Honte i avant por ma reancon
Sui ça dues yvers pris.
My friends will be shamed if for my ransom
I am imprisoned for two winters.
In Germany the negotiations drag on. Winter approaches.
I decide that I must speak to Detective Sergeant Alandale: ‘Detective-Sergeant Alandale.’
‘Hello. Yes, it’s Richard Cathar here. I believe you wanted to speak to me.’
‘Oh, yes, I’ve got it. We do want to speak to you. Thank you for calling. We would like a little help with an investigation. I am sure you understand. Can you meet us soon?’
‘I’m in Oxford at the moment, doing research, but I could get to London tomorrow.’
‘Thank you. Can we meet at your place? In Hackney?’
‘It’s not my place any more. What about in the British Museum, in the covered courtyard? I could be there at eleven. I’ll wait for you at the bottom of the staircase.’
‘OK. That sounds fine. I’ve got your mobile number now, so I’ll call when I am at the museum.’
‘Are you coming on your own?’
‘Yes.’
‘OK. I look forward to meeting you, but I have to warn you I don’t know anything much about what happened in Cairo.’
‘I am sure you can help us.’
The sun is shining through the grid of the clear roof, so that it creates a geometric pattern on the stone floor below. I am early. I am wearing my suit. I want to be sure that there isn’t back-up hanging about. I imagine the back-up will look different from the tourists and I will be able to spot them. I half believe that they will arrest me on some grounds, perhaps as an encouragement to get me to talk. I feel as though it may be obvious that I have guilty secrets, and sex with my half-sister is the one I least want to talk about to Detective Sergeant Alandale.
When he arrives, I pick him out immediately. He’s wearing casual clothes, a windcheater and jeans, but it’s obvious he is a little uneasy: he is off his turf. My phone rings.
‘Morning, I’m standing just at the bottom of the steps.’
‘I see you.’
He is about fifty, with a congealed face, like ice floes backing up; his cheeks are encroaching on his eyes from beneath, and his forehead is encroaching from above, so that eventually he will be snow-blind.
‘Morning, Mr Cathar. Thank you very much for helping us, sir.’
I attribute the ‘sir’ to the suit.
‘Morning, I’ll do my best.’
‘Can’t say fairer than that.’
‘No.’
There is nothing in the formalities to worry me yet. But I have the feeling that I have strayed into genre fiction. I am never sure how to pronounce ‘genre’. Is it French, all eliding together, which sounds pretentious, or is it ‘john-re’, which is clumsy? As we walk to the café with its long communal tables, I ponder the idea that you could divide all your experiences into literary genres. This would be a thriller. I have never liked thrillers, because the authors withhold information improbably.
Alandale takes his coffee long and white. Not too strong. He takes out a notebook and a pen.
‘Right, this is very informal. These notes are only to remind me of what we have discussed. But first, I have to tell you formally that I am Detective Sergeant Wayne Alandale of the Metropolitan Police’s special operations department, SO15.’
‘Can I ask you what you do?’
‘We do police work around possible terrorist acts. At the moment we are trying to help our colleagues in Canada, who want to know about your relationship to the woman who was kidnapped in Cairo, Ms Noor Nassashibi, a Canadian citizen.’
‘Well, I was in Jerusalem researching – I am writing a dissertation funded by my Oxford college – and I met Noor in a hotel, the American Colony. We met a few more times after that and a relationship developed.’
‘Are you engaged to her, as our colleagues in Ottawa believe?’
I wonder if Mr Macdonald, or Lettie, has been behind this interview.
‘Yes. Informally, a week or so before she left for Cairo. She hadn’t told her parents, as far as I know, and I don’t have a family to tell. Obviously, we will have to consider everything when her treatment is complete. As you know, she was badly treated by her kidnappers.’
‘I didn’t know. I am sorry. Did you have any other contacts in Israel?’
‘No, apart from a Father Prosper Dupuis at the French Bible School. He helped me – he’s still helping me – with my research.’
