The Labyrinth of Osiris (12 page)

‘We’re applying for a loan,’ she explained. ‘I doubt we’ll get it – we’ve been turned down by every other bank – but we have to try. I’m sorry, I’m going to have to cut this short.’

Khalifa waved a hand. ‘I ought to get back to the station,’ he said.

They stood and went out into the sitting area. The sobs were coming from the baby with no arms, who was now propped at the end of one of the sofas like a large broken doll. A girl, thought Khalifa, although he couldn’t be sure. Going over, Demiana picked her up and held her to her breast. Almost immediately the crying gave way to muted whimpers. She rocked the child then handed her to the young man and led Khalifa out into the stairwell. The hunchbacked boy was back on the motorbike, his oversized mouth smeared with chocolate. When he saw them he climbed off and took Khalifa’s hand again.

‘Would you mind asking around?’ said Khalifa as they crossed the foyer to the front door. ‘See if anyone’s heard anything.’

‘Of course not. I’ll let you know.’

They stopped in the doorway. Outside a sudden wind came up, filling the air with spirals of dust and grit.

‘Good to see you, Demiana. And I’m sorry about your funding.’

‘Don’t worry about us,’ she said. ‘We’ll get by. God’ll make sure of that.’

Not so long ago Khalifa would have believed her. Now he wasn’t so sure. His home wasn’t the only thing to have crumbled these last few months.

‘I’ll e-mail a few people,’ he said. ‘See what I can do.’

‘Thank you. And please tell Zenab we’re thinking of her.’ She hesitated, then took a step towards him. ‘Yusuf, I wanted you to know . . .’

He held up a hand to quieten her. Wriggling his other hand free of the boy’s grasp, he dropped to his haunches and clasped the child’s deformed shoulders.

‘Do you believe in magic, Helmi?’

No response.

‘Shall I show you some?’

The boy gave the faintest of nods. Holding his gaze, Khalifa quietly removed the Mars bar he’d put in his pocket to eat on the way back to the station and brought it up behind the hunched back.

‘
Abracadabra!
’ he whispered, pretending to pull the bar from Helmi’s ear.

The boy laughed in delight. He was still laughing as Khalifa stepped out of the house and set off down the street. It was, he thought, one of the saddest sounds he’d ever heard.

J
ERUSALEM

Ben-Roi put in three more calls before heading over to Rivka Kleinberg’s apartment.

The first was to the office of
Matzpun ha-Am
, the magazine she had been working for down in Jaffa. He got an answerphone and left a message, leaving his mobile number and asking someone to come back to him as soon as possible.

The second call was a long shot, to El-Al. The travel bag they’d found in the cathedral suggested Kleinberg had either been on her way somewhere, or on her way back – going most like, since all the clothes in the bag had been clean. Among them he’d found an unopened pack of elastic compression stockings, which made it at least a reasonable bet her travels involved a plane – Ben-Roi’s mother wouldn’t dream of flying without her anti-embolism stockings. There were dozens of possible airlines, and they’d all have to be checked if his El-Al hunch didn’t pay off, but as Israel’s national carrier, it was the obvious place to start. He got through to someone at their head office, explained the situation and asked them to check their flight lists for a Rivka Kleinberg.

The final call was to Dov Zisky. His number went through to voicemail.

‘Zisky, it’s Ben-Roi. We’ve got ID for our victim – I need you to chase up her e-mail, landline and mobile. I’ve left all the details on your desk.’

He hesitated, wondering if he should say something else, give the kid a bit of encouragement, like Leah Shalev had asked him to. It wasn’t his style and with a curt ‘See you later’ he started to hang up, only to bring the phone to his ear again.

‘Also, while you’re in the compound, do me a favour and drop in on Archbishop Petrossian. Armen Petrossian. I spoke to him earlier and he says he doesn’t know anything, but it’s always worth another go. I’ll be interested to see what you can get out of him.’

Again he hesitated, then, with a muttered ‘Good luck’ hung up, grabbed his jacket and got on his way.

Kleinberg’s apartment was in a block on the corner of Ha-Eshkol and Ha-Amonim, a stone’s throw from the multi-coloured bustle of the Mahane Yehuda Shuk. Blagging a lift with a patrol car that was heading in that direction, Ben-Roi got out just before the market and made his way into the covered arcades. This being Friday the place was rammed, everyone rushing to stock up before
Shabbat
came in: fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, olives, cheese,
challah, halva
– every stall was walled round with a jostling press of shoppers, a fair proportion of them black-suited
Haredim
. The place had been bombed three times over the years and still the crowds came back. And why not – best fresh produce in Jerusalem.

