LITMIR.BIZ

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leapt to his feet. ‘Did someone die tonight?’

      ‘Not yet. But I expect it.’

      ‘Who? Maybe I should—’

      ‘Djalu, don’t get excited. OK?’ Calmly, the woman bent down and pulled out several of the CDs in the bedside cabinet, letting them fall to the floor.

      ‘Hey, miss. That’s Mr Clark’s music. I’m looking after it—’

      ‘Here it is.’ She had reached behind the discs for what looked like a bandage. Now she lay it on the bed, on the square of mattress next to Mr Clark’s chest, which was rising and falling like a set of bellows. The old man was fast asleep.

      She opened up the bandage, pulling one flap of material to the left, the other to the right, to reveal a hypodermic needle alongside a vial of clear serum.

      ‘Is the doctor coming? No one told me.’

      ‘No, the doctor is not coming.’ She snapped on a pair of latex gloves.

      ‘You giving Mr Clark a shot? What you doing?’

      ‘I’ll show you if you like. Come closer.’

      ‘Don’t hurt him.’

      ‘Relax, Djalu. Now come over here and you can see. A bit closer.’

      The woman held the needle up to the window, where it made a silhouette against the moonlight. ‘Now, Djalu, if you can place your hands on Mr Clark’s shoulders. That’s it, just bend slightly.’

      Cleanly, the woman jabbed the needle into Djalu’s neck, her thumb pushing the plunger hard, sending the drug swimming into his veins within an instant. Djalu had a second to turn around, his face frozen in astonishment. A second later, he fell forward, landing heavily on Mr Clark’s heaving chest.

      His killer had to use all her strength to haul Djalu off and lay him smoothly on the floor. She laid a blanket over him, stopping only to close his eyes with the palm of her hand.

      ‘I apologize, Djalu Banggala, for what I have done. But I have done it in the name of the Lord God Almighty. Amen.’

      She packed the needle and the empty vial back into the bandage, tucked it into her pocket and headed out, noiselessly. Mr Clark did not stir. If he heard anything, it was only music – the insistent strings of one of Schubert’s most famous pieces. Death and the Maiden.

FORTY-SEVEN

       Sunday, 10.10pm, Crown Heights, Brooklyn

      TC was leading the way, fast and determined. She was not to be diverted. She last walked these streets a decade ago, but she had not forgotten where Rabbi Freilich lived.

      Rushing to keep up, Will was firing out questions. But TC was staring straight ahead. ‘They found the body a couple of hours ago. On the floor of my apartment. Apparently no one realized he had gone missing till this morning.’

      ‘Christ. How long do they think he’d been dead?’

      ‘Since last night. He was killed in my apartment, Will.’ TC’s voice wavered for the first time.

      Will thought of the super’s face: the Garry Kasparov of the basement. If he had been killed last night, it could only have been minutes after he had helped Will and TC escape. That was surely why he had been murdered. An image jumped into Will’s mind. The man in the baseball cap.

      First Yosef Yitzhok, now Pugachov. Two people who had come to Will’s aid had paid for it with their lives. Who would be next? Rabbi Mandelbaum? Tom Fontaine?

      Ever since Friday morning Will had felt as if he was falling down a mineshaft, getting further and further away from the light. He could see nothing clearly. The rabbi had explained what was surely going on, but how on earth did it involve him and Beth? What had they got to do with this mystical prophecy, a kabbalistic legend which now appeared to be fuelling an international killing spree? He was falling and falling.

      And just when he thought he had hit rock bottom – hearing of the killing in Bangkok or of YY’s death – he would fall some more. Now Pugachov was dead and TC was in dire trouble.

      ‘Janey says the police knocked on every door, asking after the occupant of Apartment 7. Thank God she was in. She told them my name and said she hadn’t seen me since yesterday afternoon, which is good. Luckily, she was smart enough to say she didn’t know my cell number. They just left and she phoned me right away, to give me a heads-up.’

      ‘And they definitely regard you as the suspect?’

      ‘Janey says she got that impression. Why else was the guy in my apartment? Like, he went in there alive and now he’s dead. I’m gone. What else does it look like?’

      TC was still striding forward, her breath forming instant clouds. Her cheeks were beginning to glow. ‘Apparently, they asked lots of weird questions.’

      ‘What kind of weird questions?’

      ‘About me and Pugachov. Did we have a sexual relationship? Was he obsessed with me? Was he a stalker?’

      Now Will understood what the police were thinking. Pugachov, the psycho super, gets himself into TC’s apartment after midnight. Tries to rape her. TC reaches for her gun, kills him and flees the scene.

      ‘It won’t take long for them to get your cell number. The police must have access to all that.’

      ‘Hence this.’ TC held up the carcass of a cell phone, minus its battery. Once the police had her number, they would doubtless be able to track it. Will had covered a couple of investigations where detectives reconstructed someone’s movements using phone records. These not only revealed the numbers the suspect had dialled, but each time they had come within range of a transmitter. Police could draw a map showing where someone had been and when. Unless the phone was completely without power: no signal, no trace.

      ‘When did you last have it on?’

      ‘Mandelbaum’s.’

      ‘It won’t take them long to get there. Will he talk?’

      TC slowed down and turned her eyes to meet Will’s. ‘I don’t know.’

      They had come to Rabbi Freilich’s house, no grander than any of the others in Crown Street. The paint was peeling on the front door, but that was not what Will noticed. Rather it was the bumper sticker that had been placed just above eye level: Moshiach is coming.

      If these were student digs, it would not have looked incongruous. But this was the home of a grown-up, a man of standing. The sticker sent a tremor through Will. It said one thing: fanatic.

      TC had already knocked on the door and now Will could hear movement. Through the opaque glass, he could see the outline of a man’s head and shoulders.

      ‘Ver is? Vi haistu?’

      Yiddish, Will imagined.

      ‘S’is Tova Chaya Lieberman, Reb Freilich. I’ve come because of the great sakono.’

      ‘Vos heyst?’ What do you mean?

      ‘Reb Freilich, a sakono fur die gantseh breeye.’ The same warning she had given Rabbi Mandelbaum: a threat to all creation.

      The door opened, to reveal the man Will had talked to at some length but had never seen. He was neither tall, nor physically commanding but his face had stern, firm features which, Will could see, conveyed a quiet authority. His beard was brown rather than white or grey and it was short and well-kempt. He wore neat, rimless glasses. In a different context, Will could see him as the CEO of a moderate-sized American company. As he saw and recognized Will, he hesitated, then gave a dip of the head, a gesture Will chose to interpret as contrition.

      ‘You’d better come inside.’

      They

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