The 13th Tablet

‘Listen Jack, the less I know, the less I can tell. I came to warn you to be careful and to lose the girl. Why get involved? I thought you were done with all this stuff.’

‘Stella, do I detect a twinge of jealousy in your tone?’

‘Don’t even go there! So what’s the story?’

‘I care about her.’

‘So? Send her a postcard. It wouldn’t be the first time, hmm Jack?’

‘Not this time.’

‘That’s a pity.’ There was just the slightest hint of wistfulness in her voice but she smiled at him broadly and so Jack pressed on.

‘What did you find out from the CCTV footage at the British Museum?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing?’

‘Yeah. No fighting, no body, not a squeak… that’s good news, right?’ said Stella.

‘Damn.’

‘Jack. What the hell have you got yourself into?’

Jack didn’t answer. He noticed a young man on the other side of the bar had been listening to their every word.

‘Well, as soon as Intelligence is satisfied that the girl’s got nothing, they’ll drop it. You know how they are. Too much on their plate to worry about what-ifs.’

‘Who did you speak to, Stella?’

‘That’s the weird thing. No-one. But you quit the service in a hurry. Maybe they kept a tab on you, just in case.’

‘Maybe. Anyway. It’s all over now. She doesn’t have whatever they think she had. I just want to make sure she’s safe.’

As he said those words, he turned to look at the young man but he was gone.

‘Dear Jack, I think you’ll be fine.’

Stella was smiling now. Jack smiled back at her. Now that the young Intelligence agent had heard what he wanted to hear, they should leave Jack and Mina alone. One less thing to worry about. But he couldn’t ask Stella or anyone else for help, or they’d come back after Mina with renewed strength. He laughed out loud.

‘I’d forgotten how sneaky those guys were,’ he said, ‘that’s a relief. Let’s go for dinner.’

‘Great. I know this fantastic Greek place in Coptic Street.’

Chapter 23

December 15th, 2004. Cambridge

Mina walked through the revolving doors of the University Library. After obtaining her reader’s ticket, she walked up to the first floor. She passed the Catalogue Hall and entered the Reading Room. The Library itself was a modern edifice, but the oblong Reading Room’s white walls, large windows and its high wood panelled ceiling gave it a peculiar and ancient feel. Mina chose a seat among the many available for readers and sat down. She wondered what she was supposed to do now. Maybe she should email Dr Shobai and ask him for help? She felt lost without Jack. She decided to focus on the research units housed within this huge library. Poor Eli had told them about a group of scholars from the University Library in Cambridge on the very night he was murdered in Safed. She returned to the main desk and was given a small booklet with information for first time users of the library. She ran through the various research units and one caught her attention, The Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit. She knew what a genizah was, a depository used for worn-out sacred Hebrew texts, but why here in Cambridge? ‘The 140,000 fragments of Hebrew and Jewish literature and documents rescued from the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo cover every aspect of life in the Mediterranean area a thousand years ago,’ she read.

Perfect. The scholars Eli had met must have come from this unit. She called them from an internal phone at the front desk and made an appointment to meet a research assistant after lunch.

Mina walked into The Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit. She introduced herself as a scholar in Jewish studies from New York, looking to meet a researcher specialised in the history of Jews in the British Isles. Soon enough she was shown into an office by the unit’s secretary.

‘Hi,’ said a portly woman wearing an awful purple turtleneck and a matching pair of trousers, ‘how can I help you?’

‘Well’, said Mina, ‘thanks for seeing me at such short notice. It may come as a surprise to you, but I was told about your unit by some scholars in Safed, in Israel.’

‘That makes sense, we work with scholars all over the world. Tell me about your research, Mina.’

‘I’m working on a small 18th century letter written by a Jewish scholar from Cambridge. I thought someone at the Research Unit might be able to point me in the right direction.’

‘Hmm. That’s strange. You see, there were no Jewish scholars, well not officially, in 18th century Cambridge. They only became eligible to study and teach at the University in the late 19th century. The earliest scholar I can think of was a Hungarian rabbi by the name of Solomon Schiller-Szinessy. But we’re talking about the 1860s, not before… what is the name of the scholar?’

‘Hildersham,’ said Mina.

‘I don’t know any scholar by that name. Are you sure about it? It sounds German, a little like Hildersheim or Hildesheim?’

‘No. It’s Hildersham, from Cambridge’ replied Mina.

‘You know, there is a village called Hildersham, about ten miles east of Cambridge, beyond the Gog Magog hills. Maybe your scholar lived there?’