He stopped off at a baker’s and bought a couple of
burekas
and
sofganiot
, then pushed through the market and out the other side. By the time he’d reached the apartment block at the bottom of Ha-Eshkol – a nondescript three-storey building with plant-covered balconies and a café on the ground floor – the food was gone and his stomach had stopped rumbling.

There was an intercom panel on the wall beside the block’s steel and glass door, beneath a
mezuzah
the size of a Havana cigar. Wiping his hands on his jeans, Ben-Roi stepped up to it. Some buzzers had names, other didn’t. No Rivka Kleinberg. He pressed the button marked ‘Davidovich – Caretaker’.

‘
Ken
.’

The voice was a man’s. Elderly by the sound of it.

‘Mr Davidovich?’

‘
Ken
.’

‘
Shalom
. My name’s Detective Arieh Ben-Roi of the Jerusalem—’

‘Finally you get here!’

‘Sorry?’

‘Four days ago I called.
She’elohim ya’a zora
– God help us, if this is how the police operate no wonder the country’s going down the shit-hole.’

Ben-Roi had no idea what he was talking about.

‘I’m here about Mrs Rivka Kleinberg.’

‘I know you are, you don’t have to tell me!’ The man sounded exasperated. ‘Wait there, I’ll let you in.’

The intercom clicked off. There was the sound of a door opening and footsteps shuffling along a hallway, followed by a rattle of locks. The front door swung back and Ben-Roi found himself looking down at a small, balding man in a cardigan, carpet slippers and white
yarmulke
. For some reason he was wearing a ‘Vote Shas’ badge, even though there was no election pending.

‘So what took you so long?’ he snapped.

‘I think there must be some mistake,’ said Ben-Roi. ‘I’m here because of—’

‘The threats. I know. It was
me
who called
you
, remember.
Oy vey!
’

Ben-Roi was playing catch up. ‘Someone threatened Mrs Kleinberg?’

‘What?’

‘You called the police because someone threatened Mrs Kleinberg?’

‘What the hell are you talking about,
dafook
! Kleinberg threatened me! Said she was going to have me killed, the mad bitch! I’m the caretaker, I have to keep this place clean. Her cat shits on the landing, I have every right to complain. Bang in the middle of the floor, it was. A shit the size of my fist! If I had a gun I’d have—’

‘Mrs Kleinberg was murdered last night,’ said Ben-Roi.

That shut him up.

‘Her body was discovered this morning. We’ve only just found out her address.’

The man stood there blinking, shuffling from foot to foot.

‘Size of my fist,’ was all he managed to say. ‘Right in the middle of the landing.’

Ben-Roi explained that he needed to take a look round the victim’s flat. Grumbling, the caretaker shuffled off to fetch the master keys. When he’d got them he pressed a push-button light-timer on the wall and led Ben-Roi upstairs.

‘She was a difficult woman,’ he said as they climbed. ‘No disrespect, and I’m sorry for what’s happened to her, but she was a difficult woman. Residents aren’t even supposed to have pets, it’s against the lease. But I turned a blind eye. Just keep it in your flat, I said to her. Keep it inside and I won’t say anything. But she doesn’t and it shits on the landing. And when I remonstrate she flies into a fury! My God, what a fury! The mouth on that woman! “Effing this, Effing that! You keep out of my effing business!” Shame on her. Vile woman, disgusting. No disrespect.’

They reached the top floor. Davidovich pressed another light-timer and crossed to a door at the far end of the landing, slowing en route to point out to Ben-Roi the precise spot where Kleinberg’s cat had done its business.

‘Size of my bloody fist it was,’ he muttered.

The door had a spy-hole and two locks, both mortise, one in the middle, one further up. The caretaker fumbled a key into the top lock, realized it was the wrong one, tried another, started to turn it.

‘Hang on.’

Ben-Roi grasped the caretaker’s hand and moved him back a step.

Something had caught his eye. On the floor. A fragment of matchstick, less than a centimetre long, lying on the tiles at the base of the door, up against the frame. He stooped and picked it up. It could be nothing. Then again, from what Natan Tirat had told him, Kleinberg had clearly had reason to be paranoid. And the match-in-the-door trick was a classic paranoiac’s ruse. Wedge a small fragment of match between door and frame when you go out. If the door is opened the match drops and you know someone’s been in there.

