The Last Testament Part 9

That was when she heard the creak of a footstep on the floorboards outside. Maggie wanted to cry out for help. But some reflex squeezed her throat and prevented the words from escaping.

Now the footsteps were heading nearer and Maggie was frozen. The kitchen door swung open. She looked round to see a man's shape filling the doorframe and, in the shadow, the clear outline of a gun.

This much she had learned from roadblocks in Afghanistan: if a gun is pointed at you, you raise your hands in the air and become very still. If you have to speak, you do so very quietly.

With her arms up, Maggie stared at the barrel of the revolver that was now aimed at her. In the gloom she could see next to nothing.

The gunman's arm made a sudden movement: Maggie braced herself for a bullet. But instead of firing, he reached to his left, his hand finding the light switch. In a flash, she saw himand he saw the lifeless woman on the floor.

'Eema?'

He fell to his knees, the gun falling from his hands. He began to do as Maggie had done, tugging at the arm, touching the body. Except now, kneeling beside it, he let his head sink onto the corpse's back, his head shaking in a way Maggie had never seen before. It was as if every part of his being was crying.

'I found her here no more than three minutes ago, I swear.' She hoped this man recognized her as quickly as she had recognized him.

He said nothing, just remained hunched over the body of his dead mother. She tiptoed around him, getting out of his way and closer to the door.

His face stayed hidden, his head still trembling in a dry sob over the body of his mother. But his hand was moving, reaching without sight for the revolver he had dropped. Maggie stood rigid, as his arm lifted in a smooth, almost mechanical arc until, even without looking, the gun was aimed straight at her face.

She ran.

In an instant, she had yanked the door open and darted into the hallway, making for the front door. Surely he wouldn't have been crazy enough to fire, would he?

Which is when she heard the whizzing sound, the one she had learned to fear in her very core. It strangely came before the bang of the gun being fired, even though, she would recall later, that made no sense at all. But it was the whizz, the whoosh of air sliced by a bullet, that froze her. There, in the hallway, facing the door, she stopped dead.

'Turn around.'

She did as she was told. Her mind raced. One thought, almost euphoric, sped fastest. Good: Now I will have a chance to explain everything! Good: Now I will have a chance to explain everything! But, not far behind, was a gloomier notion. But, not far behind, was a gloomier notion. He's out of his mind with grief! He won't listen to a word I say! He's out of his mind with grief! He won't listen to a word I say!

She tried anyway. Negotiating was a reflex, even, she now discovered, when her own life was on the line. 'I was trying to see if I could save her.'

He lifted the gun so that it was aimed at her face.

'I came here to tell your mother something. About your father. The front door was open. And then I found her, in there.'

The gun stayed locked onto her. The man holding it seemed strangely at odds with the weapon, even though he handled it expertly. He certainly had the build for it: he was tall and she could see the muscles of his arms were taut and flexed. But his eyes were not those of a gunman. They were too curious, as if they were meant to scan the pages of a book rather than a.s.sess a target. His nose and mouth were substantial enough, but they suggested conversation, inquiry even. She guessed this was a man more p.r.o.ne to talking than shooting. Or not talking, so much as listening.

'Please,' Maggie began, gambling that she had a.s.sessed him correctly. 'I came here to help. If I had come here to do harm, do you think I would be just standing here? Wouldn't I be wearing a mask so that no one could see me? Wouldn't I have a gun? Wouldn't I have killed you the moment I saw you?'

The gun wavered, the hand now shaking ever so slightly.

'I swear to you, someone else did this. Not me.'

Slowly, no faster than the sweep of the second hand on a wrist.w.a.tch, the arm lowered. The gun steadily arcing downward, away from her. But only once he had stood with his arm at his side for what felt like a full minute did she dare to move.

She inched towards him slowly, her eyes never leaving his. Then she surprised him and herself by extending both her arms, placing them around his shoulders until, still stiff and unmoving, he was wrapped in her embrace. She held him like that for a minute, then another minute and then another, the thump of her heart gradually quietening, while he stood as still as marble.

Eventually she persuaded him to sit down, while she repeated that he had suffered a terrible shock, that he needed to give himself time to absorb what had happened, to think straight. She knew he wasn't listening but she hoped that he would at least, like other angry men before him, be soothed by the sound of her voice. She wanted to make him a cup of sweet tea, or at least fetch a gla.s.s of water. But she knew she could suggest no such thing. That would mean going back into the kitchen.

