He was glad that they were angry with each other and not with him.

Looking down at the manuscript, he tried to blot out their shouting as he contemplated the contents. Of course he couldn’t read it any more than he could understand the spoken language. But he thought about what a great find it was. And how glad he was that Shalom Tikva wanted it so badly. He had told HaTzadik that he was sympathetic to their cause… that he too was opposed to Godless Zionism – albeit from a Christian perspective rather than a Jewish one. But at the same time, he needed to be compensated for his efforts. His work involved risk. And risk entitled him to reward.

The shouting seemed to subside and he thought that Baruch Tikva would soon be leaving. But instead, the door to the living room opened and both Shalom and his son entered the room. And what was more alarming was that they were both looking at him with anger in their eyes. In the case of the older, average-sized Shalom, this was not particularly frightening, despite his narrow, penetrating eyes.

But in the case of Baruch, who was about six foot six tall, it was quite menacing.

It was the father who spoke.

“Why did you lie to me?” he asked.

Morgan tried to hold his gaze, but was momentarily forced to look away. When his eyes again met those of HaTazadik, he was barely able to mumble a pale “what do you mean?”

“Why did you
lie
to me!”

It started a quietly menacing growl and ended up a monstrous roar of anger.

“About what?”

Morgan was wondering if HaTzadik was starting to question the authenticity of the manuscript. There was surely no reason to. He was quite sure that it was genuine.

“About Daniel Klein! You told me you
killed
him!”

Chapter 20

“They should be able to get the records of Costa’s text messages – and your replies – from the phone company. They may even be able to get the actual
content
of the texts. But, of course, that doesn’t stop them putting their own interpretation on it.”

“What about the anonymous tip-off?”