‘Have you opened this door in the last twenty-four hours?’

‘Are you crazy?’ cried the caretaker. ‘After the way she talked to me? I haven’t been anywhere near the bloody woman!’

‘Anyone else got keys?’

‘I sincerely doubt it. I had enough trouble getting these ones off her. “Mrs Kleinberg,” I told her, “I’m the caretaker, it’s in the lease, I have to have a spare set of keys in case there’s a fire or a gas leak or a pipe . . .” ’

Ben-Roi wasn’t listening. There had been no keys on the victim’s body. Which meant if someone
had
accessed the flat there was a strong possibility . . .

He pulled out his mobile and called Leah Shalev, told her to get forensics over to the flat ASAP. And some uniforms to statement the block’s residents. When he’d rung off, he took the keys from the caretaker and opened the door himself, taking care not to touch anything. As he swung it back a smell of dirty washing and fouled cat litter wafted out on to the landing.

‘
Oy vey
,’ muttered Mr Davidovich.

A corridor ran off in front of them, lino-floored and gloomy, with half-open doors to either side and, at the end, what looked like a living room. An overweight tortoiseshell cat with a bell round its neck was sitting in the middle of the corridor. It stared at them, then disappeared into the living room with a loud tinkling.

‘That’s the shitter,’ said Mr Davidovich, scowling.

There was a light switch on the wall and, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket, Ben-Roi dabbed it on. He ran his eyes back and forth. Then, thanking the caretaker for his help, stepped inside and closed the door. Out on the landing Mr Davidovich could be heard grumbling about cats and leases and how the country was going down the shit-hole.

The immediate thing that struck Ben-Roi was the level of security in the flat. In addition to the spy-hole and two mortise locks, there were, on this side of the door, a chain, two bolts – top and bottom – and, standing ready on a shelf by the door, a canister of mace spray. Kleinberg had clearly been a frightened woman.

He moved along the corridor, nudging doors open with his foot. The place was a mess, a real pigsty. Untidy owner mess, he thought, rather than the disorder left by someone having ransacked the flat, although he couldn’t be certain. There were plates of half-eaten cat food in the kitchen, a turd-filled cat-litter tray in the bathroom, clothes all over the floor of one bedroom and stacks of cardboard boxes in another.

The living room – which doubled as a study – was particularly chaotic, every available inch of space heaped with teetering mounds of papers and books and magazines and newspapers. ‘Like a bloody Exocet’ was how Natan Tirat had described Kleinberg’s journalism skills. The same, it seemed, could be said of her housekeeping. It would take him days to sift through all this. Weeks. A whole team of them weeks.

‘
Zayn
,’ he muttered as he surveyed the mayhem. Fuck.

A glass-paned door with a cat-flap in it gave out on to a balcony, where the tortoiseshell was now lying curled on a reclining chair. Beside the door was a desk. He stepped over to it. Heaps of photocopies and newspaper cuttings, a leather-backed blotter, a Rolodex, two dictionaries and a thesaurus, a ceramic cup full of biros. Also, a printer and a modem. No computer. Ben-Roi squatted and looked under the table. He could see none of the cabling you’d expect with a desktop hard drive, which suggested Kleinberg had worked off a laptop. He had a quick scout around the flat but couldn’t find one. Possibly it was buried somewhere and he’d missed it. Possibly it was at the menders. Or possibly the killer had taken it, either from here or from Kleinberg’s bag in the cathedral. Instinct told him it had been taken, although there was no way of knowing for sure.

He took out his pen and, using the butt-end, poked around the paperwork on the desk, making sure he didn’t actually touch anything. There were quite a few printouts about the Armenian community and the Cathedral of St James, which was obviously relevant, although it all seemed to be fairly generalized information. Also, a lot of stuff on prostitution and the Israeli sex industry, including several booklets on the subject from something called the Hotline for Migrant Workers. There were copies of
Matzpun ha-Am
, the magazine Kleinberg worked for; an atlas bookmarked at a map of Romania; individual fold-out maps of Israel and Egypt; numerous random cuttings on everything from computer hacking to British military decorations, the psychology of child abuse to gold smelting (three of them on that particular subject). It all seemed totally haphazard, without theme or connection. If there were clues he had no idea what they were or how to interpret them. Like looking for a needle in a haystack. Worse: like looking for a needle in a haystack when you don’t actually know what a needle looks like.