The Jerusalem Puzzle

I overheard her ordering tea. Her accent was cut glass English. I stood up and went to her side.

‘Sorry to disturb you,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t help but overhear you.’ I smiled. ‘Do you speak English?’

She looked me up and down as if she was wondering what stupidity might come out of my mouth next.

I put my hands up. ‘Don’t worry, I don’t want anything from you.’ I hesitated deliberately, then went on. ‘Well, not anything material.’

Her eyes narrowed. I imagined she was wondering if I was one of those people who suffer from the Jerusalem syndrome when they get here, imagining they’re the Messiah, with the power to change the world.

‘It’s just that I was wondering what all those people were gathering for out there. Do you know?’

She breathed in through her nose. Her nostrils pinched together. ‘Young man, I am not a news service.’ She looked down at the ground, as if to avoid speaking anymore. A waiter put a lidded paper cup in front of her.

‘Please,’ I said. ‘I need a little help.’

‘You’re a journalist, I suppose,’ she said.

I opened my mouth to deny it, but decided not to.

‘I expect you want to know about the djinn they all claim has been released at that dig.’ She sniffed again, gazed piercingly into my eyes, as if she knew what I was thinking, even if I didn’t.

‘Well, I can offer you nothing about such superstitions.’ She clutched her tea with a claw-like hand, and shot a glance over my shoulder as if checking out someone behind me.

‘That poor man was found near here, you know.’ She leaned towards me. ‘He was burnt to death. They all think it was the work of a djinn.’ She glanced out the window.

‘I hope,’ she crossed herself. ‘You’re not going to write about evil spirits on the Via Dolorosa, because there aren’t any. It’s all superstition.’

I shook my head. ‘I definitely won’t.’

‘Bless you, I hope so. It’s bad enough already here. We don’t need stories about evil spirits.’ She put her hand to her mouth, as if she’d said too much. Then she crossed herself.

‘God be with you.’ She turned away. I saw a gold cross glint at her neck. It was plain, heavy looking.

Back at the table Isabel whispered in my ear, ‘I hope you weren’t hassling her.’

‘I’ve only found out there’s a dig going on over there.’ I pointed towards the crowd. ‘And that people think a djinn has been dug up or disturbed or something. They think it has something to do with Max’s death.’

‘What the hell is a djinn?’

‘It’s a spirit, you know, a genie, if you believe in that sort of thing.’

‘You think Kaiser was working over there?’

‘Maybe.’

‘What sort of dig is it?’

I shrugged. ‘Let’s ask around, discreetly, see if anyone knows.’

It seemed such a simple idea, but it took two hours for it to sink in that we were not going to get any answers. Nothing at all, not a whisper. Four shopkeepers asked us to leave their shops, with varying intensity, after I asked them about the dig opposite Our Lady’s Chapel.

The only useful piece of information we gathered was from a policeman. After showing him my card, he said that I would have to put my request in through an Israeli university.

After we’d finished with him we went to a juice bar nearby.

‘Let’s call Simon Marcus,’ I said.

Isabel sipped her fresh orange juice. She was looking out of the window. The Via Dolorosa was almost impassable. What had been a small group was now a crowded demonstration with cheers and jeers, and young soldiers in khaki and efficient-looking policemen in blue watching everything.

I called Simon on my phone. It took three tries to get a signal.

He did not sound pleased when he answered. ‘Did you talk to the police in the lobby when you exited the hotel?’ he said, before I even had a chance to go into why I’d called him.

‘She asked where we’d been. I had to tell her.’

‘Half the people who were supposed to come yesterday didn’t turn up, Mr Ryan. I found out later that some of them were turned back at a security checkpoint in the lobby. Someone has been making stupid claims about what we’re doing.’

‘That wasn’t me. I didn’t make any claims about your work.’ I paused. ‘We need some help, Simon, please.’ There was silence for a few seconds.

‘What sort of help?’ He did not sound keen.

‘We’re trying to find out about this dig Kaiser was working on. We’re getting stonewalled.’

Isabel was motioning for me to give her the phone. ‘Isabel wants to speak to you.’ I gave the phone to her.

