CHAPTER 1 - JAFFA

The explosion hit the morning with a blinding flash and a crack of sound, followed almost immediately by the roar of moving air. Pieces of debris hurtled outwards from the epicentre with the velocity of bullets, shattering and splattering everything that stood in the way, turning the busy thoroughfare into a nightmare of death.

The immediate debris was immolated blood and flesh, shattered bone. Unrecognisable pieces of human bodies spread amongst the twisted furniture of the little pavement cafe where the businessmen liked to take their morning coffee. The first to be shredded were the elderly lady in a pale blue linen suit and the young woman in a black djellabah who had been hurrying towards her. An instant later two little boys playing football with a Coke can in the gutter were ripped open and their viscera splattered against a passing car, that was then lifted and hurled into the path of a lorry coming in the opposite direction. The lorry driver slammed on his brakes before he was crushed by a piece of flying masonry. The lorry mounted the car, mutilating its occupants beyond recognition, before hitting the side of a bus that was picking up passengers, showering those inside with shards of glass and bits of twisted metal that acted like daggers. The bus leaned over under the weight of the lorry, tottered on two wheels, then fell on its side, on top of the people who, a moment before, had been crowding around to mount the steps.

The people killed by the flying debris rather than the immediate explosion were dissected more neatly before being hurled through the air. A complete arm here, a head there, a bloody torso wrapped around a lamp post. The ponderous, moustachioed gentleman sitting at a table inside the cafe reading a copy of El Al froze for an instant before he was flung backwards in his seat and simultaneously decapitated by a piece of metal flying sideways with the force of a falling guillotine. The young waiter bringing him coffee, his mind on fond thoughts of the girl he was to marry next week, was thrown backwards against the counter and overtaken by the plate glass window that cut off both his legs as it crashed around him and left him to bleed to death.

As the front of the cafe disintegrated, the supports of the two upper storeys of the building collapsed and it folded in on itself, burying the cafe proprietor, the chef who had only started work there last week, the grandmother in the upstairs apartment who was sweeping the floor and listening to the chattering of her daughter’s infant who was left in her care, the young couple on the upper floor who were still learning to live in peace together. The neighbouring buildings were left teetering until a pick-up carrying vegetables from a nearby kibbutz careered out of control as the driver panicked, and buried itself in one of the unstable walls, bringing another building down.

Seconds later the sound of breaking glass came from every quarter as the blast took out windows in an ever-widening circle. Car horns blared as vehicles collided in the spreading chaos.

Then the screaming began.

* * * *

That evening the BBC’s prime time audience was treated to a jumpy scene filmed by a passer-by on his state-of-the art cellphone. Hurrying stretcher-bearers and wailing relatives clutched at inert forms discreetly covered by sheets as the newsreader said, in measured tones, “A suicide bomber detonated a device this morning in a pavement cafe in Tel Aviv, killing twenty-two people and injuring almost a hundred more. It was believed that the Dowager Countess of Penmore, a distant cousin of the Queen, who was visiting Israel, may be among the dead. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the outrage.”

* * * *

The twelfth Earl of Penmore folded his newspaper and watched with distaste as his elder half-brother strode across the first class departure lounge towards him. Heads turned, as they always did when Leon was about, and the Earl quivered with embarrassment.

For heaven’s sake, would the man never grow up? Surely those striped Indian shirts with cotton trousers, and the long hair tied back, had gone out of fashion years ago? And that coat – where had he got that canvas coat that swung from his shoulders almost to the ground, like something out of the wild west? Perhaps it was a shade more civilised than the embroidered goatskin he’d been calling an overcoat the last time they met, but it was no less flamboyant. It wasn’t as though he couldn’t afford to dress properly, so one could only assume that he didn’t know any better. The Earl himself was clad in a suit that he considered sombre enough for the occasion, if a little heavy for an April visit to the Middle East. His Simpson’s raincoat lay folded on the seat beside him together with a neatly zipped flight bag containing a copy of John Major’s memoirs and a folder full of the papers and photographs he was going to need when he arrived in Israel.

