The Jerusalem Puzzle (12 page)

I could see the remnants of racks down there.

‘Maybe they tried to escape by night afterwards. If they’d been caught by Zealot patrols, they’d have all had their throats cut, no questions asked. Things were bad in the autumn of ’66.’

‘So why wasn’t all this stuff found afterwards?’ said Simon.

‘When this part of the city was eventually recaptured by Titus a few years later, as he suppressed the great Jewish revolt,’ said Dieter, his tone growing more confident as he spoke, ‘the building up above was probably destroyed and turned into rubble. Titus ordered every building in this city to be torn down to its foundations. They did it quickly too. No arch or roof was allowed to remain standing. Eventually, when later builders went to work, they would have used the rubble of the floor above as a foundation. They wouldn’t have bothered to break through to find out what was below. They were Roman slaves most likely, with orders to construct new buildings to a new street plan.’

‘That’s all plausible,’ said Isabel. ‘But I’m amazed these rooms have never been uncovered in all the time since. We’re talking nearly two thousand years.’

‘Much of this city was abandoned and in rubble for decades after the great Jewish revolt, not just for a few years. That was the key event in Jewish history. The city was deliberately depopulated. It was rebuilt to a totally different design by Hadrian in 130 AD.’ He motioned at the ceiling above us, his hand cupped and turning.

‘This part of the city was abandoned for long periods after that as well. Building work was banned in Jewish sections of Jerusalem for centuries.’

‘How did the people who were down here escape?’ I said.

Dieter pointed at a small hole in one wall. Straight beyond it there was a wall of dusty rubble, but the hole could have been used to escape into another building, before that building was razed too.

‘What’s your best find?’ I asked. I moved towards the boxes, bent over, put my knee on the ground and looked at them.

‘That’s a good question,’ said Walter. He hesitated, looking at Dieter.

‘This is one of the better finds,’ said Dieter, softly. He held out one of the plastic boxes set apart from the others. The only thing inside was a piece of triangular marble the size of a large chocolate bar. It looked like a notice that might have sat at the top of an ancient shelf. There was Roman lettering on it. The marble was broken, in half it looked, but the second part of the inscription was visible when I moved the box, so the yellow long-life light bulb strung up above our heads shone down directly on it.

It read … S PILATUS.

‘You think this used to say Pontius Pilate?’ I held it forward for Isabel to see it.

Walter nodded vigorously. ‘The Latin is the same as they found on the inscription in Caesarea Maritima.’

‘So, you’ve found material from Pontius Pilate’s time,’ said Simon. ‘Who knows what else is down there, maybe the plans for Herod’s Temple.’

‘Or a receipt for the marriage feast at Cana,’ I said.

A shout echoed from above.

‘Who’s down there?’ Whoever was shouting, his accent was American.

The atmosphere in the room changed in a second, as if someone had shouted
fire
. Our two German friends looked at each other as if they’d been found out. Then a clattering noise filled the air.

Walter put his hand out, took the box from me and put it back where it had been. I stood away from the hole and the ladder.

Someone was coming down. More than one person, by the noise of them. Then legs, clad in green army fatigues, came down the stairs. Two crew cut men appeared, both at least six foot six, and big enough to be running backs for the Jets. They stood near us, as if they were security guards who’d caught us trespassing.

A third American, an older guy with white hair and a bushy white beard came down after them. He had a big white handkerchief in his hand and was mopping his brow as he arrived.

‘How the hell did you people get in here? You ain’t supposed to be down here at all. This is a closed site.’ He stood in front of me and poked a finger into my chest.

I swatted at it. He pulled his hand back.

‘And who are you?’ I said. His two friends came up, one on each side of him.

‘That boy upstairs made a serious mistake letting you all down here just because of a reference. You’re trespassing. You gotta leave now.’ He turned to Dieter.

‘You didn’t let ’em go down below, did you?’

‘No,’ said Dieter. ‘No way.’ He sounded so deferential I assumed at once that the older American was his boss.

‘Did I miss you telling us who you are?’ I said. ‘Are you going to give us some idea of why we should listen to you?’ I wasn’t one of his employees.