She spoke to him for a few minutes. It sounded as if they were getting on well. Too well.

‘That’s really nice of you to offer to meet us,’ she said, after a long gap listening to him. ‘We’re at a juice bar on the Via Dolorosa near Our Lady’s Chapel. We think this is where Kaiser was working. Do you know it?’

He said something. She thanked him again.

‘You were laying it on thick,’ I said when the call was over.

‘Do you want his help or not?’

‘Yeah, but he gets a quick put-down if he asks you for a date.’ I pointed a finger at her.

‘I’d say he’s after something else.’

I thought about that for a second. ‘You think he wants to work with the institute?’

‘Wouldn’t you? Your institute is leading the world in academic research in loads of areas. That’s what your website says anyway. Is it a lie?’

‘You were on our website?’

‘Just making sure you weren’t an imposter.’

‘Very funny.’

But she was right. He’d probably looked us up after we’d left the hotel. And he hadn’t put the phone down on me, even though he’d been angry.

I ordered another juice. We watched the people around us. There was a bunch of shaven-headed American men

at a table nearby. It looked as if they were all praying. They had their eyes closed and one of them was whispering something I couldn’t catch. There was a guy with a long beard with them. He looked like an Old Testament prophet. He was reading from a heavy gilt-edged book and muttering.

‘Djinn is a word derived from the Arabic root meaning to hide,’ said Simon an hour later, after he arrived and I’d told him what we’d learned so far.

‘It’s an interesting word,’ said Isabel.

‘It’s interesting people still believe in such things,’ I said.

Simon leant his head to one side and gave me his best condescending expression.

‘But Max’s death was evil, wasn’t it? So evil is not dead, Sean. The other words derived from the word djinn are interesting too. They are majnu-n – mad – and janin – an embryo.’

‘What sort of dig’s going on over there?’ said Isabel. She was giving him one of her super-friendly smiles. I kicked her under the table. Her smile became even warmer.

‘I can do better than that,’ he said. His chest puffed up as he spoke. ‘I asked around after you told me Kaiser was probably working here. One of my archaeologist colleagues was involved in the early days of this dig. He told me all about what they claim they’ve found.’ He paused, smiled.

‘But best of all, if this is the site I gave Max his reference for, they should be willing to let me look around. I have every reason to see the site after what happened to him.’

‘Why don’t we go over there?’ I half rose.

‘Don’t you want to know what I found out about the dig?’ said Simon.

I sat back down. ‘Go on.’

He looked around first, as if he had something important to say.

‘First, I must warn you, as my colleague warned me.’

He must have registered the look on my face, as he then said, ‘We must all be sceptical about wild claims for sites in this city. I strongly advise you do that.’ He cut the air with his hand, emphasising the words strongly advise.

‘So, what are these wild claims about the dig?’ said Isabel.

‘My friend said they’d found the basement of a first-century Roman villa.’

‘That’s it?’ I said.

‘No, no, that’s not it.’ He looked over his shoulder. The Americans were still praying. Simon moved his plastic chair forward, lowered his voice.

‘They found a reference to Pontius Pilate.’ He raised his eyebrows.

‘You mean the guy who sentenced Jesus to death?’ Isabel had a look of wonder in her eyes. She was a good actress.

‘Yes, yes.’

‘I thought there was no proof he even existed,’ I said.

‘That’s not true.’ Isabel shook her head. ‘They found an inscription to Pilate in the city of Maritima a few years ago.’

Simon smiled at her.

‘So what have they found here?’

‘Something amazing,’ he said. ‘You’re not going to believe it.’

19

The tile-covered trapdoor was heavy, even for Arap Anach. He knew Susan Hunter would be desperate by now. The light streaming in when he lifted it would probably half-blind her, if she was near it when he opened it. After twenty-four hours in darkness, your eyes can hurt when they see light again.

Her thirst would have weakened her too. She might even be unconscious and need a slap to wake her.

He pushed the lid to the side and waited. It was possible, of course, that she would come at him like a wildcat with a piece of brick in her hand.

Nothing happened.

He could see the stone stairs descending, part of the earth floor below. As he walked down, the light from the kitchen filled every corner of the basement room.

