The Jerusalem Puzzle Read Online Free

night before in a settlement near Hebron. The horror of it leapt off the screen. Pictures of a small blackened house with an ambulance in front of it, surrounded by Israeli soldiers, filled the news page. Isabel looked over my shoulder as I read it.
    ‘They’re blaming some local Palestinians,’ I said.
    ‘How many more people are going to get burnt to death?’ said Isabel.
    ‘You can get shot out here too,’ I said. I pointed at another article. It was about a funeral of a Palestinian youth who’d been shot in the back after being part of a demonstration in a village sandwiched between Jewish settlements. A Jewish settler was being blamed for that death.
    ‘It’s all sickening,’ said Isabel.
    ‘There’s a vicious fight going on here, unbending hatred,’ I replied. Opening my email, there was the usual array of special offers from every hotel, airline and social network I’d ever used and some I hadn’t. I spotted an email from Dr Beresford-Ellis. It had an attachment. I clicked on it. The message wouldn’t open. The screen just froze.
    Had the internet stopped completely? I went to another tab and tried to download a page. It wouldn’t work either. Nothing would. I waited another minute.
    ‘I’ll go down and see if they can do anything about the signal; find out if it’s better in the lobby,’ said Isabel.
    ‘Can you see if you can get some fruit, I’m still hungry?’ I said.
    The internet was still off ten minutes later and Isabel hadn’t come back. I let the door bang as I left the room, pushing the old-fashioned key into my pocket as I waited for the lift. I was hoping it would open to Isabel’s smiling face, but it was empty when it arrived.
    In the lobby there was no sign of her either. I went to the reception. The dark-haired girl who’d checked us in was gone. In her place was an older guy with a bald spot he was trying to hide by brushing his hair over. He was standing in a corner of the reception area that was walled with blue and white Ottoman-era tiles.
    ‘No, I haven’t seen a lady in dark blue jeans with straight black hair,’ he said, after I described Isabel. His expression was quizzical, as if he was wondering whether I was asking him to find me a date.
    ‘Maybe she went to the shop. It’s down the road. Not far.’ He smiled, showed me his yellowing teeth.
    ‘Is there a problem with the Wi-Fi?’ I asked.
    ‘No, sir. It’s working perfectly.’
    ‘Not for me. How far away is this shop?’
    ‘Not far.’ He pointed towards the front of the hotel, then to the left.
    I walked to the glass front door, then up the steps to the road to see if Isabel was coming. I’d never been this protective of Irene, my wife, a doctor who’d volunteered and then been murdered in Afghanistan two years before, but after what had happened to her my urge to look after Isabel couldn’t be ignored. Irene had been robbed of her life. I couldn’t bear for anything like that to happen to anyone else.
    It was dark outside.
    I had to tell myself to stop being paranoid. I looked back down at the hotel doors.
    A man’s face was peering up at me through the glass door.
    ‘What are you doing out here?’ said a friendly voice behind me. ‘Did you miss me?’
    I turned. Isabel was coming towards me from the other direction to the shop. She had a brown paper bag in her arms. ‘I got you your fruit.’
    She held the bag forwards, smiled, then touched my arm as she passed. A ridiculous iron weight of fear lifted from my chest. When we got back to the room the Wi-Fi was working perfectly.
    ‘I got a call from Mark while I was out,’ she remarked. ‘He’s stationed in Cairo these days. Not a million miles from here.’
    I spoke slowly. ‘Why does he keep calling you? I thought you two were over.’
    She’d dumped him a year ago.
    ‘You are so jealous!’ she said. There was a sympathetic note to her voice.
    I gave her my best see-if-I-care smile.
    ‘He wants to meet me again.’ She shook her