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TWENTY-ONE

Saturday, 6.36am, Manhattan

They were in a baking hot country, on a wide bed covered by a vast white net. It was a suite in an old colonial hotel. Sounds were floating up from the street below, car horns and traders; a mosquito buzzed lazily. It was the afternoon and he and Beth were making fevered love, their bodies slick with sweat . . .

Will’s heart thumped; the shock of waking from a dream. He looked down to see a bed that was narrow – and empty. Except it was not quite a bed. He had fallen asleep in TC’s studio, on her red velvet sofa. It turned out she had a camp bed of her own behind a partition at the side of the studio. ‘Sometimes I work nights,’ she had said.

He reached instantly for his BlackBerry. Nothing more from the kidnappers; two emails from Harden; several from his father, begging him to get in touch and complaining of his desperate worry. His phone would not switch on: the battery must have died when he was at Tom’s.

He tiptoed over to TC’s workbench, where he was relieved to see she had the same brand of phone as him. There would be a charger here somewhere. While looking, he spotted the sketch pad from last night. He turned it the right way up and saw that TC had not been taking notes, but doing what seemed to be an elaborate doodle. It formed a geometric pattern: circles linked by straight lines, like one of those molecular diagrams. Was TC an expert chemist on the side? It would not have surprised him.

Seeing her Hebrew doodles brought back with a thud the night’s biggest, and most baffling, revelation. The Rebbe was dead. Despite the pictures on every wall in Crown Heights, the websites covered with his face, the constant references to him in the present tense, the sheer fervour aroused by the mere sight of his chair – despite all this, TC had been adamant that the Grand Rabbi of the Hassidic sect, the Rebbe, was deep in the ground.

He had died in his sleep two years earlier, plunging his entire community and thousands of followers worldwide into abject grief. In the last years of his life, the belief had grown that the Rebbe was not just an extraordinary leader but something more. ‘Judaism holds that each generation includes one person who is the candidate to be the Messiah,’ TC had explained. ‘That doesn’t mean he actually is the Messiah. But if God decided the time had come, that it was time for the Messianic era to begin, then this person, this candidate, would be the one. He would be revealed as the Moshiach.’

‘And so they started thinking the Rebbe was the candidate?’

‘Exactly. That’s how it began. Just that he was the candidate for this age. But then things started getting more intense. People started saying this was not some remote, abstract possibility but that the Messianic days were imminent, that the moment was approaching. Truth be told, I think the Rebbe encouraged it. He whipped up this fervour.’

‘What, was he on some major ego trip?’

‘I don’t know if it was that. He was an amazingly modest man in most ways. He lived frugally, in a few Spartan rooms in Crown Heights. After his wife died, he confined himself to his study. He’d sleep in there, but only for an hour or two at night; the rest of the time, the light would be on and he’d be working, working, working. Dictating letters mostly; offering advice to his people all over the world. You’ve got to realize, this is a billion-dollar, global organization. They have centres in almost every city of the world, even in really obscure places where there are hardly any Jews, just in case there are Jewish travellers nearby who might feel the urge to have a Sabbath meal. He would tell one of his emissaries, “You’re needed in Greenland” and they’d go to Greenland. The Rebbe was like a cross between the CEO of some huge multi-national corporation and the Commandante of a revolutionary army.’ TC grinned. ‘He was Bill Gates and Che Guevara, all rolled into one. And aged ninety-something.’

Will thought back to the picture of the twinkling old man with the snow-white beard. An unlikely revolutionary.

‘Anyway, then he died and most people assumed that would be the end of that. After all, he couldn’t exactly be the Messiah if he was dead, could he?’

‘I guess not.’

‘Well, you guess wrong. The hardcore devotees started camping out at the graveside. When people asked them what on earth they were doing, they said, “Waiting”. They wanted to be ready to welcome the Rebbe when he rose from the dead.’

‘Are you sure these guys aren’t Christians?’

‘I know; it’s weird isn’t it? There’s some serious debate going on about that, in fact. There are plenty of Jews who say Crown Heights is effectively taking itself outside Judaism, that it is becoming another faith. The argument is that Christianity was once just a form of Judaism which believed the Messiah had come; now Crown Heights is making the same move.’

‘The difference is they’re still waiting. Mind you, Christians are still waiting for the second coming. Everybody’s waiting.’

‘This lot certainly are. They’re waiting for their leader to reveal himself, for him to rise from the dead and tell them it’s all going to be OK.’

‘You’re taking the piss, aren’t you?’

