Bristol House (28 page)

She was stuck with the loupe. It was all she had until she could get to a specialist optics shop and buy the kind of high-quality, hand-held magnifying glass the job demanded. London stores of that sort were closed until Monday.

By noon, when Geoff phoned to ask if she wanted to meet for lunch, not just her eyes but her neck and shoulders felt permanently damaged. And she’d covered only a section of the mural some two feet from the outside wall and as high as her head. Nothing she’d seen revealed anything remotely connected to almond trees, or Tudor times, or Jews, much less
mezuzot
or anything else that might be of interest to Philip Weinraub.

Or, as far as she could tell, her Carthusian ghost.

***

“Just so you know,” Geoff said, reaching into his pocket, “I’m not only a pretty face.”

Annie grinned. “You are, though. A very pretty face.”

He did not look pleased by the compliment. “Given the circumstances, you’re rather lighthearted.”

“Not lighthearted, no. But I’m starting to get it. At least I think I am.”

“Can I ask what ‘it’ is?” He was holding a folded sheet of paper, but he made no effort to pass it over.

“I’m not sure,” Annie admitted. “But the ghost wants something from me.”

Geoff hesitated. “Prayers for his soul, something like that?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Why would any ghost come to me for that? But this one . . . he’s played to all my strengths, Geoff. I think he wants my”—she blushed—“my expertise.”

“Tudor buildings. Doorway decorations.” He did not sound convinced.

“Something like that. ‘Seek here the Speckled Egg.’ It was a direction. Something I’m supposed to do.” She waited a moment. He said nothing. “Why do you look like that?”

“Because against my better judgment and my common sense, I’m thinking you may be right.”

They were in the gastropub in Cosmo Place, the one he’d taken her to the first time they’d had dinner together. It was jammed, and apparently the big attraction was a traditional British Sunday lunch—everyone around them was tucking into roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. They’d both ordered lentil soup and ham sandwiches. “I spent some time checking after you called,” Geoff said. “I’ve got something.”

Quite a lot of time, Annie thought. The stubble was heavier than usual, and his eyes were as red-rimmed as she imagined hers to be. “Time on what?” she asked.

“Using my Nexis connection mostly.” He took a folded piece of paper from his jacket pocket.

“Let me guess,” she said. “You’ve discovered something new about Philip Weinraub.”

He shook his head. “I’ve exhausted that avenue long since. Weinraub’s secrets are too well hidden for Nexis. I was looking for Mrs. Grindal.”

“Who?”

“The bloke who sold us the quail eggs said they came from a Mrs. Grindal. According to him, she raises quail in Holloway. That seemed mad to me. Holloway’s in the East End, one of the most densely populated parts of London.”

“But he said she’d been doing it for donkeys,” Annie said. “That meant ‘a long time,’ didn’t it?”

“Exactly. It’s Cockney rhyming slang.
Donkey’s ears
equals
years
. Common parlance now. Anyway, there isn’t any Mrs. Grindal. At least not one living in Holloway who raises quail.”

Annie didn’t say anything for a few moments. Then: “That’s really interesting. It sounded so convincing. Maybe he had the name wrong.”

“It’s not that simple,” Geoff said. “Take a look at this.” He finally passed her the piece of paper he’d been hanging on to.

Annie studied it for a moment, then looked up. “I’m not sure what I should be seeing.”

“‘High-Class Provisions’—that’s what the sign said, remember?” And when she nodded: “We were in St. John’s Lane. It’s a short street. What you’ve got there is a list of every address and proprietor. There isn’t any provisioner. No grocer of any sort, high-class or otherwise.”

***

“It was a tiny little shop between a café and the wine bar,” Annie said.

“And when you went back,” Rabbi Cohen said, “it wasn’t there.”

He was looking at Annie’s drawing of the tiny shop with the quail and the quail eggs in the window, and the sign above that said “High-Class Provisions.” She had drawn it at the moment when the man came out the door and was standing and talking to them, holding a cigarette in his cupped hand so the smoke didn’t drift in their direction.

It was Monday afternoon, and they were in Simon Cohen’s study. Maggie was supposed to have joined them, but at the last minute she said she was coming down with a cold and begged off. Not even the chance to see a picture of a shop that appeared and disappeared in twenty-four hours tempted her. She’d dismissed that story instantly. “You were in a different street, Geoffrey. There’s no other explanation.” Annie wondered if Maggie simply didn’t want to come to the house that was still, in some sense, the domain of Simon Cohen’s wife.