It was he who decided to go in. 'I want to see her again,' he said. He had been gone perhaps five minutes, when Maggie heard an almost animal howl of pain. She ran into the kitchen, where the corpse of Rachel Guttman still lay slumped on the floor. Her son was standing over her, except where he had been pale, his face was now flushed red.

'What is it?'

He held out his hand. In it was a single sheet of paper. She stepped forward to take it.

Ani kol kach mitsta'eret sh'ani osah l'chem et zeh.

[image]

Hebrew, typewritten. 'I'm afraid I can't-'

'It says, "I am so sorry to do this to all of you."'

'Right.'

'Not right. Wrong!'

'I don't understand.'

'This is BULLs.h.i.+T!'

Maggie jumped back, shocked by the volume of his voice. 'This is meant to make us think my mother killed herself. She would never, ever do such a thing. Never.'

Maggie wished they were back in the other room, sitting down. Who knew what he might do here, with his dead mother at his feet? She still hadn't dared ask his name.

'She gave her whole life to looking after us. And, since Sat.u.r.day, she was desperate to do something, to take action. You saw it yourself. Remember how she took hold of you. She wanted your help, to finish off whatever it was my father started. Because she believed something important was at stake.'

'A matter of life and death, she said.' As she recalled Rachel Guttman's words, and the way the old lady had gripped her wrist, Maggie felt a twinge of guilt: this woman had tried to enlist her as an ally and she had done nothing.

'Yes. Does someone plead for something to be done and then do,' he gestured down at the body on the ground, unable to look at it, 'this?'

'Maybe she had given up. Lost hope. Perhaps she got frustrated that n.o.body was listening to what she was saying.'

'So she types a note on a computer. My mother, who does not know how to switch on the TV. And saying sorry to "all" of us. Not calling me and my sister by name, or at least leaving a note to "both" of us. Believe me, I know my mother. She did not do this.'

'So who did?'

'I don't know, but someone very, very wicked-' He stopped himself before he choked. He was standing close now, almost looming over Maggie. His head of thick dark hair was scruffier than when she had seen him here yesterday, as if he had spent the intervening twenty-four hours running his hands through it over and over again. She pictured him, hunched over, bent double with grief, his head cradled in his hands. And that was before this terrible thing had happened to his mother.

He gathered himself. 'Wicked, but also very stupid. Imagine it: a typewritten suicide note.'

'Why would anyone want to kill your mother?'

'For the same reason my mother wanted to talk to you. Remember, she said that my father knew something very important, something that would change everything. Remember?'

'I remember.'

'So someone thought she knew this thing too. And they wanted to kill her before she told anyone else.'

'But she insisted she didn't know what it was. She said your father wouldn't tell her. For her own safety.'

'I know that. But whoever did this was not so sure.'

'I see.' She looked down at the floor, without meaning to. 'Look, do you think perhaps we ought to call the police, get an ambulance maybe?'

'First, you tell me why you came here.'

'It...it seems ridiculous now. It's not urgent. Really, you have so much to deal-'

'I don't believe someone working for the American government drives to a private home late at night unless there is a good reason. So you just tell me what business you had with my mother, OK?'

'Perhaps I ought to go, leave you some time to be alone.'

He reached for her arm, yanking her back. The same spot on her wrist where his mother had grabbed her a day earlier. 'You have to tell me what you know. I, I-'

Ordinarily, Maggie would have slapped a man who had dared grab her that way. But she could see this was not an act of aggression, but one of desperation. The composure, the haughtiness even, she had seen at the house yesterday had gone now. For the first time, Maggie saw the eyes of this grieving son glisten.

'If you can trust me enough to tell me your name, I'll tell you what I know.'

'My name is Uri.'

'OK, Uri. My name is Maggie. Maggie Costello. Let's sit down and talk.'

Calmly, Maggie filled a gla.s.s with water from the tap and handed it over. Then she led him back out of the kitchen and sat him down, her body reeling from the adrenaline.

'You think what happened tonight has something to do with this information, of your father's.'

Uri Guttman nodded.

'Do you think your father was killed deliberately, because of that information?'

'I don't know. Some people say so. I don't know. But I tell you what: I will find out who did this to my family. I will find them and I will make them pay.'

She wanted to tell him that his mother's death was almost certainly the result of horrible, intense grief. His father had been killed accidentally and now his mother had taken her own life, as simple as that. But she couldn't say that because she wasn't sure she believed it.

