The Boudicca Parchments (9 page)

Daniel was consulting his lawyer in a meeting room at the police station. The lawyer in question was in fact the duty solicitor assigned to the police station to help suspects who didn’t have a lawyer of their own.

“They probably won’t be allowed to use it in court. It didn’t trigger a specific action by the police like a search or anything that in turn led to the discovery of more evidence, let alone evidence that can be cross-verified by another means. I’m assuming, of course, that there
is
no physical evidence that petrol was siphoned off from the tank.”

“There’s no way there
could
be.
I
certainly didn’t siphon any off, and I don’t think there’d have been time for anyone else to. I mean I walked to the house at reasonable speed and the attack occurred within about a minute of me entering.”

The duty solicitor had advised him that he could get another lawyer and that he could do this either now or at a later stage. He decided for the time being to stick to the duty solicitor and decide later whether to get some one else. In any case, because he was being charged, the more important task was to make sure the solicitor found a good barrister to represent him in court.

“Well if you’re sure of that, then I have a suggestion that might help. We could ask the police to check the level of petrol in the hired car and compare it to the level when you hired it. I assume you started with a full tank?”

Daniel nodded.

“They can calculate the approximate fuel consumption and compare it to the amount you actually used. And of course we’d also ask them to check the mileage indicator against the records of the car hire company.”

“I don’t know why they didn’t do that first,” said Daniel irritably.

“They were probably being just a little too eager. I think they’re placing too much emphasis on your motive.”

“I don’t
have
a motive.”

“Well their theory is – ”

“I
know
what their theory is! But it’s all based on a false assumption – that he changed his mind.”

“But if he never got the chance to talk to you, then how do you know that he
didn’t
change his mind.”

Daniel looked at the lawyer astonished. This was pure courtroom demagoguery. If Daniel didn’t know then he couldn’t have a motive. But surely the initial presumption had to be that Costa
hadn’t
changed his mind. There was no specific reason to think otherwise – except to twist the facts to fit the theory. Daniel tried to explain this to the solicitor in the simplest language he could think of.

“I don’t
know
if he changed his mind or not. But there’s nothing to suggest that he
did
. And my theory is that he was killed well before the meeting and the fire was to conceal the time of death – as well as to kill me.”

“Now that
is
pure conjecture.”

“Yes but unlike this speculative theory that he changed his mind, it fits the facts. First of all he was dead when I got there.”

“But you said he might have been unconscious.”

Daniel was by now getting irritated with the solicitor’s “devil’s advocate” approach.

“As far as I
knew
, he
might
have been unconscious! But the police told me that he didn’t die of either burns or smoke inhalation. They said he was already dead
before
the fire. I know that
I
didn’t kill him. Therefore he must have been dead already – and
not
merely unconscious! And
another
thing, if he was merely unconscious, then he might have come round and got out before they threw in whatever it was that started the fire. That would mean that the arsonist-murderer was leaving things to chance. And I don’t believe that. This whole thing was too well planned.”

“Okay but there’s a big difference between
framing
you and trying to
kill
you.”

“That maybe, but I barely made it out of there alive. I certainly didn’t have any help getting out. That means that whoever did it was
trying
to kill me.”

“But why would they try to kill you
and
frame you?”

Chapter 21

“I said I dealt with him –
not
that I killed him.”

“But you let me
believe
that you killed him.”

Sam Morgan could see that HaTzadik’s anger was not assuaged by this feeble excuse. Neither was that of Baruch Tikva, who had never liked him. Technically it was true. He had been careful to avoid saying that he had killed Daniel Klein, perhaps because he didn’t want to admit that he had tried but failed.

He had covered his tracks brilliantly, phoning Crimestoppers and effectively setting up Daniel to take the rap. But he didn’t want to emphasize that. He wanted to portray himself as a man who knew that he was doing, not an incompetent buffoon.

“I killed Martin Costa and used the fire to cover up his injuries. As far as the police are concerned, he died in the fire. And they think that it was Daniel who
caused
the fire. That’s why he’s been arrested.”

“He can still talk!”

“Yes but he doesn’t
know
anything, so there’s not much he can talk
about
! The picture he got is far too blurred for him to read the manuscript.”

“Don’t be too sure of that!” said Baruch Tikva. “I have heard of this man before: he is not going to give up.”

Morgan was on the back foot and he knew it. Baruch Tikva was a big man and he could be quite menacing when he was angry.

“Trust me, right now reading a blurred image sent to his phone is the least of his worries. He’ll be more worried about clearing his name. And also I heard on the news that he lost his phone in the fire.”

HaTzadik was still angry.

“I want him dead!”

“There’s no way I can kill him now. He’s behind bars and they won’t let him out on bail… not for murder.”

“Can’t you get to him in prison?”

“No way. It’s not like America. And a murder suspect will be in a Category A wing.”

“What’s that?”

“High Security. That means he’ll be impossible for me to get at.”

“I don’t mean
you
. Can’t you contact the family of another prisoner and get
them
to do it? By offering them money?”

Morgan didn’t even hesitate in his reply.

“That would be almost impossible. They have CCTV cameras in British prisons. It would be very hard to kill some one undetected.”

“But a life prisoner would have nothing to lose. They don’t have the death penalty in England.”

Morgan smiled at HaTzadik’s naivety.

“They don’t have life either – except in rare cases. In England, life doesn’t mean life. Sometimes they can get out in as little as five years. But not if they commit another murder. The last thing any prisoner wants to do is lengthen his sentence by committing a murder for which he’s bound to get caught.”