‘Kind of. Look, theologically speaking, they might be right. It is quite true that, in the Messianic age, Judaism says the dead will live again. And there’s nothing written that says the Messiah can’t be one of them; you know, one of the dead. So they might be right. It’s just, I don’t know, it just seems kind of sad to me. Like this is a group of children who’ve lost their daddy or something. As the therapists would say, “they’re hurting”.’

Will tried to square TC’s account – a cult traumatized by the loss of their leader, stirring themselves to a Friday night fury as if desperately summoning him back from the dead – with the gang who had nearly killed him a few hours earlier. He found sympathy did not come easily. ‘How come you know so much about them?’

‘I read the papers,’ she said quickly; an instant scold. ‘It’s all been in the Times.’

Will kicked himself. His haste at Tom’s meant he never did the thorough Google search that would have told him all this – or at least that the Rebbe was dead. More galling was the certain knowledge that all this had, just as TC said, been in the paper but that he had skimmed over it: weirdo religious news, not relevant.

That was last night. This morning’s thunderbolt came once he finally found the phone charger, near the coffee pot. He plugged it in and his mobile came silently to life. (He always set his to ‘silent’: you never knew when a loud, synthetic chime would embarrass you.) The voicemail messages declared themselves first: four from his dad, three, increasingly sarcastic ones from Harden, the last saying, ‘You better be on a story so good that I win a Pulitzer for running it,’ before telling him he would be on ‘the first boat back to Oxford’ if he did not report for duty soon. Two others that Will skipped after a few words, deeming them non-urgent.

Next came the texts. One from Tom, wishing him luck.

And then:

Foot runs. B Gates.

He pressed the button marked ‘Details’ but the phone yielded nothing. For number, it said ‘Withheld Private Caller’. For the time, it uselessly gave the hour, minute and second Will had switched on the phone. He had no idea who had sent it or when. Given that the meaning was utterly opaque, that made the blank complete.

By now, TC was up, emerging from her mini-bedroom with a sleepy stretch. Even in man’s-style boxer shorts and a thin-strapped white vest, she looked sumptuous. The navel ring was fully exposed now. Will felt a tremor of movement in his groin, followed by a thump of guilt. To lust after your ex-girlfriend was appalling under any circumstances. To do so when your wife was a hostage in fear of her life was contemptible. He gave TC only the merest acknowledgement, looked back at his cell phone and reflexively tucked in his pelvis – as if to staunch the flow of erection-threatening blood before it passed the point of no return.

To his relief, TC kept some spare clothes behind the partition and she now disappeared to put them on. When she emerged, Will handed her his phone. ‘Now this,’ he said.

TC fumbled for her glasses; it was too early for lenses. ‘Hmm,’ she said, staring at the words.

Will briefed her on his early lines of inquiry. ‘I reckon this must be from them, the Hassidim. They obviously got my number off the phone when they had my bag.’

‘No, they wouldn’t have done that. It breaks Shabbat. And they wouldn’t send a text message for the same reason. Both violate the Sabbath.’

‘What, and dunking an innocent man into freezing water is OK?’

‘Technically, yes. They didn’t use any electricity, any fire. They didn’t write anything down, didn’t use any machinery.’

‘So what they did to me was all perfectly kosher.’

‘Look, Will, don’t give me a hard time. I don’t make up these rules. All I’m saying is, they would only break the Sabbath if there was no alternative. So far they avoided that.’

‘But what about pikuach nefesh, you know the saving a soul thing?’

‘You’re right. If they felt it was justified, they would do it. OK, so it could be them. What does it mean?’

‘Like I know. But I was wondering if perhaps foot means ending or conclusion. You know how you told me Rosh Hashana means literally “head of the year” so maybe foot is the end.’ Will smiled hopefully, like a pupil expecting praise. TC did not smile.

‘And runs?’

‘You know, “it goes on”. It runs on. Or “the end approaches”. Maybe Foot runs is a coded way of saying that the operation is nearing its end. And the B Gates thing is just a sign off. You know, Bill Gates. Mickey Mouse.’

TC did not react. She just took the phone over to the couch, sat down and stared at it. ‘Can you pass me the pad? And a pen.’

Will sat next to her, so he could see what she was doing. He felt awkward as soon as he had done it; his legs so near hers.

She was writing down a new message.

GPPU SVOT

‘OK, so that doesn’t work. Let’s try it the other way.’

ENNS QTMR

‘Nor does that,’ she said, not disappointed so much as challenged.

‘What are you doing?’

