Kerry Greenwood - Raisins and Almonds

Uncle Chaim Abrahams turned and ran.

Phryne and Yossi sprang up, knowing that he could not get far. Here was the bulky man who had bought the disguise of a drunken carter and had been in Miss Lee's shop that morning, defacing a book. Here was the man who had flung the remains carelessly into the bin, and caused accusations of murder in the bird dealer's. Here was the man who was dealing for Yossi's compound, who listened to Simon talk about Zion and Palestine, who was so sympathetic to the aspirations of the young. Chaim who had no head for business, who had always failed, who had had to be humiliatingly rescued by his brother who had even married the woman Chaim loved.

The doors were guarded, but Chaim was not heading for the doors. He ran not along but up, clattering up the stairs into the market. Ten policemen, Bert and Cec, Yossi and Phryne raced after him.

They heard him pounding ahead as they reached the first gallery They were close enough to hear his panting breath as he ran along the top storey They ran him to earth by the flowershops, and then they stopped.

Uncle Chaim had a hostage, and he was holding a very sharp knife to his throat.

'Simon,' said Phryne. 'I might have known it.'

She turned to address a remark to Yossi Liebermann, but he had vanished.

'Chaim,' she said to the man. 'Let him go.'

'I should let him go?' demanded Chaim Abrahams. 'Never. You let me go and maybe I won't kill him.'

'Uncle,' said Simon. He was on his knees, his hands tied behind his back. His face was dirty and he had, perhaps, been crying. But his voice was soft and there was no thread of hysteria in it. 'Uncle, you can't kill me,' he said.

'I can,' said Chaim.

'Simon,' said Phryne, and the boy tried to smile.

'I'm all right. He hasn't hurt me, he's just tied me up.'

'Send for his brother,' said Phryne to Robinson in a low voice. Then she addressed the murderer cheerily, sounding in her own ears like a district visitor. 'Now, now, a respected gentleman like you, Mr Abrahams, why are you making a scene like this? We've got you bang to rights, put down the knife.'

'Him, I've got,' said Chaim, between his teeth. He took a fistful of Simon's hair and shook it. 'You come any closer, he's dead.'

'Keep back,' ordered Robinson. He did not like the wild look in Chaim's eye. He turned from the scene and walked away out of Chaim's hearing. 'Go and get the boy's father, Constable, on the double. Keep a man at each door, keep the public out if any come along on a dirty night like this. And get me a marksman with a rifle. Station him out of sight if you can. He's to fire as soon as he's got a clear shot. Might save the boy's life.'

'Yes, sir. What are you going to do?'

'I'm going to wait,' said Detective Inspector Robinson grimly.

Thunder rolled. The storm was getting closer.

'I'm going to get a chair,' said Phryne conversationally. 'So tiring to stand on a night like this, don't you think?'

She sat down on a wrought-iron bench and regarded the tableau critically It was rather sculptural. Chaim was standing behind the kneeling boy, and the knife was held firmly in his tremorless hand. Phryne greatly feared that Chaim was determined, and that if she didn't think of something very impressive the boy was going to die.

'Simon, how did he catch you?' she asked, sadly. 'Was it a note telling you to go down to the warehouse after dark and tell no one?'

'He picked me up in the car,' said Simon. 'I was going home. Then he drove me here and said that he had something he wanted to check—I thought it was the shoe shop—we came up here and then he produced a knife and tied me up and gagged me and stowed me under the counter in there. I've been trying to get loose for hours.'

'Your mother was looking for you,' said Phryne meaningly.

'Oy, I'm in trouble,' said Simon, managing a creditable grin.

'Hey,' interjected Chaim, 'what about me?'

'What about you?' asked Phryne coldly. 'If you'll excuse me, this is a private conversation. Simon, I won't leave you,' she said.

'Tell me you love me,' he said. Phryne did not like being blackmailed but the circumstances were, she supposed, special.

'I love you,' she said obediently. 'And I'll take you to dinner at the Society again, and after that we will see.'

'Lady,' began Chaim Abrahams. 'Hey, lady!'

'Oh, did you want to say something?' Phryne's social manner was unassailable. 'Do please forgive me. I was just chatting to your charming nephew.'

'He's a fool. So is his father. All fools.'

'Oh? Tell us about it.'

Phryne lit a gasper and exhaled the smoke, leaning back in the bench. There was a small cold lump in her stomach. She began to fancy that she could smell blood.

'That compound is going to make me rich,' said Chaim. 'All my life I've been working, working, and always events were against me, even God was against me, gevalt! I toiled and I starved and I never got nowhere. Then, just when I've got a good shoe business going, comes my brother back from France, rich as Croesus, rich for life from just one deal, and what does he do? He takes it off me, he takes my shoe business for his own, and then what can I do? He's got the money. He's got the power.'

'It wasn't like that,' protested Simon, and subsided as the knife nicked his throat.

'A slave in his house, that's all I was.'

Phryne watched in horror as a thin trickle of blood slid down the young man's smooth throat and puddled in his collarbone. Murder under the ground, the Rabbi Elijah had said. Death and weeping. Greed caused it. Here was murder and greed. But Phryne could have coped much better with being threatened herself. Watching this madman murder her lover was as terrible an ordeal as she could imagine. Such a beautiful boy. She had to keep Chaim Abrahams distracted and talking.

'That must have been awful for you,' she prompted. 'Then what happened?'

'I heard of Yossi's work. A clever boy, that Yossi. Clever and poor and mad about Zion, that pipe dream!

Palestine, what is there in Palestine but dust and camels and pogroms? Yossi wanted to sell the compound for guns, such a fool, he didn't realise what it was worth. For this formula he could have bought the British Protectorate and everything in it. Artificial rubber? The whole world wants it. He could have owned every yard of his precious Palestine! And he came to me, Yossi. To ask me to arrange a sale.'

'Why should he come to you?' asked Phryne, watching the trickle of blood overflow the collarbone and stain Simon's shirt.

'He thought I was sympathetic to his aims, what a meshugennerl No use talking to my so-clever brother, no, it was well known he was no Zionist. So he came to me! Of all people!' Chaim Abrahams laughed, a deep pleasant chuckle.

'I see,' encouraged Phryne.

'I knew people, I told him. Bring me the formula and I'll put you in touch with those who can deliver your guns. But I had to get rid of the go-between, see?'

'Not precisely,' said Phryne. 'Why didn't you just steal the formula?'

'Look how much you know,' sneered Chaim. 'Yossi would know when the Chaim Abrahams Rubber Plant started production. I thought that it was Yossi who would make the exchange, putting the formula in one book and getting his reward from another. So I took the place of the carter and delivered the box to the bookshop. Then, when Miss Lee was busy, I put the razor blade into the book and sprinkled on the poison which is crystals in office paste. Simple. Yossi dead from unknown causes and all I have to do is buy the book.'

'Except that it didn't work out like that, did it?' asked Phryne, sympathetically.

Chaim scowled. 'Who would have thought that it would be Shimeon who put his finger in the wrong place?' he asked rhetorically. 'Then the bookshop is closed and I cannot get to it, but I think, soon the woman will be hanged and the goods sold, and I will get it then. So I just wait.'