Morgan could see the irritation on Shalom Tikva’s face – as well as that of his son, who spoke even better English. But there was nothing he could do. They had to face the facts.

“Is this Daniel Klein single?”

This made Morgan rather edgy.

“Why?”

“Leverage?”

“He’s divorced. His ex-wife is in America. But I don’t think threatening her is going to make any difference. I don’t think there’s any love lost between the two of them.

The older man turned to his son and said something in Hebrew orYiddish. The younger man replied.

“Did they have children?”

Morgan was becoming increasingly concerned by the direction this conversation had taken off in.

“No.”

Baruch Tikva said something to his father. HaTzadik replied.

“A
ni
rot
seh
sheh’at
a
ti
sa
le’
An
glia. Yesh li avo
da
kta
na
bishvil
kha
la’a
sot
.”

Morgan didn’t understand, but a rough translation of his reply would be:

“I want you to go to England. I have a little job that I want you to do.”

Chapter 22

As a desk officer in the small tightly-knit Mossad, Dovi Shamir could be handling upward of a hundred cases at any one time. Often this meant little more than speed-reading a report from a
katsa
(field-based case officer). But at times he missed the cut and thrust of field work himself. That was why he had been only too happy to come out of retirement when a special assignment arose to eliminate a Hamas terrorist who had participated in the murder of two Israeli soldiers and who was planning a major operation in London.

However he had been seriously compromised and could not now work in the field or indeed anywhere outside Israel. Technically wanted for murder on an Interpol warrant, he had to stay in Israel, unless he travelled in disguise under a false identity.

But his experience made him a very good desk officer too. Of the many cases that he was covering, the one that concerned him most was the one that Daniel Klein had got caught up in. Although not a “Sayan” –
i.e.
a co-optee or asset, run by a field officer – Daniel was a non-Israeli Jew who had recently stumbled into a conspiracy that could have led to the deaths of millions of Israelis, had he not acted on his own initiative with courage, wisdom and haste.

For this reason alone, Dovi Shamir considered Daniel to be under his “protective wing” and the fact that Daniel was now in a British gaol awaiting trial for a murder that he almost certainly did not commit was most displeasing to Dovi. Accordingly, he was taking a personal interest in the case.

But there was a limit to what he could do. It had taken a lot of diplomatic string-pulling to save Dovi himself after the British police had him “bang to rights” on a charge of murdering Ismail Shahaid on British soil. The fact that his face had been plastered all over the news media made it even harder for the British to let him go, as to do so would be seen as a sign of favouritism to Israel, fuelling all the old conspiracy theories about the Zionists running the world. Even the Israeli authorities themselves had been ready to throw Dovi to the wolves.

In the end, what saved Dovi’s neck was the fact that he had done for Britain what Daniel Klein had done for Israel: saved a lot of innocent lives using his own initiative and working practically alone. Specifically, Dovi had prevented Ismail Shahaid’s terrorist colleagues from blowing up the wreck of the
Richard Montgomery
– a munitions ship from the Second World War that was sunk in the Thames Estuary and lay precariously on the seabed off the coast of Sheerness for several decades thereafter packed with unstable explosives.

This successful thwarting of a terrorist operation that would have left thousands of British citizens dead and caused millions of pounds worth of damage, gave the Israeli authorities enough leverage to bargain with and gave Dovi personally enough kudos to enable the British to release him with a nod and a wink. However, the international warrant was still open and technically he was still a wanted man.

Daniel Klein had also fallen afoul of the Metropolitan Police in London, when he had come under suspicion of murdering his mentor, the late Harrison Carmichael. He also came under suspicion over an attempt on the life of Egyptian Minister for Antiquities Akil Mansoor and for stealing antiquities from the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, but these were all cleared up by further evidence and some adroit diplomacy.

So right now, all Dovi could do was sit tight and wait for these events to play out. From what he had been able to ascertain from local sources, the case against Daniel wasn’t all that strong. He had been lured into a meeting and then ambushed. Dovi even had proof that there was a plan to kill Daniel and of who was behind it. If necessary, this information could be made available to the British authorities through the appropriate diplomatic and shared intelligence channels. But Dovi wasn’t ready for that yet. Once they went down that route, it might tip off
Shomrei Ha’ir
that the authorities were on to them. Dovi wanted to play his cards close to his chest for a while longer, even if that meant that Daniel Klein would have to sit it out behind bars for a while longer.

Yet it was hard to understand why they had even arrested, let alone charged, Daniel. It was obvious that he had come close to being killed himself. He clearly had no motive to kill Martin Costa and phone company records would show that he had been lured there. And why kill by starting a fire? Then Dovi remembered that Harrison Carmichael had been killed by violent blows and then his house burnt down. The parallels were remarkable.

But Daniel had been cleared in that case. Did the police in this case really think that he was guilty in the Harrison Carmichael case after all? Or had the copper in charge of the present case just got hold of the wrong end of the stick? Dovi hoped that when the matter came to the remand hearing, wiser counsel would prevail. But in the meantime, he decided to hold tight. However, all that came to an abrupt end when a report came through on his eMail.

Internet Intercept summary – 9 August, 2012 – 16:30 IST

Client user(s): “Baruch Tikva” (Identified by IP address, MAC number, username and password) [on file]

Client computer locus: Mea She’arim, Jerusalem, Israel