She was sitting, hugging her knees against the far wall. Her gaze was fixed on a point in front of her, as if she was trying to ignore him. No appeal came from her mouth, no despairing cry for mercy.

He was tempted to admire her for that. But the feeling didn’t last.

He put the litre bottle of water down. ‘This is for you. You are more useful to me alive than dead.’

Her head bobbed once, as if the thought of the water had brought an involuntary response from her which she’d controlled as soon as she could. She didn’t speak.

‘Here is some rice.’ He held up a plastic tub of rice mixed with egg. ‘And now you will do one more thing for me.’

Her eyes were on him. They were the eyes of a cat watching a predator many times its size.

He walked towards her, put a sheet of paper on the ground, a lead pencil beside it.

‘You will write a few sentences as to why you came to Israel on this paper and then sign your name.’

He stepped back. The eyes followed him.

‘I hope I can release you soon, Dr Hunter,’ he said. ‘You have suffered enough and I do not want to hold you any longer than is necessary. I am negotiating for your release right now. After you write what I say, I will send it to the people I am talking with.’

She didn’t move.

He picked up the water bottle, held it in the crook of his arm with the container of rice, then turned, heading to the stairs.

‘This is what they asked for, proof that you are still alive. Maybe you will be more cooperative tomorrow,’ he said. ‘When you are a bit weaker.’

‘I’ll do it.’ Her voice was still strong. That was good.

It took her only a minute to write the few sentences he dictated, adding her signature. Then she drank greedily from the bottle. She didn’t even reach for the plastic tub, but he left it with her anyway.

Upstairs, after he’d pushed the lid back and the floor tiles looked perfect again, he went out to the iron brazier on the patio. It stood four feet off the ground and had three legs. Its bowl, hanging at the top from a thin iron chain, was blackened from use and age.

He’d bought it many years before from a man who claimed it was found in a temple to Ba’al discovered only a few hundred feet from where he was. It was the reason he’d rented the olive farm and the old Ottoman farmhouse. The bowl was in the shape of a pair of hands cupped together.

He’d performed the ceremony a few dozen times. It helped to remove all doubt. He hadn’t suffered from the affliction for a long time, but it was important to still carry out the ceremony. It reminded him of what was important, that the end justifies the means.

The ancients knew how the human mind worked. When tribes vied for dominance they needed a ceremony to help their people enter into a mindset where it was enjoyable to kill another human, to vanquish your enemy, to watch someone suffer, then die and relish it.

It was a ceremony that harked back to a time before Mohammad, before Christ, before Moses even, with all their soft talk about compassion and loving thy neighbour.

He crumpled the paper Susan had written on, placing it in the bowl. Then he took the knife that hung from the top of one of the legs, put the tip in the candle flame, and pricked the back of his hand. A drop of blood welled. He tipped his hand so the drop fell onto the paper. It made a deep red stain.

He touched the beeswax candle burning nearby to the paper. In seconds it was gone. Only ash remained. He pinched it with his fingers, smearing it on his face. Everything was done now. Her hopes had been raised. It was time.

The end game could begin. Death was waiting for her starring role.

20

‘Pontius Pilate was the Governor of the province of Judaea at the time of Jesus. Roman governors in the early Empire in eastern provinces kept all the records of their term of office, including records of executions, at their villa for security reasons.’

Simon stopped. The hubbub of the street outside washed over us. I looked up as a Japanese tourist and his wife entered the juice bar. They looked alarmed by the demonstration outside. Isabel nudged me.

‘My colleague, after a little arm twisting, told me they’d found a reference to Pontius Pilate at this dig.’ Simon was talking quietly, almost whispering.

‘Amazing,’ said Isabel. ‘Pontius Pilate!’

‘Shussh,’ he said. He held his hand up and looked around quickly to see if anyone was listening.

‘It’s not confirmed yet.’

‘What’s not confirmed?’ Mr Get-straight-to-the-point, that was me.

He leaned closer. He was whispering now. ‘Apparently they’ve found a cache of scrolls under some Roman-era rubble. There’s a layer of soot above the rubble, which means the site has most likely lain undisturbed since 70 AD, when this part of Jerusalem was destroyed, after Tacitus put down the great Jewish revolt. This was all well before Islam started. Getting access to such a cache would be a wonderful thing for an archaeologist.’ He made a low humming noise.

