‘We are a family here. We look after our own. She had already suffered beyond endurance. We could not turn her away. It was our duty to help her.’
The archbishop was explaining it all to Ben-Roi as the two of them strode down through the Armenian Quarter, the narrow, deserted streets echoing to the slap of their footsteps.
They’d taken Vosgi to a safe house, he continued, protected her. From the Israeli authorities initially. Then, after the murder in the cathedral, from whoever had killed Rivka Kleinberg.
‘Mrs Kleinberg had guessed that if the girl would run anywhere, she would run to her own people,’ he said. ‘She called me, asked if I had seen Vosgi, knew where she might be able to find her. Had I told her the truth, it might have prevented her death. But I didn’t tell her. I denied all knowledge. So she started turning up at the cathedral, hanging around, hoping she might spot the girl herself. Her death, as I said, is on my conscience, but I had no choice. She wasn’t part of our community; I had no idea if I could trust her.’
They came to the crossroads at the end of St James, turned right on to Ararat. There was a scuffling sound above them as a cat scrabbled over a wall, startled by their presence.
‘Did you recognize Kleinberg’s name when she called?’ asked Ben-Roi. ‘That she was the one who did the article on you back in the seventies? Ruined your career.’
Petrossian’s shoulders hunched. ‘Of course I remembered her. Please believe me when I say I bore her no ill-will. I had sinned, the fault was mine and mine alone. She was merely the messenger who proclaimed the fault. I have grieved terribly for her death.’
They reached the bottom of Ararat, turned again, this time into a narrow alley. At the end was a wooden door. They walked up to it. There was a video intercom, and a ceramic plaque carrying the name Saharkian. The archbishop pressed the intercom.
‘She is just a child,’ he said, turning to Ben-Roi as the sound of drawing bolts echoed from within. ‘A child who has suffered unimaginable horrors. There is still a chance she can heal, make a life for herself. But if she is deported, if the traffickers find her again . . .’
The door swung back. A man was standing there, a pistol tucked into his belt.
‘Just a child,’ repeated Petrossian. ‘I ask you not to forget that. And also not to go into the particulars of Mrs Kleinberg’s murder. Vosgi knows she is dead, but we have kept the more upsetting details from her. She is frightened enough as it is.’
He held Ben-Roi’s eyes, making sure he understood, then stepped inside. Ben-Roi followed. The door was closed behind them and the bolts drawn. They were in a large, whitewashed room with a spartan scatter of furniture. Another man was sitting at a table nursing a shotgun; on the far side of the room a set of wooden stairs led up to a low gallery with four closed doors giving on to it. Petrossian walked across the room, looked up, called softly. Ben-Roi didn’t understand what he was saying, although he caught something that sounded like Vosgi.
There was a pause, and then the furthest of the doors opened. A dark-haired, elfin figure stepped out on to the gallery. Ben-Roi’s jaw tightened and his fingers made an involuntary clenching motion.
As though he was turning a key.
At a word from Petrossian, the Armenian guards disappeared into a side-room. Crossing to the foot of the stairs, the archbishop held out a hand. Hesitantly, the girl descended.
She was slighter than Ben-Roi would have guessed from the headshots he’d seen of her. Not much more than five feet tall, if that. Prettier, too, in the flesh. Huge almond-shaped eyes, features that were somehow both delicate and tomboyish at the same time. Impossible to guess her age, although the dominant impression was young. Very young. The meeting with the hooker in Neve Sha’anan flashed into his head, what she’d told him about her and Vosgi being made to do shows together – mature and young, teacher and pupil. He felt his gorge rising, shut his mind to the conversation. To the thought, too, that in his own way he was just another a punter. Another man who wanted something from her. He stood with his hands dangling by his sides, offering what he hoped was a sympathetic expression.