‘It’s kiddie code-breaking stuff. Each letter stands for the one after it – so that F is really G, O is really P – or, alternatively, the one before it – so that F is really E and O is really N. That way FOOT is either GPPU or ENNS. Which means that neither of those is the code. Let’s try another one.’

TC began to write, very fast, the alphabet across the page. Then, underneath it, she did the same in reverse, so that Z, Y, X, appeared directly under A, B, C.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Z Y X W V U T S R Q P O N M L K J I H G F E D C B A

‘Now we can read off and see what we get.’ Her finger scanned along the line, then she started scribbling.

ULLG IFMH

‘Shit,’ Will hissed. ‘I am getting so tired of these fucking games. What the hell does this mean?’

‘We’re not thinking logically. Not many people send text messages by phone like this.’

‘Brits do.’

‘Yeah, but most Americans don’t. And it would have been just as easy to communicate by email. But they didn’t do that. Why not?’

‘Because they know that we can trace their emails. They must know that I worked out where their last one came from.’

‘Sure, but that might not be a bad thing from their point of view. They might want you to know it was a message from them. No, I reckon they chose a different method for a reason. Can you pass me your phone?’

She grabbed it eagerly, instantly finding the messaging programme. She hit ‘Create message’ and began typing with her thumbs. Will had to huddle even closer to see what she was doing. He could smell her hair and had to fight the urge not to breathe deeply: in an instant, her scent had carried him back to those long hot afternoons together.

That in turn jogged another sense memory, the perfume of Beth. He liked it best when it was strongest: when she dressed up to go out for the evening. She might have got her outfit just right; he would want to rip it all off, to ravish her there and then. Later, at the party, he would spot her across the room and find himself looking at his watch: he wanted to get her back home. He was suddenly flooded with memories, of TC and of Beth, and they were arousing him. He felt confused.

TC was typing the word FOOT. Now her thumbs searched for the * button; she pressed it twice, and a smile began to form around her lips. The display changed, showing the word FOOT, then FONT then DON’T, then ENOU, then EMOT, then DONU and finally ENNU before going back to FOOT. TC wrote down the word DON’T.

Next she keyed in RUNS, which showed up on the screen as SUMS, SUNS, PUNS, STOP, RUMP, SUMP, PUMP, as well as STOR, SUNR and QUOR. She wrote one of those down, too.

‘There,’ she said, with the satisfaction of a bookish schoolgirl who had just completed her algebra homework in record time. The two-word nonsense of FOOT RUNS now appeared as a clear message of encouragement.

DON’T STOP.

It was not really a code at all, thought Will. Just a neat use of the ‘predictive’ language function on most cell phones: every time you tried to punch in a word, the phone offered possible alternatives using the same combination of buttons. You pressed 3,6,6,8 to mean FOOT, but you might have meant DON’T so the machine cleverly offered you that option. Whoever sent this message had found a novel use for the function.

The satisfaction of TC’s handiwork was brief. True, they had decoded the message, but they hardly knew what it meant and they still had no idea who had sent it.

‘So who the hell is Bill Gates?’

‘Let’s have a look,’ said TC, picking up the phone again. ‘Well, B could be C or A.’ She keyed in the word GATES. ‘And that could be HATES or HAVES or HAVER or HATER.’

‘So what would that mean?’ said Will. ‘A hater? A hater of what? Or is it B Haves as in “behaves”?’

‘Or maybe it’s the opposite of “a hater”,’ said TC, suddenly excited.

‘The opposite?’

‘The opposite of a hater. A friend.’

‘But it doesn’t say that. It’s just gates or hates or haves or hates.’

‘Or haver. Haver is the word for friend in Hebrew. B Gates is A Haver. This message says, “Don’t stop, a friend.”’ She began circling, staring at the floor. ‘Who would want to stiffen your resolve now? Who would think there was a chance you would give up?’

‘The only people who even know about this are you, my father, Tom and the Hassidim themselves.’

‘You’re sure there’s no one else. No one who’s aware this is happening?’

With a stab, Will thought of Harden and the office: he would have to do something about that eventually.

‘No. No one knows. And since neither you, nor Tom, nor my Dad need to contact me anonymously that leaves the Hassidim. I think we may have a bit of a split on our hands.’

‘What do you mean?’

Will enjoyed the novelty of TC being a pace behind him for once. Politics never was her strongest suit.

‘A split. A split in the ranks of the enemy. The only person who could have sent this would be somebody who heard the Rebbe, I mean the rabbi I spoke to yesterday, telling me to back off. They must want me to ignore that advice. They must disagree with what the rabbi’s doing. This person doesn’t want me to stop. And I think I can guess who it is.’