Maggie’s absence did not, however, alter the fact that Rabbi Cohen shared her opinion about the shop in St. John’s Lane. “You were probably in a different street,” the rabbi said, pushing the drawing back toward Annie. “It’s easy to make that kind of error.” He waved a dismissive hand.

Maggie’s already told him about it, Annie thought. They’ve reinforced each other’s skepticism.

Geoff apparently came to the same conclusion. He put the list of addresses and their current occupants in his pocket and didn’t mention what he and Annie knew—that they had returned to Charterhouse Square and walked every inch of the surrounding neighborhood and seen nothing of the grocer or his shop.

Cohen turned his attention to Annie’s sketch of the writing on the bathroom mirror. “It’s difficult to read. Making it, I presume, still more authentic.”

“It’s written in the script common to the Tudor period,” Annie said. “It’s very different from ours, but you get used to it after a while. It says ‘Seek here the Speckled Egg.’ The ‘here’ stumps me. I’ve looked all over the flat. The only eggs are the ones I bought at the supermarket, and they’re definitely not speckled. Leaving that aside, I think the ghost may have been referring to the dead cardinals we were talking about a couple of weeks ago.”

“Because they both had quail eggs in their throats,” Cohen said.

“More than that. It’s like a dog whistle,” she said. “In my brain. Something I can hear because I’m supposed to. And he’s a monk, remember. So cardinals—”

Cohen nodded. “What about the police? Surely they must already be investigating the quail eggs ‘coincidence’?” He surrounded the word with air quotes.

“I’ve got some feelers out about that,” Geoff said. Annie knew he’d been waiting for days for a callback from someone at Interpol.

“And”—the rabbi began making notes on a pad—“we now know Philip Weinraub lied about the source of his information. And you and Geoff have come to the not-unlikely belief that he is seeking a mezuzah of some sort, which may be decorated with an almond branch. But”—with another of those dismissive waves—“what he actually wants, what his agenda may be—I don’t see what this tells us. It does, however, indicate he might not be the originator of the
A
code. The code is embedded in the German documents, and it now seems they existed long before Weinraub got his hands on them.”

“But he knows about it,” Geoff said. “That’s why he concealed it when he had the English translations made for Annie.”

Cohen nodded. “True. Leaving us with the connection to the Carthusian monk. Which I also still don’t understand. Maybe, Annie, your ghost has nothing to do with Weinraub and all the rest.”

“Not so,” Annie said stubbornly. “The ghost is part of everything else.”

“I thought you and Maggie,” Geoff said, “were of the opinion that with puzzles, there’s always a connection.”

“Frequently, not always,” Cohen amended.

Geoff went on as if he hadn’t heard. “And according to Maggie, back at Bletchley you were one of the ‘clever blokes in hut three.’ Supposed to be good at linking the pieces and seeing the overall pattern.”

“We were dealing with Nazis,” Cohen said, shaking his head. “They were more predictable than ghosts.” He put down his pen. “I’m out of my element. Ghosts, mystical messages”—he looked in Geoff’s direction—“even a disappearing grocer—I’m sorry, it’s not my kind of mystery, and I can’t help.”

“But you’re a rabbi,” Annie said.

“A sort of rabbi. Not the sort you mean. My dear, you’re asking me to revisit all the arguments I had with myself right after the war, when I was deciding whether to enter the rabbinate. I will tell you the answer I finally came up with, but it won’t satisfy you. For me, for many Jews, the issue is living like a Jew, not dying like one. Death will occur whatever we do. How we live, that’s a choice. That’s why I’m a rabbi.”

He glanced upward, as if, Annie thought, he could see through the ceiling to his demented wife’s room. “I wish you’d had an opportunity to know Esther,” he said softly. “She was a lovely person.” Then, before they could comment: “Go home, you two. I will think about this. Maybe there’s someone . . . I’ll make a call. If the man I’m thinking of will see you, I’ll be in touch.”

21

“Both of you,” Cohen said when he called the next day. “I thought maybe he’d agree to see only Annie, but he says you can both go.”

Rabbi Nachum Hazan lived in Stamford Hill. “The Piccadilly Line as far as Manor House,” Cohen instructed. “From there you’ll have a walk of maybe ten minutes. I’m e-mailing the link to a map. Wear a skirt, Annie. Not trousers or jeans.”