Instead, she told him what she had just discovered. That Ahmed Nour, the Palestinian archaeologist slain earlier that day, had secretly worked with his father.

At first, he refused to accept it. He sat back in his chair with the pretence of a smile, cruel and bitter. No way, he said more than once. An anagram? It was absurd. But once Maggie had explained that his father and Nour had both trained as specialists in biblical archaeology, and once she had mentioned the unusual but recurring ceramic pattern, he fell quiet. It was clear that Maggie could have come up with no more shocking fact about s.h.i.+mon Guttman. A lifelong mistress, a teenage lover, a secret familyshe guessed Uri could have accepted any one of those revelations more readily than that his father might have had a working partners.h.i.+p with a Palestinian.

'Look, if I'm right, it means that there may indeed be something going on here. Whatever secret it was your father was carrying, it seems to bring great harm to those who know it.'

'But my mother knew nothing.'

'Like you said, maybe whoever did this didn't know thator didn't want to risk it.'

'You think the same people who killed this Palestinian killed my mother?'

'I don't know.'

'Because if they did, then I know who will be the next to die.'

'Who?'

'Me.'

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

APRIL 2003, B 2003, BAGHDAD.

Mahmoud was regretting this decision. He should be above this now, he said to himself; as he was thrown into the air yet again, his bottom landing on the hard plastic seat of the bus as it hit the thousandth b.u.mp in the road. He should be the Mr Big who hired runners, yet here he was, working as a humble courier himself. Ten hours down, five more to go on the clapped-out old charabanc they laughingly referred to as the Desert Rocket.

For the last couple of weeks he had been working on a different business model. He would sit in the cafe on Mutannabi Street, waiting for pieces to come his wayand, let Allah be praised, they kept comingand then pa.s.s them on via one of the countless boys who had emerged, like rats from a sewer, the instant Saddam was toppled. Mahmoud marvelled at the sudden proliferation of these teenage entrepreneurs. No one had planned for it; no one had ever discussed it. There had been no training; not even a rumour that there would be money to be made the day you-know-who was gone. Yet here they all came, slipping out of every backstreet and flea-ridden alley.

The trade was brisk, with mobile phones the preferred means of communication. Mahmoud would call, say, Tariq, who he knew had a s.h.i.+pment going to Jordan that night, telling him that he had a couple of items that needed transportation. He would hand those to one of the boys, who would run them across town. Then Tariq would pa.s.s them onto another runner, who would take the Desert Rocket to Amman. There he would meet al-Naasri or one of his rivals among the big Jordanian dealers. Al-Naasri would work out a price, and the courier would take the cash back to Iraq. Thanks to the phone network, the runners knew better than to slice off a cut. If they did, there were no shortages of ditches along the Tigris for them to fall into.

Mahmoud had been doing that profitably for a while. Business had been constant since the statue came down, but he had been close to the trade for longer than that. It was not spoken of in whispers; it was not spoken of at all, but there had been somehow should he put it?movement of antiquities since the first war, the mother of all battles, back in 1991. Until then, looting had been unheard of, but the American bombardment loosened things up a little: even Saddam couldn't keep an eye on everything when there were Cruise missiles falling from the sky. Not that he did not come down hard on the guilty men. Mahmoud, like every other 'dealer' in Iraq, remembered the fate of the eleven men found guilty of sawing the face off a magnificent Mesopotamian winged bull: the beast itself was too heavy to transport anywhere. Saddam made sure it was known that he signed the death warrant for that crime himself. And, with characteristic flair, it was Saddam who decreed that these thieves should suffer the same fate they had inflicted on the mighty bronze creature. Their executioner duly took an electric saw and sliced the faces off each one of them in turn. And each, waiting for his own death, had had to watch as it came to his fellows. When the eleventh man was killed, he had already witnessed the punishment that awaited him ten times over. of antiquities since the first war, the mother of all battles, back in 1991. Until then, looting had been unheard of, but the American bombardment loosened things up a little: even Saddam couldn't keep an eye on everything when there were Cruise missiles falling from the sky. Not that he did not come down hard on the guilty men. Mahmoud, like every other 'dealer' in Iraq, remembered the fate of the eleven men found guilty of sawing the face off a magnificent Mesopotamian winged bull: the beast itself was too heavy to transport anywhere. Saddam made sure it was known that he signed the death warrant for that crime himself. And, with characteristic flair, it was Saddam who decreed that these thieves should suffer the same fate they had inflicted on the mighty bronze creature. Their executioner duly took an electric saw and sliced the faces off each one of them in turn. And each, waiting for his own death, had had to watch as it came to his fellows. When the eleventh man was killed, he had already witnessed the punishment that awaited him ten times over.