‘You do not need to know who I am. What you need to do is leave this site immediately.’ It looked as if a bunch of rats were gnawing at the inside of his face, it was so bunched up, even purple in places.

‘You’ll have a heart attack if you take everything so seriously,’ said Isabel.

‘This site is beyond your comprehension,’ he said. ‘It is divine providence that it has been found. You should not be here.’

‘I hope the whole world gets to see what’s down here,’ said Isabel.

I could see he didn’t appreciate her remark. His face became even more purple.

‘Take them upstairs,’ he said. Then he headed for the stairs.

‘Who is this guy?’ I said, turning to Dieter.

‘Pastor Stevson. He sponsors this dig,’ said Walter.

‘Well, we were leaving anyway,’ I said. ‘We’ve finished our tour. We’ve seen everything we needed, thanks.’ I emphasised the word
everything
.

The crew cut guy near Isabel put his hand up again, as if he was going to take hold of her. I took two steps towards him, raised my hand and swiped it between him and Isabel, as if I was sweeping away a cobweb.

‘We’re going,’ I said. ‘Don’t put a goddamned hand on any of us, unless you want your ass thrown down that rubbish hole over there.’ I nodded toward the hole in the floor, not that far away from where the guy was standing.

‘Go then,’ said the other young guy. ‘And make it snappy.’

‘Did no one teach you any manners yet?’ I said.

His grin had a bit of a snarl in it.

We headed up the stairs. Isabel and Simon went first. We didn’t move nearly as fast as they wanted us to; I was nudged in the back twice, but I swung my elbow violently to warn them off. It didn’t happen again.

Upstairs, the guy who let us in was standing sheepishly to one side by the door to the lane.

He opened it. There weren’t stones falling around us any more, there were rocks. Not that many, one every few seconds, but enough to make the lane a place you wouldn’t want to hang around when discussing the weather.

‘Ow,’ shouted Isabel, as the door closed with a bang behind us.

A rock had struck her calf. Her jeans were torn. There was a splattering of blood on them. I held my hand up, to try to stop anything else hitting her.

‘We’ve got to get around the corner,’ said Simon. ‘You should go to hospital, have that looked at.’

‘Where’s the nearest hospital?’ I asked the policeman who opened the barrier to let us go past.

‘Go to the Bikur Cholin,’ he said. ‘They have a good emergency room and they’re near.’ Then he looked away. His expressionless face seemed to indicate he’d seen a lot worse than the scratch Isabel had suffered.

We headed back towards the Jaffa Gate and ended up at the taxi rank. Simon bid us farewell there.

‘Any taxi will take you to the hospital,’ he said. ‘Call me if you need any more help.’

Ten minutes later we were pulling up outside the hospital. It was 3.55 p.m., Tuesday afternoon. We’d been in the city only two days and we already needed a hospital.

The place was busy. The older part of the hospital was a Victorian/Ottoman wedding cake of a building made of pale icing-like sandstone. It had pointed arched windows and a first floor balcony at the front where visiting Edwardian-era royals could have waved at the crowds who had come to see them. It probably didn’t get much call for that sort of thing any more.

I held Isabel’s hand as the nurse cleaned her leg in the modern emergency ward. It had taken only twenty minutes for Isabel to be seen, despite the waiting room being busy, which says something for the Israeli health care system. The examination cubicle we were in was as modern as anything you’d find in London or anywhere else.

‘I’m not going to let them keep me in,’ said Isabel, as we waited for the nurse to come back. She had a determined look on her face.

There was a loud hum coming from the blue and grey equipment around us and from the lighting, but what I noticed most was that the hospital was dealing with an amazing cross-section of people. There were Arabs, Orthodox Jews with ringleted hair, secular Jews, French tourists, two ultra-thin Ethiopian-looking women, and a big blonde Mitteleuropean.

And that was just what I could see in the area near us. I’m sure if I’d looked further I’d have found more. The place wasn’t a melting pot, it was a simmering stew.

The nurse dealing with Isabel was a small pale lady with short blonde hair. She was attractive, though not in Isabel’s league.

After the nurse came back Isabel was invited to receive a tetanus injection. She declined. She’d had one only six months before, she said.

