The Jerusalem Puzzle by Laurence O’Bryan Read Free Book Online Page A

her back in Cambridge and she prayed for her sister. And at the end she prayed for herself. She wasn’t used to praying. She hadn’t done it since she was eight years old. And she’d never been into it that much back then either.
    But she had every reason to start now.
    The basement was perfectly dark. She knew how many steps away each wall was, fifteen one way, twenty the other, but some times it felt as if the dark was endless, no matter what her brain told her. Her hands were pressed tight into her stomach.
    Pain was throbbing through her.
    She was doing all she could to ignore it.
    She wanted to cry, to wail, but she wasn’t going to. He might be listening. And he’d enjoy it too much. That much she knew.
    Where he had the microphone placed in the basement, she didn’t know, but its existence was irrefutable.
    He had come down after a period of her whimpering and played a recording of the noises she’d made to cheer her up. That was how he’d put it.
    But the sounds hadn’t cheered her up. They’d chilled her until her insides felt empty.
    And then he’d taken her upstairs. The pain then had been horrific. And in the end he’d made her say things, which he recorded.
    Then he told her he’d enjoy burning her again, if she didn’t do exactly what she was told every time he asked.
    The thought of how he’d said that, his certainty, was enough to set her praying again.

12
    The call went straight to voicemail. My deflation was immediate. Isabel must have seen it on my face.
    ‘Who was that?’
    ‘Susan Hunter. Can you believe it? Now her phone is off. I didn’t even get to speak to her!’
    ‘So she’s around somewhere?’
    ‘I have no idea. I’ll try her again in a few minutes.’
    Simon was standing near me. ‘I can put those ones out,’ he said, putting his hand on the reports.
    ‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘I’m doing them.’
    He pulled his hand back. ‘I’m trying to help you, Dr Ryan.’
    ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’m just a bit distracted.’
    I turned, began putting the reports on the chairs again.
    I tried Susan’s phone twice in the following five minutes. The response was the same as every time I’d called her in the past six days, since I’d heard about Kaiser.
    ‘The number you are trying to reach is unavailable. Please try again later.’
They must be the thirteen most frustrating words in the English language.
    As I finished with the reports, Simon was putting a
stack of leaflets on one of the tables at the top of the room. On the other table a laptop had already been set up.
    He sat in front of the laptop, turned and motioned me to him.
    ‘This is what I wanted to show you.’ He clicked at a file. It opened slowly.
    ‘Who’s coming to this meeting?’ I asked, bending down.
    ‘Some iron skull caps.’ He didn’t look up.
    ‘Iron skull caps?’
    ‘They’re a type of Orthodox Jew,’ said Isabel.
    She was on the other side of the table. She looked good in her black shirt.
    ‘You are right.’ He pointed a finger at Isabel. ‘But that doesn’t mean I endorse their views.’
    ‘What views?’
    I was peering at what Simon had on his screen. It was a blown-up picture of a real DNA strand with lines and labels pointing to various features on the strand. We were looking at something 2.5 nanometres wide, a billionth of a metre wide. It’s hard to even imagine something that thin.
    ‘I’m not going to explain what they believe. But I’ll tell you this. They were looking for someone who can do non-destructive DNA splicing, someone who can manipulate down to the molecular level. And they were willing to pay good money for the research to make it happen.’
    ‘You’re involved in a red heifer project, aren’t you?’ Isabel’s eyes were wide.
    He stared up at her, beaming.
    ‘What’s a red heifer project?’ I said.
    ‘It’s a project to create one of the biblical symbols of the coming of the Messiah,’ said Isabel.
    ‘What?’ I said.
    ‘Apocalyptic Christians