Despite that deterrent, some grand pieces did get out. Mahmoud never saw, but he had heard about, the section of a relief taken from the ancient Palace of Nimrod. Rather poignantly, Mahmoud thought, it depicted slaves in chains. He imagined that image, smuggled out to the West by the suffocated people of Iraq: it was like a distress signal.

The route then as now was Jordan and the conduit, then as now, was the al-Naasri family. The traffic in treasures along that path had never been heavier than it was now; trinkets and pots from every age of man, from the eras of the a.s.syrians and the Babylonians, the Sumerians and the Persians and the Greeks. Mostly it was fragments that were taken, though the tale was told of Tariq's boys who lugged an entire statue to Amman, stas.h.i.+ng it in the boot of the Desert Rocket. Apparently they slipped the driver a dollar or twoand told him their cargo was only a corpse. Such was the topsy-turvy morality of Baghdad in the spring of 2003.

Mahmoud had sent nearly a dozen runners to Amman in the last fortnight, each of them following the route he had taken himself when he was starting out. But something told him he was due a visit in person. He needed to see al-Naasri eyeball-to-eyeball. With business expanding at the rate it was, and the sums at stake, there were bound to be opportunities to bend the rules. Mahmoud wasn't going to be a sucker. He wanted to be sure al-Naasri was playing it straight.

So he had filled a holdall with his latest h.o.a.rd of three or four items, including a couple of ancient seals, that clay tablet he had got from the nervous man in the cafe and the piece de resistance piece de resistance, a pair of gold-leaf earrings which, though it was anyone's guess, his valuer had estimated to be four and a half thousand years old. He wasn't about to entrust those to some spotty fourteen-year-old from Saddam City. All the more reason why he was spending fifteen hours in the company of the sputtering bone-trembler that was the Desert Rocket.

He had dozed off in the final hours of the journey, waking up with a start when the bus juddered to a halt. He had kept the bag on his lap throughout, the handles entwined around his wrists lest the thieving sc.u.m around him get any ideas. Even before he had opened his eyes, he had patted the bag, to make sure he could still feel the shapes within; he tested its weight. As for the earrings, he knew they were somewhere completely safe.

It was midnight by the time he got off the bus. He hadn't realized how bad it smelled until he was off it, the odour released in waves as the unwashed, exhausted pa.s.sengers emerged into the night. He breathed in the Amman air, inhaling the excitement of a place that wasn't Baghdad. Last time he had been here it had been even more thrilling: handling bank notes that did not have his his face on them, seeing statues that depicted men other than face on them, seeing statues that depicted men other than him him. There were no real elections here either, but at least the Jordanians had not shamed themselves by approving their tyrant with a one hundred per cent vote.

One of al-Naasri's boys was waiting for him, bored and listless by the railings. He said nothing, nor did he offer to take Mahmoud's bagnot that Mahmoud would have let himas he set off for the short walk down King Hussein Street. Before long there were signs for the Roman Amphitheatre, which meant the souk souk was close by. As they headed down the cobbled alleys, the boy increased his speed; Mahmoud had to run to keep up. Some kind of mind game, Mahmoud decided. was close by. As they headed down the cobbled alleys, the boy increased his speed; Mahmoud had to run to keep up. Some kind of mind game, Mahmoud decided.

Most of the stalls were closed at this time of night, their steel shutters down. The boy was turning through the market, twisting left and right, so fast that Mahmoud knew he would never be able to find his way out alone. He reached inside his suit jacket, under his arm, to check that his dagger was still there, in its leather holster.

Eventually Mahmoud caught a smell: fresh pitta bread. There must be a night bakery near here. Sure enough, the row after row of empty, unmanned stalls was broken by a cl.u.s.ter of lights just around the next corner. Tinny music was playing on a radio; men were sitting outside, drinking coffee from small cups and mint tea from gla.s.ses. Mahmoud sighed his relief. This felt like home.

The runner made his way inside, Mahmoud following. He reached the table where a man was sitting alone. The runner nodded curtly and left just as quickly. From beginning to end, he had not said a word.

Mahmoud did not recognize the man at the table. He was too young, younger than Mahmoud himself. 'I'm sorry, perhaps there has been some mistake. I am looking for Mr al-Naasri.'