Scorpion's Advance (21 page)

The stairs flew up at him as Anderson hurtled back down them four at a time. He burst out through the glass door at the bottom and found Hiram still there. 'Hello again,' said the American. 'Change our mind, did we?'

'I'm going back to Professor Strauss's house. If you are going to follow, why don't we both go in your car?' suggested Anderson.

'Suits me,' said Hiram. 'What's the problem?' he asked, seeing how agitated Anderson was.

Anderson told him on the way over and elicited an immediate change in Hiram's manner. He now asked question after question about the layout of the Strauss villa, impressing Anderson with his professional single-mindedness. As they neared the avenue where Strauss lived, he said, 'Look, if I have a headache I'll ask your advice, but this kind of thing is my game, OK?'

'Agreed,' said Anderson, seeing the sense.

Hiram parked the car at the foot of the avenue and said, 'On foot now.' They walked towards the Strauss residence as Anderson had done earlier in the evening, but this time for a different reason. 'Cross here,' said Hiram, and Anderson saw the logic in crossing to the side of the street that would keep them out of view from the villa for as long as possible.

The young organist was still labouring through her repertoire; she was maiming Lara's theme from
Dr Zhivago
when Hiram signalled Anderson to get behind him. 'Take the left side of the house,' he whispered. I’ll circle to the right. Look and listen but don't make a sound! We'll meet at the back.' Anderson nodded his understanding.

Hiram, still wearing his dark glasses, moved quickly out of the shelter of the bush and ran across the front of the
house in a crablike sideways run. For a big man he was surprisingly quiet and agile. Anderson knew that he was watching a professional. He'd have to be more polite to Hiram in future if he was to have a future. He himself did well until he reached the wall of the house but, in ducking down into its shadow, he caught the toe of his shoe on the path and scraped along it for a metre or two. It made a sound like tearing cardboard. Anderson's lips formed the first 'F' of the expletive but he recovered enough not to compound the damage with a curse.

He listened for any sound coming from within. Nothing, only the chirruping and whirring of insects in the garden and the umpteenth halting chorus of Lara's theme from over the road. He moved further along the wall and stopped again beneath a window. There was no light coming from it but Anderson reckoned that it had to be on the stairway and that he should be able to hear any sounds coming from the hall. Again, nothing. He paused once more at a small wire-meshed window near the rear of the building before turning the corner and seeing the shadow of a tall figure standing there in the darkness. Anderson's heart missed a beat before he realized that it was Hiram.' He wasn't crouching; he was standing upright and looking in through patio doors at the back of the house. Anderson stood up and walked towards him, feeling a bit silly at having maintained what he felt had been a professional crouch throughout.

'Nobody here?' said Anderson, trying to sound cool.

'Oh yes, they're here,' said Hiram, without moving his eyes from the glass. 'Take a look.' Anderson's blood went cold at the tone of Hiram's voice. He looked in through the doors and saw Jacob and Miriam Strauss. They were hanging by their necks from a wooden beam in the dining
room, their faces blackened, tongues swollen and protruding. Their corpses rotated slowly backwards and forwards as if keeping time in some hellish dance to the music outside. Anderson turned away and screwed his eyes tight shut. 'Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!' he said in successive explosions of breath. 'What a waste! What a useless, fucking waste!'

'Friends of yours?' said Hiram.

Friend? thought Anderson. The word seemed far too small and personal for a man like Strauss. He said, ‘This world only gets one or two people like that man in an entire generation.' Grief welled up within him again and he slammed his fist into the bark of a tree.

'The woman. His wife?' asked Hiram.

'Yes, that's Miriam.'

'OK. Let's go.'

'Go? But we can't just go!' exclaimed Anderson.

'Yes, we can,' said Hiram. 'We can't bring them back, Doc, and the aftermath is none of our business.' Anderson reluctantly saw that the American was right. They walked round the side of the house as Lara's theme ended and the theme tune from
The Godfather
took over. They could see the girl through the lighted window, oblivious to everything around her and totally unaware that her music had probably been the last sound that Jacob and Miriam Strauss had ever heard.

'Christ, I need a drink,' said Anderson as he got into the car.

'Beer?' asked Hiram.

'No, a real drink, but you can never get one in this . . .' Anderson dismissed all the adjectives that sprang to mind and just said, 'country'.

'You can if you know where to look.'

They drove back to town and the American led the way up a side
street to what looked from the outside to be a small nightclub. 'The American Bar,' said Hiram as they descended some stairs into a smoky room. 'What's your pleasure?'

Anderson took a great gulp of the whisky he'd asked for and felt the fire burn his throat. 'That's better.'

'So who killed Strauss?' asked Hiram.

'I wish I knew who was behind it. I suppose that person or someone working for him killed him to shut him up.'

'Or you did,' said Hiram.

Anderson almost choked. 'What do you mean?'

'You were in the house about forty minutes before the Kleins were found murdered.'

'But I didn't kill them! I loved the man,' said Anderson.

'I know you didn't kill him, Doc,' said Hiram. 'I saw Strauss see you to the door when you left.'

Then why . . . ?'

'If I hadn't been following you, you would be the number one suspect. Get the point?'

'I get the point,' sighed Anderson. He finished the whisky th
at remained in his glass. 'Same again?' he asked. Hiram hesitated. Anderson pushed. ‘I’d like to buy you a drink.'

'OK, same again.'

The memorial service for Jacob and Miriam Strauss was Anderson's first experience of a synagogue. He attended with Sam and Myra Freedman as Mirit had never met Strauss and didn't feel that she should go. Anderson arranged to meet her afterwards.