‘Do those people out there know anything about this?’ I gestured towards the crowd outside. They were a little way up the street, but they were still close enough for us to hear the chanting they’d started.

‘Don’t know,’ said Simon.

I had no idea what they were saying, but there was real tension in the air. Almost everyone in the juice bar was craning their neck every few seconds to see what was going on. Outside on the street people were hurrying past.

I leaned forward, stretching until I could see the demonstration. The crowd had grown since the last time I’d looked. It was totally blocking the Via Dolorosa now.

‘What are they chanting?’ said Isabel.

‘They’re saying that no one should be allowed to dig in this area,’ said Simon. ‘They’re saying that there used to be a Mamluk madrasa over there, that it was burnt down during a revolt five hundred years ago with all its students in it. They say the dig is desecrating a gravesite.’ He finished his juice noisily.

‘Is it?’ I said.

‘There are bones under every house in this city,’ he said. ‘I’m surprised they got permission for this dig at all.’

‘One thing’s for sure,’ I said. ‘A hell of a lot of people will be interested in this site.’

He held his hand flat on the table. ‘I have no idea what the site will prove. But you are right, there are people who will be worried about any records from Pontius Pilate’s era, in case they might show that the truth of that time is any different to what the Bible says.’

‘Maybe there’ll be universal rejoicing,’ I said.

‘And you still think you can get us onto this dig?’ said Isabel.

Simon looked from her to me, then back again. I glanced at Isabel. Her black hair was tied up in a bun, but it was still unruly looking with odd hairs sticking out. She looked good with it that way.

‘Come on then, let’s see if I can.’ Simon stood.

We walked all the way around to the other end of the lane from where the crowd was demonstrating. The lanes behind the Via Dolorosa were only four to six feet wide in places. The high walls of the buildings, constructed mainly out of sandstone, made them seem even narrower too. As did the windows, which were barred as if we were walking beside a prison, and mostly too far up to reach no matter how high you could jump.

Many of them were shuttered anyway, with thick sand-coloured planks. Some had iron bars too. Most of the thin, half-width, wooden doorways had one or two worn sandstone steps leading up to them. In some places canvas awnings and stone arches high up blocked the light out completely.

This wasn’t a medieval warren like you’d find in European cities. It was a Biblical-era warren.

A group of young men pushed past us. Then three more followed. They were all in a hurry.

After making another turn, we found the building they had come from. It looked like a school of some sort. Young men were hurrying out of it with bags under their arms or backpacks on their backs.

After we passed the school there were less people about. The lane we turned into as we circled back to the Via Dolorosa was narrower than any of the others we’d passed through. It seemed as if we were being squeezed by the buildings rising up on either side. There wouldn’t be much we could do if someone with a knife held us up here, demanding our valuables.

Finally we turned another corner and our way was blocked by a shoulder-high blue plastic barrier. There were Israeli soldiers in khaki behind it. Their black helmets had see-through plastic wrapped around them to cover their faces.

As we came up to the barrier, we were the only other people in the lane beside the soldiers. Simon waved an ID card in the air. One of the soldiers shouted something at him. Simon held the card over the barrier. Half a minute later the barrier moved back and to the side.

Beyond it, up against the wall behind the soldiers, was a stack of plastic shields. Two of the soldiers had what looked like black paintball guns in their hands. They were probably tasers or something worse. They looked as if they were prepared for almost anything.

Simon said something in Hebrew as one of the soldiers examined his ID card. It was passed to the oldest looking soldier, perhaps all of twenty-two or twenty-three years old, who pushed his helmet back and started talking fast in Hebrew.

Simon replied calmly. Then he turned to us.

‘Have you got your passports with you?’ he said.

I took mine out of the back pocket of my trousers. I held it in front of me with the photograph page open. The soldier took it from me, peered at it, looking at each page. Luckily it was a new one. It had no stamps that he wouldn’t like.

Isabel took hers and a small bottle of water out of her bag. That action brought four guns to bear on us.