The nurse left us again. She was going to get a doctor to look at Isabel before they released her. The examination table Isabel was sitting on was set high up. Its covering was a white paper sheet with big Hebrew letters in blue running all over it.

‘You were lucky it wasn’t worse,’ I said.

‘Do you always have to look on the bright side?’ She rubbed at her forehead.

‘You’d prefer it if I moaned?’

‘Do you think Susan’s disappearance is to do with that dig?’ said Isabel.

‘Could be. Kaiser was always involved in weird shit, from what I can gather.’

Isabel straightened her back. ‘It wouldn’t take a genius to inscribe Pontius Pilate’s name on some piece of marble. I hope you’re not taken in by it all,’ she said.

‘It could be real,’ I said. ‘I reckon Kaiser asked Susan to come here for her expert opinion on preserving what’s in that building. He may even have taken her down there to see what they were doing.’

‘He probably wanted her to verify that the place was as real as it looks.’

The level of background chatter rose suddenly. I looked up. Two Israeli policemen were marching toward us. I assumed, for a long moment, that they were heading for someone else, for some criminal who was about to get his comeuppance, but I was wrong.

That had us in their sights.

‘Are you Sean Ryan?’ said the larger of the two loudly, as they came up to us. Their gaze was fixed on us, as was the gaze of everybody nearby. The chatter in the room died away.

Everyone was waiting for my reply.

Even the equipment around us seemed to go silent. All I could hear was blood thumping in my ears. What the hell was going on?

The girl bowed low, she was on her knees and her forehead almost touched the cream marble floor. Her hair, and most of her face, was covered by a tightly bound black headdress, but he could see ridges under it, as if she wore it the way they do in parts of Sudan. His father’s house used to have servants like this girl.

‘Rise,’ he said.

She did. She was very thin.

The imam smiled. It wasn’t often he got a young woman visiting him on her own these days. His house, the best one on the street and in the whole area, was in a poor part of Cairo, but it wasn’t that which put them off coming. It was his reputation.

‘As-sal
a
ˉ
mu Aleikum, Ali Bilah, my teacher. I need your help. I have done wrong. I am so terribly frightened.’ She bowed her head low.

He didn’t ask her to sit on the cushions nearby. It wouldn’t be right. He shifted his big bottom on the low couch, looked at her. This would be a good afternoon.

She took a step forward and glanced up for a moment. Her green eyes, all he could see of her face, had a jewel-like intensity to them.

‘What place are you from?’

‘Juba.’ She bowed her head under his gaze. It was a true sign of her respect.

He’d been right about her coming from Sudan. ‘What wrong have you done?’

The room was warm. The window shutters were open and a square of dust-flecked sunlight lit up the floor between them. The early afternoon sun had meant there was no need to light the fire in the big black stove below in the kitchen. That also meant he was alone in the house. His wife was dead, cancer had taken her early, but her sister came and made his evening meal most days, except for the occasional sunny day at this time of year, like this one, when she took her own children to walk by the Nile first.

‘May I show you?’

He nodded.

What she did next brought a gasp to his throat. She bent, grabbed the bottom of her long black dress, and pulled it up to her thigh. She held it up with one hand.

Her legs were brown, slim. There was a blue tattoo of a snake coiled around her thigh, where a garter might have been. Its scales were purple, dark brown. He’d never seen anything like it.

‘Have I done wrong?’ she said. There was tremble in her voice.

He closed his eyes. This one deserved, without any doubt, to have the evil beaten out of her. A few seconds later he opened them.

The last thing he saw was the flash of the blade.

And the last thing he heard was the gurgling of blood from his throat as his vocal chords flapped ineffectually.

‘Yes, I’m Sean Ryan. What’s going on?’

The larger of the two policemen was holding a pair of handcuffs. They were shiny, and bigger than I’d imagined such things would be. He was wearing a dark blue shirt with a shield emblem on each arm featuring a white Star of David.

Then he did something that I’d never seen done before, except on TV. He stepped in front of me, put his hand on my wrist, and had a handcuff on it before I could say a word.

‘You are under arrest for trespassing on a restricted archaeological site and violating the terms of your visitor’s visa.’