'What can you say about a man like Jacob Strauss?' said Sam Freedman, and Anderson knew exactly what he meant. There was no way that they could communicate their real sense of loss to each other. Myra stood quietly, holding her handkerchief to her face, and Anderson noticed Sam give her hand a comforting squeeze before men and women were separated as they entered the synagogue.

Anderson asked Sam Freedman who the tall, distinguished man in the front was.

'
Dov Strauss,' said Freedman, 'Jacob's son.'

Anderson remembered how Strauss had looked away when Miriam had mentioned their son
Dov at the house. 'He's a biologist, too, isn't he?' he said.

'Yes.'

'In the States, I understand.'

Freedman looked at Anderson. 'Miriam told you that?'

'Why, yes.'

'
Dov has been back in Israel for some time,' said Freedman. 'He's director of Comgen, one of the myriad genetic engineering companies thrown up by American venture capital.'

'But why would Miriam say . . . ?'

'She probably didn't know that Dov was back in Israel. Jacob obviously didn't tell her.'

'I don't understand,' confessed Anderson.

'Jacob and Dov never saw eye to eye. The first big break came when Dov gave up his academic post and went to work for a pharmaceutical company in the States – selling out to mammon and all that. Then, when Dov wrote and told his father that he was coming back to Israel to set up Comgen and asked for his help with DNA expertise, Jacob really blew his top. Told him he was a scientific prostitute and that he never wanted to see him again. The breach was never healed.'

Anderson could hardly believe what he had been hearing. Jacob Strauss's own son was head of a genetic engineering concern here in Israel. He had come all this way in the Klein affair without knowing that. As the
kepa
-covered heads of the congregation began to bow and bob, Anderson's imagination was taking him along a road he had no wish to travel.

'His own son?' exclaimed
Mirit, seeing the implications of what Anderson had told her. 'You think his own son killed him?'

'God, I don't know. But it's something we must consider. The circumstantial
evidence is overwhelming, even the CIA angle if you think about it.'

'Explain.'

'Strauss's son spent some time in the States. Maybe he got up to something there that interested the CIA and they are still interested in him.'

'I see, but why would
Langman and the CIA be interested in you and Strauss's laboratory in Tel Aviv when there was no contact between Dov Strauss and his father? That doesn't make too much sense.'

Anderson agreed with a thoughtful nod of the head and said, 'We'd better check it out anyway. Can you find out about
Comgen?'

'On my way.'

Anderson walked slowly back to his apartment, not at all sure what he was going to do till Mirit returned. He still had not come to terms with the news about Dov Strauss. If only he had known about this sooner. Had Strauss himself suspected his own son? Had he known all along? Is that what he was going to tell him the night he got killed?

There was another question that bothered Anderson. If Sam Freedman knew that
Dov Strauss was back in Israel, then Myra must have known too. Why had she not said anything? He was trying to think of an answer when he heard his name being called on the paging system. He went to the phone.

'Neil Anderson?
My name is Dov Strauss,' said the voice. 'We haven't met but I think that we should talk.'

Hellfire, thought Anderson. What next? He paused for a moment to conjure up a neutral tone for his voice. 'Very well,' he said with a constricting throat. 'What do you suggest?'

'Do you have transport?'

'No.'

'Then I'll come to you.'

'Do you mean now?'

'Yes, I thought as I was still in Tel Aviv ... but, of course, if it's not convenient . . .’

'No
problem. I stay in the university apartments in Einstein.'

'Ten minutes then?'

'Ten minutes.'

Anderson went downstairs to find the duty CIA man. It was still Hiram. He told him that he was expecting a visitor and requested him not to shoot. 'Very funny,' said Hiram. 'Who is she?'

'He . . . Dov Strauss.' Anderson looked for a reaction but couldn't see Hiram's eyes for the dark glasses. So that's why he wears the bloody things, he thought, as he returned upstairs.

'I'm afraid my apartment isn't up to entertaining in,' said Anderson, as Strauss reached the head of the stairs. 'Perhaps we could talk outside on the roof.'

'Of course, whatever you like.'

Anderson brought out a chair for Strauss while he himself opted to stand, leaning against the parapet wall. Strauss opened conventionally, saying, 'I expect you are wondering why I have come here.'

Anderson countered obligingly, 'Yes, I am.'

'Quite simply, I came here to save you the trouble of coming to see me.'

'I don't understand.'

'I think that you do, Doctor. You found out today that my father had a son who ran a genetic engineering company. I know why you came to Israel so it was quite obvious what your next step would be. You would start investigating me to find out if I was responsible for the death of your medical student, Martin Klein.'

'And were you?'

'No, Dr Anderson. I was not.'

'How did you know that I had found out about you today?'

Strauss smiled. 'The
Freedmans told me. You see, although my father and I did not see eye to eye, I've always been friendly with Sam and Myra. When Myra told me about the English doctor who had come to my father's lab and why, I saw right away that you would suspect me so I asked Myra to say nothing about my existence. But today, when you asked Sam in the synagogue about who I was, he felt that he could not lie. He called me afterwards and told me what he'd done. So here I am, Doctor. What would you like to know?'

Anderson decided to be equally direct. 'I would like to know if you collaborated wi
th Martin Klein in the construction of a plasmid carrying a foreign gene . . . the Klein gene.'

'No, I did not. I never even met Martin Klein.'

'But your company carries out experiments in gene manipulation?'

'Yes, but there
’s nothing illegal in that. We are trying to clone the nitrogen-fixing genes from bacteria into cereal crop plants so that they could grow well without the use of fertilizers.'

Anderson whistled in admiration. That would go a long way in solving the food problems of the Third World,' he said.