Judas Country

Half an hour later we were sitting in a small, cool, sparsely-furnishedcafé down Ledra Street sipping gritty-sweet Turkish coffee and me sounding like an elderly uncle.

'You're just the bloody bird dog,' I told him. 'Now the Professor's dead, they think you could be the only one to sniff out the sword. So they let you back in, you find it, then clang! The dog never gets the bird; he ends up back in the kennel eating tinned rabbit.'

'They don't know there's a sword.'

They know there's a something. They know the Prof's reputation as a grave-robber – and maybe they overheard a hint in jail. They could know about our runaround the last few days. Enough other people seem to.'

He nodded calmly. 'I think you're right.'

'That's good.' I finished my coffee except for the sludge at the bottom. 'So now let's forget about the sword, concentrate on keeping our noses clean here and get back to England, home and booty.'

'But that's no reason not to go on to Jerusalem,' Ken added.

I slapped my cup down with a clang that made the tubby proprietor look at me wide-eyed. 'Now look, Ken: if you go back there you'll confirm everything they believe – that there's something hidden and you know where. They'll be sleeping in your pockets.'

'Maybe, maybe not.' True; how well a surveillance works depends on how experienced your target is. And Ken was.

'All right, so you find Gadulla and say: "Here, Oswarthy foreigner, hand over King Richard's sword." What does he do? D'you think he's even got the thing?'

'It doesn't seem too likely,' Ken admitted. 'I mean Bruno trusting anyone that much. More like, the letter told him how to find it-'

Tine. So whoever's got the letter doesn't need to go near Gadulla. He goes direct for the hiding-place.'

"The letter can't be everything,' Ken persisted. 'It can't have been complete, somehow. That's why he was torturing Papa, why he was snooping back at the house.'

There was something in that, but: 'That still doesn't help you. And, incidentally, Lazarosdidn't say anything about the torture, so we don't know. Remember that.'

'Ah. That's the hold-out, is it?' Every fancy murder case brings in false confessions from nitwits, so they always conceal one piece of evidence, something only the real murderer would know, to use as a cross-check.

He finished his own coffee and looked at his watch. 'Gadulla's still the only lead we've got.'

'For God's sake, leave the damn sword alone. Tell Mitzi about Gadulla and then leave it lay – you can't afford to go to Israel, anyway. We've got a business to start up again.'

He smiled wryly. 'The same one?'

'I don't know…' I stared at the tabletop. 'We're sort of running out of time on that, I think. But now – we know a lot more about air cargo generally; we can cost a job properly. We don't have to go for the big margins and risks.'

He shrugged. 'If you say so. You're the boss on the business side.'

'Oh hell, Ken-'

'No, you always were. I'm a better pilot, but how often does that matter? – twice, three times a year? You're the one whoknows how to bring in business; that matters all the time. I'm not complaining. But – just try and keep off strawberries and monkeys.'

I grinned. 'I'll try.' So maybe, after – how many? – three nights out of jail, he was cured. We could get back to work.

He stood up. 'I'll drop over and see Mitzi. Back at the Castle for lunch, no?'