He stood up as Leon came to a halt in front of him and held out his right hand. Leon’s smile looked genuine as he said, “Jeremy. Nice to see you again.” Why was that transatlantic twang so irritating?

“Leon. Long time.” But not long enough. The Earl neither smiled nor said anything about the meeting being nice for him. Then, to cover the awkwardness of the silence that threatened, he added, “Good of you to come.” It was a lie. There was nothing good about Leon’s presence at all. He had demanded to come, wheedled the flight details out of the Earl’s secretary so that they could travel together, giving Jeremy the feeling that he wasn’t quite trusted.

Jeremy sat down again, clasping his hands across his portly belly as he always did when he was with Leon. How could his brother still be so lean when he was eight years older and, from all accounts, led a pretty dissolute life?

“Any more news?” Leon draped himself in the next armchair and Jeremy averted his eyes from the length of sockless hairy leg that appeared between the trouser bottoms and the worn sneakers.

“No.”

“They’re sure it’s her?”

“Seems they found the remains of a handbag with her passport in it.”

“I always said her bags looked as though they were armour-plated...”

“Then there were some rings...” How could Leon joke about this? “That’s what I have to identify. I have some of the insurance photographs here.” He patted the flight bag to reassure himself, then looked sideways at Leon and noticed that the profile was tense. Leon turned his face, eyes brimming. “What the hell was she doing there, Jerry? Didn’t anyone advise her against going on holiday in a war zone?”

Oh God, thought the Earl, he’s going to make en emotional picnic of this. How embarrassing!

He said, “I don’t remember our mutual mother ever accounting for her actions, do you?” He looked away while Leon took out a large silk handkerchief and blew his nose loudly. Then, because he knew it would puzzle and irritate Leon, he added, “Of course, she was always talking about going back for a visit.”

“Going back?”

“Yes. She was born there, in Jaffa. Didn’t you know?”

The very satisfactory stunned silence that followed was interrupted by a flight manager crossing the carpeted lounge to inform them that their plane to Tel Aviv was ready for boarding. It wasn’t until they were comfortably settled in their Business Class seats on the plane, seatbelts fastened, and the fluttering of the flight attendants had quietened – not often they had an Earl and a rock star on the same flight – that Leon said, “So tell me, brother, how come Mother was born in Israel? I know she had a seriously weird life but she wasn’t Jewish, was she ?”

“Don’t you know anything about Middle Eastern Politics? No, why should you? You’re American. Up to nineteen forty-eight Israel didn’t exist. It was Palestine, ruled by the British. Her father was a British citizen, a fruit broker – used to buy up the citrus fruit crops for a big importer in London. She was born in twenty-four and spent most of her early life there.”

“She told you all this?”

“Some. Under pressure. When my father died the lawyers needed her birth certificate to set up a trust for her and it was in Arabic. I had the devil of a job getting an English version out of Somerset House. O..ho...here we go!” His knuckles tightened on the arm rests as the plane gathered speed along the runway. “I always hate that bit! They swore the bloody thing didn’t exist until I turned up there in person with the Arab version, then they made some excuse about the records being lost in the riots...”

“Riots?”

“The political arrangements were never popular. The period was well punctuated by all the usual atrocities.”

“And yet mother’s family lived there with two young daughters?”

“They and many others. Between the army and the business interests there was quite a flourishing European community. Considered themselves more at home in Palestine than Britain. I think it was only a matter of chance that the family was on leave in England when world war two broke out and they had to stay here.”

“Otherwise ... the story might have been very different? No you and me for a start?”

“I’m not too sure about that. I suspect England might have been unavoidable even without the war. Things ... happened. They were a very odd family indeed. Not your average respectable colonials.”

“Mother told you more?”

“Not much. But Aunt Netta got very drunk when she came to granny Hargreaves’ funeral, and she spent a whole evening bending my ear about how she’d been done down by mother – you can imagine the sort of thing – and then mother realised what was going on and took her out like an exocet and I couldn’t help putting some of the home truths together in my head.”

Leon looked at his Rolex. “We’ve got the best part of four hours. Why don’t you tell me, Bro?”

* * * *