The Boudicca Parchments

Chapter 51

He kept several cars between them, but the man in the black frock coat continued to follow Julia Sasson and her family up the mountain road that wound its way up to Jerusalem. He had hovered around the arrivals area of the airport and picked up on Julia Sasson both from her description and the presence of the twins and the younger child. It was unlikely that there would be another family with precisely that arrangement and a young woman who matched Julia Sasson’s description.

He felt guilty at the temptation of lust that afflicted him when he looked upon the woman. But he told himself that it was her fault. He would ask his rabbi — HaTzadik — for guidance on this matter.

He would have to be alert now, because they were approaching the entrance to Jerusalem and that meant they could take the Sacharov Gardens entrance on the right that led to the Givat Sha’ul neighbourhood. However, he was not surprised when they passed the entrance and went on instead to the main entrance to the city instead.

Once they were inside the city with its busy traffic, he had to stay alert, because it would be all too easy to lose the car amidst the turnoffs and side streets. So he made sure that this time there was no more than one car between them as he followed through the labyrinthine streets. Jerusalem, the “new” city outside the Old City walls — was no carefully planned metropolis like New York City or the other major cities of the USA. It had grown organically over the course of its 150 year history.

And its rapid growth meant that new roads were constantly being built in the suburbs, while traffic was frequently log-jammed in the city centre. The new tramlink in Jaffa Road, far from alleviating the congestion, had augmented it because now cars, taxis and even buses were rerouted behind the shouk — the market — into a street far too narrow for them to navigate safely.

But the Sassons didn’t take the road behind the shouk. Instead they took another route that led them to an area of south Jerusalem, along a winding road that to its left had a panoramic view of the old city, the sun glinting off the golden Dome of the Rock, built by Muslims on the site where the ancient Jewish temple once stood, and now claimed by Muslims to the exclusion of the Jews.

Not that this bothered the man in the car. He believed that Jews should not enter the Temple Mount because they did not know where the Holy of Holies was situated. And as only the high priest was allowed in the Holy of Holies, it followed that no one — or at least no God-fearing Jew — should enter any part of the Temple Mount.

These thoughts were still with him as he followed the car past the roundabout by the forest just before Government House, the former British High Commissioner’s residence from the days of the British Mandate, now used by the United Nations. The roundabout took him into East Talpiot, a large sprawling neighbourhood with buildings of the ubiquitous near white or cream-coloured Jerusalem stone facade.

He held back as they turned off into another winding road, this one descending down a shallow hill. The reason for holding off was because he suspected that they had no more turnoffs and he didn’t want to make it to obvious that he was keeping them under surveillance.

After a couple of minutes, he went the same way, following the single road’s winding turns. A couple of times, he cast his gaze to the left, as gaps between the buildings gave him a panoramic view of the small valley on the other side of the hill against which these buildings had been built. These buildings were separate houses, attached middle eastern style with some atop one another, but each with a separate entrance from the street. To his right, on the upper part of the hill, were taller buildings containing apartments.

He noticed the car parked outside one of the buildings to his left, but kept his eyes on the road, except when they darted sideways as he passed the car that he had been following. He noticed that a gate was open and the Sassons — mother and children — were carrying suitcase downstairs to the lower house while Julia’s mother locked the car. Although the house was apparently in a basement, when viewed and entered from this side, he knew from the topography of the neighbourhood and the fact that it was against a hill, that it would actually have a panoramic view across the valley on the other side — and probably quite a nice garden.

But more importantly, he knew exactly where it was.