Julia Sasson was now back in England along with Nat, Romy and the twins. She had heard about Daniel’s arrest and subsequent escape and had tried to contact him, but it went straight to voice mail. Although he had always been more of a scholar than a man of action, she knew from recent escapade in the middle east that her older brother could handle himself in a crisis. But not being able to contact him was worrying. She wanted the reassurance of hearing his voice. So far it had eluded her. She sensed however, that he would get in touch in his own time.
In the meantime, however, she had her children to look after. That was her immediate priority. As it was still school holiday, she was taking them on an outing to Holders Hill Park. She had brought with her the usual collection of footballs, Frisbees, tennis rackets and tennis balls.
She knew that they’d be hungry — probably sooner rather than later — but the cafe in the park was expensive, like almost all local monopolies. So she brought along a big collection of sandwiches, including egg and onions, smoked salmon and chicken schnitzel. She also brought along several bottles of water as well as grape juice and apple-and-pear juice.
It had taken her time to find a parking space, but she had driven around, keeping her keen eyes open until she spotted a car about to leave and then she pounced. She got them out of the car and marshalled them together before using the key fob to look the car doors. With three children, even a simple task like crossing a narrow side-street was fraught with peril.
As she crossed the road, she noticed a tall man dressed in the black attire of some ultra-orthodox sect. They were very near to Golders Green and ultra-orthodox Jews went to the park just like others. And the fact that he looked away from her when she met his eyes was typical of the ultra-orthodox. According to their belief system, they are not supposed to stare at women — especially with lust in their hearts — but they sometimes didn’t quite live up to their highest ideals.
But what bothered Julia was the feeling that it wasn’t just a momentary glance.
She couldn’t escape the feeling that he had been staring at her… and that he had been doing so for some time.
Chapter 30
“This really isn’t a good idea Daniel.”
“Why? If we use a mobile they can’t trace it.”
“They can.”
“Only if they know I’m going to call him, which I very much doubt.”
Daniel and Sarit were arguing. He was holding the mobile phone that he had found there. She wondered whether she could take it from him by force. She was well trained in Krav Maga. But he looked pretty fit and could probably fight too if he had to. Besides, it wasn’t her duty to protect him from himself. Now that he had given them the file, he had no further obligations towards them — or they to him. If he wanted to put himself in jeopardy, that was his right. Except of course, that she might then have to leave.
She decided to explain it to him more clearly.
“Look, if you call him, they can’t trace it now. But you don’t know how he’s going to react. If he tells the police then they’ll go round and get his phone details and then get the phone company to provide them with the records. Then they’ll go to the mobile phone company and do a trace to see which ground stations and relay stations the call went through.”
“Yes, but if I withhold the caller ID with 141 then they won’t be able to get the number of this phone. So they won’t know what to trace.”
“Trust me, they can.”
“Okay, but I need to contact him.”
“Okay, I’ll tell you what I’ll do… Give me a couple of minutes and I’ll arrange with Dovi to route a computer call through Israel.
Five minutes later he was making the call.
“Professor Hynds speaking.”
Edward Hynds, Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge was leading the dig at the site in Arbury Banks.
“Hallo Professor Hynds, my name is Daniel Klein. I’m a Professor of Semitic Languages at UCL.”
“Yes,” said Hynds cautiously.
“I don’t know if you’ve heard of me but — ”
“Do you mean your ‘ancient’ Egyptian adventures or your more recent ones with the police?”
And with that the ice was broken.
“I guess that means you’ve heard of both.”
“It would have been very hard not to.”
“First of all, I should explain that I had nothing to do with the death of Martin Costa. I mean I was there when the fire started — I was lured into a trap — but I didn’t kill him.”
“It wouldn’t make any difference to me if you did. He was a boil on the backside of humanity and his death was no great loss to humanity in general or the academic community in particular.”
Daniel felt relieved.
“I assume then that he wasn’t part of the official dig team.”
“Lord no! I wouldn’t have let him come within a mile of the dig. And if I’d known that he had an interest in the subject, I would have taken out an injunction against him.”
“So he didn’t openly approach the site.”
“Again, certainly not.”
“How would he have been able to get his hands on an artefact from the site?”
“Well first of all, any potentially valuable items from the site are taken immediately under tight security back to Cambridge.”
Daniel interrupted to tell the professor about the picture of the manuscript Costa had sent by SMS. Hynds picked up the thread, speaking in a tone that Daniel noticed was quite slow and measured, as if he were a man to weigh up each word carefully before letting it pass his lips. There was also a kind of baritone depth to the professor’s vocal pitch.
“That’s what I’m coming to. A few days before the incident that you got caught up in, we had a night-time breach of security at the dig site. The ground had been disturbed and it was clear that one particular area was dug considerably deeper than the others. It appears that some one was looking for something very specific — and based on what you’ve just told me, it looks like they found it.”
“Can I ask you this professor: although the manuscript appears to have some Hebrew letters on it, I can’t be sure that it is actually Hebrew… or Aramaic. What I was wondering is what are the chances that the manuscript Costa found might have been written in some local British language and alphabet?”
Hynds thought about this for a few seconds before responding.
“The local Brythonic tribes — Iceni and Trinovantes — didn’t have any writing systems of their own. I mean not at the time when we believe this site dates to. We believe that the site may have started in the late bronze age, but continued into the early iron age about two thousand years ago. Local writing systems came later.”
“What about the priestly classes?”
“In due time, the Druids developed a writing system. But throughout the time period this site was used — as far as we know — they relied on their great oral tradition.”
“But surely the more educated among them would have developed some sort of writing skill. I mean in most societies, the political leaders, the kings and feudal overlords, would have needed a writing system for bureaucratic purposes.”
Again, Hynds held his tongue for a few seconds, to give a more considered answer.
“Well of course many of the people spoke Latin. Not just the leaders. Britannia been occupied since 43 AD. And within ten years of that, the more educated among the Britons — kings and leaders — could read and write in Latin as well. But it goes without saying that they used the Roman alphabet for that purpose. They would have had no reason to write Latin in any other alphabet, even if they’d had one.”
“And presumably they also didn’t write their own local languages in the Roman alphabet.”
“There’s never yet been a case of such writings being found. Now admittedly, we haven’t really discovered any writing dating back to that period — other than the writing on coins which is always in Latin. Anything written on papyrus or parchment hasn’t survived. And they didn’t write on stele like the Egyptians or clay tablets like the Sumerians and Akkadians.”