“A long skirt,” she said, “and long sleeves. I understand. Do I have to cover my head?”

“No, not for Hazan. He’s modern Orthodox, not a Hasid. But don’t expect him to shake your hand.”

Annie had said again that she understood. Now, as Geoff rang Rabbi Hazan’s bell, she wasn’t so sure. These streets had a decided sense of otherness. They were crowded with bearded men wearing black hats, and women pushing carriages of every size and shape and shepherding what seemed like dozens of children.

The woman who opened the door was not like them. She wore jeans, for one thing, and didn’t have anything tied around her head. She was also pretty in a quiet sort of way, but she looked very tired, even a bit frazzled. About forty, Annie thought, with a fat and beaming baby resting on her hip. Annie heard other children in the background, loud enough that there must be quite a few of them. “You’re the couple to see my husband,” the woman said. “Come in.”

She showed them into what was obviously Rabbi Hazan’s study. “Sit down,” she said. “The rabbi won’t be long.”

Moments later he arrived, closing the door softly behind him. He had, Annie noted at once, dark brown eyes that smiled at them from behind horn-rimmed glasses. She and Geoff had taken seats across from the desk. Nachum Hazan motioned them to another part of the room, a couch and a couple of chairs beside the window. “Come, sit over here. We’ll be more comfortable.”

“Thanks for agreeing to see us, Rabbi,” Geoff said.

“You are welcome. I hope I can help.” He sat opposite them and Annie caught a glimpse of the fringed garment—the small
tallith
worn always by Orthodox Jewish men—beneath his dark cardigan. She’d read about such things when she began studying Judaica; it was only a couple of months ago, but it felt like a lifetime. Hazan wore as well a white shirt and a dark tie and of course a skullcap. And he had a full untrimmed beard, nothing like Simon Cohen’s elegant goatee.

“The story Rabbi Cohen told me,” he began, “your . . . communications, Dr. Kendall. The search for the ancient Judaica. It’s all quite fascinating.”

“Did he mention the quail eggs?” Geoff asked.

“Oh, yes. And even a grocer who seems to have disappeared, though Rabbi Cohen is less convinced about that.”

“May I ask,” Geoff said, “if you’ve ever encountered similar phenomena?”

“Personally,” the rabbi said softly, “no. Is that what you mean, Mr. Harris?”

“But you study such things,” Annie said, jumping in before Geoff could answer. She’d promised Rabbi Cohen she’d keep him in line.
Nachum is not on Geoffrey’s show. He should not be interrogated.
“We’re hoping you can help us understand.”

“I can try. But these are complex realities. I doubt I will have”—he paused, hunting for a word—“a tidy answer.” He took off his glasses, leaned back, and closed his eyes. “I’ve heard the facts from Rabbi Cohen, but I would like to hear them from you, Dr. Kendall. Every detail you can remember, please.”

Annie had been rehearsing the story in her mind for hours, rather as if she were mounting an academic defense. She reached into her tote bag. “It might help if you could take a look at these.” She held out the sketchbook that contained her drawings of the monk. It was open to the one where he had his back to her.

Hazan took the sketchbook, holding it at arm’s length. Then he put on the horn-rimmed glasses and drew it closer.

“There are other views,” Annie said.

He turned the page. “Ah yes, the face.” He looked at the drawing, then at Geoff. “Definitely your face, Mr. Harris. I’m told many people in Britain know what you look like.”

“Dr. Kendall had never seen me when she drew that,” Geoff said. The challenge in his voice was unmistakable.

“I don’t doubt it,” Hazan said mildly. “I’m only pointing out that here, too”—he looked up and smiled—“I am acting on information conveyed by third-party sources. I don’t watch television.” Then, to Annie: “Permit me to explain, Dr. Kendall. I realize we seem very different to you, but my family and I don’t reject all modernity. We have a television. My children watch far too much, as far as I’m concerned. And my wife, who as it happens has a degree in political philosophy from Princeton, writes a column on moral governance for our community newspaper. She tells me, Mr. Harris, that you are a very astute commentator on politics. That your mother was part of the Kindertransport, as Rabbi Cohen explained, neither of us knew.”

“I’m not actually—” Geoff began.

Hazan held up his hand. “You are not an observant Jew. That too Rabbi Cohen told me. Now, let us continue.”