‘Can I just check the spelling of Dupuis?’
I tell him.
‘And do you know’ – he reads uncertainly from his notes – ‘a Mrs Haneen Husayni?’
‘Yes. She knew my father many years ago, and I was introduced to her by Father Dupuis.’
‘Were you aware when you met Ms Nassashibi that she was an agent?’
‘No. I thought she was a journalist. I don’t know anything about any other activities, even now.’
‘Did she ask you to do any errands for her, or deliver letters, or send email for her?’
‘No.’
‘And can you tell me why you and Ms Nassashibi went to Jordan?’
‘I was looking at castles and we took a break.’
‘Castles. Are there castles in Jordan?’
‘Yes, there are. Crusader castles.’
‘I see, and why were you looking at Crusader castles?’
‘This may be a bit boring, but it was because in the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries these castles were built by the Crusaders, mostly by the Franks, that is, French-speaking. At the time, by the way, that included the English. They brought their own art and religious books and ideas of architecture with them and in effect the whole of what is now Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel and Syria became the Kingdom of Jerusalem. It is also known as the Latin Kingdom. Anyway, my particular interest is in how these cultures – the Muslim, the Byzantine and the Christian – drew one from the other. I warned you it would be boring.’
‘Very interesting, actually. But why would you look at castles for that?’
‘Because castles are durable and they contain architecture and art. The churches have different styles over the years – Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic – and there are even some frescos still visible. After the fall of Jerusalem in 1187, Richard the Lionheart . . .’
‘Three lions on his chest.’
‘That’s him, Richard the Lionheart arrived on Crusade and defeated Saladin, but he could never capture Jerusalem.’
‘Wasn’t he gay, by the way?’
‘Who?’
‘Richard the Lionheart.’
‘Probably not.’
‘All right, so you and Ms Nassashibi went sightseeing in Jordan. Did she speak to anybody or meet anybody during that time?’
‘No.’
‘Not a Mr Hasad al-Sayid?’
‘I think he was the owner of a shop, selling antiquities. He tried to sell us something.’
‘What was the exact relationship between Ms Nassashibi’ – he glances at his notes – ‘and Mrs Haneen Husayni? Am I pronouncing that correctly?’
‘Yes, I think you are. Mrs Husayni was always referred to as the aunt of Noor Nassashibi. Her father in Toronto is Mrs Husayni’s brother.’
‘You said your father knew her?’
‘Yes, he met her in the seventies. I think I said that my father knew Father Prosper Dupuis.’
‘You did. Did you know that Mrs Husayni has bought an apartment in London?’
‘Yes, I did. But I am not sure why this is your business if you don’t mind my saying so.’
‘I am just here to gather background information. Do you know why she bought a flat in Knightsbridge?’
‘It’s in Kensington, I think. I imagine – I really don’t know – that she felt the time had come to have an alternative home.’
‘I see. Why had the time come?’
‘I think it was mainly a religious thing. She and her family are Christians, a very old sect, going back to a time before the Crusades, but I think she feels that Christians are increasingly under pressure in the Middle East.’
‘Have you had political discussions with Mrs Husayni?’
‘We have talked about all sorts of things.’
‘And she never mentioned Mossad to you?’
‘No, I don’t think so. Not specifically, anyway.’
‘Did she ever suggest to you that Islamist groups were targeting her or her niece?’
‘No. Look, I am sorry but I don’t want to speculate about things that I don’t really know anything about. Mrs Husayni was very kind to me when I was working in Jerusalem. We talked a lot – she helped me with the art particularly. She’s very knowledgeable. But also, as I am sure you know from your line of work, you can never fully know the mind of another.’
‘No, I think that would be true. Did she ever tell you about threats to her life?’
‘No. Still no.’
I remember Lettie’s warning about not becoming angry.
‘And has Ms Nassashibi been in touch since she was flown back to Canada?’
