Adam Palmer - The Boudicca Parchments

“What are you talking about?”

“The idea was that they’d think I was dead. That would give me room to go about my… er… business.”

“Who was he?”

“Just some old meths-swilling tramp.”

“That didn’t give you the right to kill him.”

“I already told you, it was self-defence. And anyway, he’d’ve been dead within three months with his lifestyle.”

“What do you mean self-defence? How? When? Where?”

“In the office shed… at the dig site… at Arbury Banks. He was probably just looking for a place to use as a sleeping shelter. But he burst in when I was looking at the parchment and studying it. But when the door flew open, my instinct was to roll it up and try to hold on to it. He must have sensed that it was something worth getting his hands on. Anyway, he made a grab for it and when I pulled it out of his reach, he made a grab for me.”

“And?”

“Well at that point I panicked. I picked up a paperweight from the desk and smashed it over his head. He must have already been weak from all the drinking and meths and all that ‘cause he died. And then I… I guess I panicked a second time ‘cause I decide to move the body and make it look like he died in a fire. I knew about the old uninhabited house on the way there, ‘cause I’d passed it. So I decided to use it.”

“You mean you decided to use me ! You invited me to meet you because by then you’d already decided what you were going to do. You didn’t invite me to the house until you were sure you could transport the body there undetected, so you told me to meet you at the pub instead. But then you took the body to the house and then when I came back to England, you phoned me at the pub and sent me to the house, intending to kill me there.”

“Not to kill you.”

Daniel stared at him long and hard. It was true. Martin Costa didn’t have the heart of a killer.

“Okay, maybe you did hope I would make it out of there alive. But you did try to frame me.”

“It wasn’t that, it’s just that you were a natural suspect. That was just the police, jumping to conclusions.”

“And who made that anonymous phone call telling them they’d seen me siphoning off petrol from the tank of the car I’d hired?”

A guilty smile crept on to Martin Costa’s face.

“Okay… maybe I did try to set you up. But only to negate the threat. I mean I needed some one to take the rap and I needed to make it look like I was dead. You know how hard it is for a man with my reputation. I figured that if I could establish myself as dead I could set up shop elsewhere. You know, like Sherlock Holmes pretended to be dead for three years, concealing his true fate even from his friend Doctor Watson.”

“I don’t think that analogy works too well Costa. Moriarty might be a better comparison.”

Costa smiled.

“You flatter me.”

“Right now I’m more inclined to flatten you.”

“Oh very good! Achilles and the Turtle!”

But Daniel was in no mood for humour.

“You were calling yourself Sam Morgan weren’t you?”

The look on Costa’s face changed to one of fear.

“How the hell did you know that?”

“Let’s just say that you haven’t been quite as clever as you thought. People have been watching you.”

“Wha — what people?”

“The kind of people who don’t like what Shomrei Ha’ir have been doing… or what you’ve been helping them with.”

Costa’s voice took on a tone of denial.

“I was never part of them! We merely had certain mutual interests.”

“Membership is hardly the issue! You were helping their cause.”

“Not their cause Daniel. My own .”

“They weren’t that pragmatic. They would never have trusted you if you’d told them your aims were purely venal. Even Chienmer Lefou had common cause with them.”

“I don’t know anything about that. I told them that I supported their cause. But it was just a ruse to get them to trust me. I only did it so I could get close to them. I mean they paid me for the parchment. But I had to carry on playing along with them. I knew that the treasure would turn up sooner or later. You see they knew about the connection between Boudicca’s daughter and Bar Giora.”

“I know. They had the original Josephus manuscript — the Aramaic original.”

“Well there you are then. And I’d researched it and suspected the connection after I read about tartan fabrics from Judea.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just something I read. Remember Joseph’s coat of many colours? How the literally translation means a ‘coat of stripes’.”

“I know,” said Daniel. “And some people think that means tartan.”

“Well tartan fabrics were traded all over the Roman empire — just like other things. That’s how tartan got to England. But some of them in Britain were identified as coming from plant fabric grown in Judea in the second half of the first century. That’s how I became interested.”

“And you put it together from that?”

“I wouldn’t say I put it together. But I suspected the link. And I always wondered about what happened to Boudicca’s treasure.”

Daniel scowled at this odious, venal man.

“And of course treasure is all you care about.”

“Is there anything wrong with that? You’ve got what you wanted. Why shouldn’t I get what I want?”

He lifted up his rucksack to indicate what he was talking about.

“Because it’s too late for that Costa.”

“Too late? Why? You’ve got the two manuscripts — or at least access to them.”

“I’ve got the translation of the ketuba too — and the map.”

“The map?”

“It doesn’t matter Costa. What matters for you is that the game is up.”

“All right… look… I’ll give you the treasure. You can have it all Daniel. Everything. Do what you like with it. Keep it for yourself. Or give it to charity. Whatever you like. Just let me go. Let’s forget this ever happened. The bad guys are dead. You can have Boudicca’s treasure and the prestige or rewriting the history books. Just let me walk away and we can wipe the slate clean.”

“I can’t do that Costa. You see too much water has flowed under the bridge. Too many people have died. Too many people have suffered.”

“But that wasn’t me Daniel,” said Costa, picking up the rucksack and holding it close to himself, like a cherished lover. “That was Bar Tikva and his father.”

“But you were part of it!”

“But only a small part. I’m not really responsible, Daniel.”

“We’re all responsible for our actions, Costa — and for the consequences. And now you’re going to have to answer for yours .”

Daniel realized afterwards that he should have been more careful. He should have seen the look in Martin Costa’s eyes. But he didn’t catch it — at least not in time to brace himself for what came next. For in that split second, Costa swung the rucksack at his head. He managed to put up an arm to block it. But the weight of the rucksack — packed with gold and silver — was sufficient to send Daniel flying.

And as Daniel fell, Costa took off for the exit, before Daniel had even hit the ground!

But he didn’t get far. For when he turned the corner and reached the entrance, he slammed into the rock hard chest of a tall, muscular man who towered over him by almost a head and who looked down on him with a face of implacable anger. And before Costa could say another word, the left fist of the man shot out and delivered a crushing punch that broke Costa’s nose and sent him reeling onto his back, the stars dancing before his eyes.