Simon threw up his hands, said something that ended in ‘Ayyyyyeeeee.’

Isabel showed them her passport with one hand, drank from the bottle of water with the other, then passed it to me.

The soldier took Isabel’s passport, looked through it for what seemed like ages. Eventually he passed it back to her. Then they let us pass.

Seconds later we turned a corner and could see the high steel barrier blocking the other end of the lane. There was a group of helmeted Israeli soldiers between us and the barrier. I could hear the chanting in Arabic beyond it.

Suddenly a pair of hands appeared and a walnut brown face peered over the top of the barrier. The soldiers standing on this side banged near the hands with metal truncheons. The face dropped back, but a cry went up, as if the man had been injured, or maybe it was the sight of us beyond the barrier that had set him off.

Whatever the reason, the next thing a shower of stones came over the barrier raining in our direction.

I put my arm up to protect Isabel.

The door we were in front of, a narrow one with a sandstone step, was like the others in the lane, closed tight. It had a notice stuck to it with blue tape around the edges. Simon banged the door. Nothing happened. Stones were dropping around us.

Simon banged on the door again, harder this time. Then it opened and we were looking at a man who took up the whole width of the doorway. He had a freckly-gingery look, ginger eyebrows and ginger hair. His skin was pale pink. And his shirt, which he was bulging out of, had a faded red stripe around the middle.

‘What do you want?’ Mr Ginger said, in a most unfriendly manner. He sounded as if he was from deep in the American south. For a second I thought I might be able to call on a little empathy, seeing how I held a US passport. Then he opened his mouth again and almost snarled at us.

‘No visitors,’ he said. He closed the door, fast. Stones fell around us.

‘Ow,’ said Isabel. She clutched at her side.

I banged the door with my fist. It rocked on its hinges. ‘Open up, for God’s sake,’ I shouted.

I banged the door again and again.

Then it opened. ‘I told you, no visitors,’ said the friendly Mr Ginger.

Simon held up his ID card. ‘I am entitled to come in and inspect this dig. I’m a professor with the Hebrew University. I gave a reference to Max Kaiser to enable him to get on this dig. I need to see where he was working, because of what has happened. These people are my colleagues.’ He gestured towards us.

Ginger threw his hands in the air. ‘We’ve no time to give tours.’

‘We won’t be long. If I have to come back with my friend from the Antiquities Authority, it will take us a lot longer. He is a stickler for sites being run properly.’

Ginger frowned. ‘You gave Max his reference?’ he said. Simon nodded.

A look of recognition replaced the suspicion.

‘Are you working on a red heifer project?’ he said.

‘Yes.’

‘Max spoke about you.’

Simon smiled, thinly. ‘I don’t want to have to come back. You know who I am. Let us in.’

Ginger sighed. ‘Okay, come in. But your visit will have to be quick.’

He stood aside.

I went in first. Isabel followed me. Ginger shouted at us not to touch anything.

‘Be very careful,’ he said. ‘Visitors are not covered by any insurance.’ His words echoed through the building.

‘And don’t take any pictures. And I want a word with you.’ I looked back. He’d put a hand up to stop Simon in the doorway.

‘Have a look around,’ called Simon. ‘I’ll be right behind you.’

We were inside. He’d done it. There was a muffled throbbing coming from somewhere below. A stairwell beckoned to us from the other side of the large dusty room we were in. One part of it led down. The other part led up. Describing the room as dusty would be a bit of an understatement.

It was dusty in the way a sandpit is dusty. There were drifts of sand and cobwebs in each corner, and a thick layer of it on the floor with boot marks and channels in it. There was a heap of dust near the stairs too, as if that section had been swept down from the upstairs rooms.

Had the house been abandoned for decades? It certainly looked like it. We headed down the stairs.

The room below was darker, full of cobwebs. It had no stairs going down, just a three-foot-wide hole in the floor. There was light streaming from the hole. The throbbing noise was coming from it. I looked down into it. Isabel was behind me. I couldn’t hear Ginger and Simon talking anymore. I could hear other voices, European voices. Someone was speaking German down there. The replying voice was German too. Who the hell was on this dig?