Sam Bourne - The Last Testament

He proceeded to the next one, a tally of livestock in a farm in Tikrit. And somehow he ploughed through the rest, though he felt as if he were performing the entire task under water. The hardest moment, he knew, was yet to come.

He was no poker player. He had no idea if he would be able to conceal his emotions. He assumed he would not. His life was spent speaking from the heart, deliberately displaying all the conviction he could muster. He was not a politician, practised in the art of dissembling, but a campaigner, whose stock in trade had to be sincerity. And this man, Aweida, was a market trader: he had seen every trick; he knew how to read any customer instantly, upping the price for those who feigned indifference, dropping it for those whose lack of interest was genuine. He would see through Guttman instantly.

Then it came to him.

‘So the usual terms?’ he said, his throat parched. ‘I can pick one?’

‘As we agreed,’ said Aweida.

‘Good. I’ll have that one.’ He pointed at the ninth tablet he had examined.

‘The letter from a mother to her son?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, but Professor, you know that was the only one of any special interest. All the rest are so, how shall I say, day-to-day.’

‘Which is why I want that one. Come on, your buyers won’t care one way or the other.’

‘Ordinarily that might be true. But I have a collector coming in from New York in the next few days. A young man, coming here with his own art expert. He is obviously in a position to spend some money. This story-a mother and a son-will perhaps appeal to him.’

‘So tell him that that’s the story of that one.’ Guttman pointed at the tablet engraved with the schoolboy punishment.

‘Professor. These buyers get such items independently verified. I cannot lie. It would destroy me.’

‘I see that, Afif. But I am a scholar. This is what interests me historically. The rest are very ordinary.’ He was aware of the sweat on his upper lip. He wasn’t sure how long he could keep this up.

‘Please, Professor. I do not want to beg you. But you know what these years have done to us. We are earning a fraction of what we once could make. This month I suffered the indignity of accepting money from a cousin in Beirut. With this sale-’

‘OK, Afif. I understand. I don’t want to push you too hard. It’s fine.’ He reached for the tablet that began I Abraham, son of Terach . ‘I’ll take this one.’

‘The inventory?’

‘Yes. Why not? It’s not so dull.’

Guttman rose to his feet, slipping the tablet in his jacket pocket as casually as he could manage. He shook hands with Afif, only realizing as they made contact that his own palm was clammy with sweat.

‘Are you all right, Professor? Would you like a glass of water?’

Guttman insisted he was fine, that he just needed to get to his next appointment. He said goodbye and headed briskly out. As he ascended the tiered steps of the market, heading back towards the Jaffa Gate, he kept his hand firmly inside his pocket, gripping the tablet. Eventually, once out of the shouk and beyond the walls of the Old City, he stopped and paused for breath, gasping like a sprinter who had just run the race of his life. He felt as if he might faint.

Even at that moment, his hand stayed wrapped around the chunk of clay that had made his head spin and heart throb, first with excitement, then fear and finally, now, awe. For at that moment Shimon Guttman knew he held in his hand the greatest archaeological discovery ever made. In his grasp was the last testament of the great patriarch, the man revered as the father of the three great faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In his hand was the will of Abraham.

JERUSALEM , THURSDAY , 12.46AM

Their first stop had been the central police station in Tel Aviv, dropping off a distraught Eyal Kishon so that he could file a missing person’s report on his father. He was convinced that whatever curse had killed Shimon and Rachel Guttman had now passed, like a contagion, to his family.

All the while, even as he drove, Uri was working his mobile, starting with directory inquiries, trying to get any information he could on Afif Aweida. The phone company said there were at least two dozen, though that narrowed down to nine in the Jerusalem area. Uri had to use all his charm to get the operator to read them all out. There was a dentist, a lawyer, six residential listings and one Afif Aweida registered as an antiques dealer on Suq el-Bazaar road, in the Old City. Uri smiled and turned to Maggie. ‘That’s the shouk . And that’s our man.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘Because my father already had a dentist and he already had a lawyer. And he hardly had hundreds of Arab friends. Antiquities: that’s about the only thing that could have made him talk to an Arab.’

As they approached Jerusalem, well past midnight, Uri was wondering whether he shouldn’t head for the market there and then, try to track down this Aweida immediately. Eventually he conceded that it was pointless, that all the stores would be closed. Unless they knew the address of his home, not just his shop, it would be impossible to find him.

He drew up among the taxis outside the Citadel hotel, ostentatiously pulling up the handbrake to signal the journey was over.

‘OK, Miss Costello. This is the end of the line. All change here.’

Maggie thanked him, then unlatched her door. Before getting out, she turned back to him with a single word: ‘Nightcap?’

He was not a drinker, she could see that. He nursed his whisky and water as if it were a rare and precious liquid that had to be observed, rather than consumed. Her own style-a quick knock-back and then ordering a refill-looked positively uncouth by comparison.

‘So what about this film-making then?’ she said, removing her shoes under the corner table they had taken and enjoying the relief that coursed through her feet and upward.

‘What about it?’

‘How come you’re good at it?’

He smiled, recognizing the return of his own inquiry. ‘You don’t know if I’m good at it.’

‘Oh, I think I can tell. You hold yourself like a successful man.’

‘Well, it’s kind of you to say so. Did you see The Truth about Boys ?’

‘The one that followed those four teenagers? I saw that last year: it was brilliant.’

‘Thank you.’

‘That was you?’

‘That was me.’

‘Jesus. I couldn’t believe what those lads said on camera. I thought there were hidden cameras or something, they were so honest. How on earth did you get them to do that?’

‘No hidden cameras. There is a big secret though. Which you mustn’t let on. It’s commercially sensitive.’

‘I’m good with secrets.’

‘The one thing you have to do, and this is really the key to the whole thing. You have to…No, I can’t.’ He screwed his eyes into a look of mock suspicion. ‘How do I know if I can trust you?’

‘You know you can trust me.’

‘The secret is listening. You have to listen.’

‘And where did you learn that?’

‘From my father.’

‘Really? I didn’t imagine him as the listening type.’

‘He wasn’t. He was the talking type. Which meant we had to listen. We got really good at it.’

He smiled and took another sip of the amber liquid. Maggie liked the glow it made around his mouth and eyes. He had, she told herself, one of those faces that you wanted to look at.

‘Anyway, you only answered half my question before. I get how you’re a mediator, but not really why.’

‘You asked me “how come”.’

‘Right. And that’s part how and part why. So tell me the why.’