‘No. As I understand it from her aunt, she is not well enough and her doctors have suggested that it would be very upsetting for her to see me or write to me. Possibly because she wouldn’t want me to see her in this condition.’
‘Have you ever considered the possibility that she was using you as cover?’
‘Do you know something I don’t?’
‘No, I am just collecting detail for a fuller picture.’
‘No, I don’t believe I was used as cover.’
We seem to have been talking for a very long time, when Alandale finally closes his notebook.
‘Thank you, Mr Cathar. Your cooperation is greatly appreciated. Do you know that I have never been in this beautiful building before. Correction, I have been to the museum on a school trip from South London to look at the mummies, but that was long before this was built. It was all black and sooty then.’
‘Will you want to speak to me again?’
‘I would never say never, but it’s not likely. If you have any information that you think might help us, or you wake up one morning and you remember something you didn’t tell me, please give me a call.’
He gets up a little stiffly and shakes my hand. I have the feeling that he has left a threat on the air. And I am conscious that I have told him a few lies. Perhaps that is what they want.
27
Dearest Noor
,
I have had an intimation of what life must have been like for you; I was contacted by the Special Branch (they have a new name) to ‘help them with some background’. The man who interviewed me asked about you and Haneen and about our trip to Jordan. The picture he was building up is of some sort of complicity, involving me and Haneen and even the man in the antiquities shop in Kerak City. I told him about my friendship with Father Prosper, and then I wondered if that was a good idea. Who knows what his involvement has been? I don’t trust anybody now, and I wish I hadn’t spoken to this man, but I was advised by someone (I don’t trust her either) that I should speak to him. I have nothing to hide, yet I found myself becoming evasive and telling lies, or at least not giving him the whole truth, and I feel somehow guilty.
I don’t know how you could have lived this life of deception and ambiguity. What I wanted to ask you, and please answer me truthfully, is whether you were using me for some reason. That is what the man I spoke to, first name Wayne, was suggesting. As I remember our first meeting, I saw you and I couldn’t help myself. I smiled at you because you were so lovely that I was unable to do anything else. If you arranged that, please explain how you did it.
All my love,
Rich xxxx
28
The Bishops of
Le Puy-en-Velay have a history of crusading: Bishop Adhemar de Monteil carried the Holy Lance into battle in the First Crusade. He died of typhus in the Holy Land, revered for his evident spirituality and bravery. The present Bishop, Aimard, was a shrewd and ambitious man. He was aware that while Richard was in captivity the whole region was in the balance. If he were known to have helped Richard’s knights, who could say what might happen if Richard were never released, and his brother John and Philip of France or the Viscount of Limoges claimed the territory? Or if the Count of Toulouse or the Count of Angoulême became the sovereign lord? All of them would be likely to make a claim to the Auvergne. But the Bishop could not refuse the request of the Grand Master of the Templars to receive these men returning from the Holy Land, so his solution to a difficult political problem was to hide Richard’s knights from view in a remote abbey belonging to the bishopric until they could be moved on.
Henry of Huntingdon and his men were housed on the edge of a deep valley, near the headwaters of the Loire. The long days were unnaturally quiet; at night wolves howled. Only Roger de Saci was happy. He took his falcon out every day and she adapted very quickly to this wooded land, with its great stretches of open fields and deep forests, a landscape utterly different from the arid hills of the Holy Land. Huntingdon had conversations with the Bishop, never failing to remind him that his uncle had been the Master of the Templars in England. It seemed that the Bishop was waiting for confirmation of the release of King Richard, which was rumoured to have been agreed. His explanation was that it would be too dangerous for the knights to move towards Limoges, where the Viscount was favouring the uneasy alliance of Philip and John. Huntingdon understood: they were hostages until the Bishop had seen the writing on the wall. The Bishop made it clear that he wanted his hospitality and care to be noted, if Richard were to be released, and he wanted it rewarded. He also made it clear that they could not leave without his approval.