The girl reached the bottom of the stairs. Her eyes flicked across to Ben-Roi, then to the archbishop, looking for reassurance. The old man took her hand in his, bowed towards her, said something. Again her eyes lifted towards Ben-Roi, then she nodded. Gently, Petrossian led her across to a sofa, sat down beside her. Ben-Roi took the armchair opposite, trying not to stare at the girl’s wrists, both of which bore the trace lines of heavy scarring. She noticed the direction of his gaze and folded her arms tight across her chest, pressing the wrists into the material of her baggy grey T-shirt. Her left thumb-tip played across the silver crucifix hanging at her neck.
‘Vosgi understands Hebrew,’ began the archbishop, ‘but she doesn’t speak it very well. If it is acceptable, I will translate for her.’
‘Of course,’ said Ben-Roi.
Petrossian whispered to the girl. She mumbled a reply. Her gaze was now fixed firmly on the tiled floor.
‘In your own time,’ said the old man. ‘And please, remember what I said as we came in. Try to be –’ he made a soothing motion with his hand.
‘Of course,’ repeated Ben-Roi.
He leant forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He’d conducted hundreds of interviews over the years, but never had he felt quite the degree of anxious expectation he did at this moment. The Kleinberg case, possibly Khalifa’s life – everything, it seemed to him, had distilled down to this particular meeting, this particular point. It was like he was standing in front of a door, and opening it would change everything.
Take it gently
, he told himself.
Don’t yank the handle too hard in your eagerness to find out what’s on the other side.
‘Hello, Vosgi,’ he said.
The girl stared at the floor.
‘My name is Arieh Ben-Roi. I’m a detective with the Jerusalem Police. You can call me Arieh, if you like. Or even Ari.’
His attempt at softening the mood drew no visible reaction. Probably because despite his best efforts to moderate it, his voice still sounded gruffly formal, like he was talking to her in a police interview room. Not for the first time on this case, he was reminded of his complete inability to do compassionate. Typical bloody
sabra
.
‘Thank you for agreeing to talk to me,’ he went on. ‘And let me assure you from the outset this meeting has nothing to do with your residency application. You have my word on that. You have no need to be frightened. Do you understand that?’
She gave a barely discernible nod.
‘I need to talk to you about a woman named Rivka Kleinberg. I think you remember her. She visited the Hofesh Shelter a few weeks ago.’
Her gaze lifted, then dropped again. She said something.
‘She asks if you’ve found the people who killed Mrs Kleinberg,’ translated Petrossian.
‘We’re getting close,’ said Ben-Roi. ‘Very close. You might be able to help us get even closer. Will you help us, Vosgi?’
Her hand closed round the silver crucifix, clutching it as though it was some sort of lifeline. She spoke again. Her voice was slightly louder than before, slightly faster, hinting at rising distress. Petrossian laid a hand on her knee, calming her.
‘She says she doesn’t want to testify,’ he translated.
‘No one’s asking you to testify, Vosgi. I just need you to answer a few questions. Do you think you can do that?’
She was still gripping the crucifix. A pause, then she drew a breath and nodded.
‘Thank you,’ said Ben-Roi. ‘I’ll make this as quick as I possibly can.’
He sounded like a doctor about to administer an injection. He clasped his hands, threw her what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
‘When Mrs Kleinberg came to the shelter, you spoke with her. Do you remember?’
‘
Ken
,’ she mumbled.
‘Did you say anything to her about a gold mine?’
The girl shook her head.
‘A gold mine in Egypt.’
Another shake.
‘You’re sure? Take your time.’
Mumbled words.
‘She’s sure,’ conveyed the archbishop.
‘How about a company called Barren Corporation. A big American company.’
No.
He repeated the name, slowing it down and spelling it out in case she wasn’t getting his pronunciation. Same reaction. He worked to keep his expression neutral, not show his disappointment. He’d been hoping to hit the bull’s-eye straight out. Save himself some time, spare her a long interview. It wasn’t happening. He was going to have to widen his aim.
‘Can you tell me what you
did
talk about, Vosgi?’ he asked.
She drew in her shoulders, tucked her right foot under her left knee. More mumbled words.
‘She says she told Mrs Kleinberg about where she came from,’ came the translation. ‘Her village, her family. And then about . . . what had happened to her.’
Ben-Roi opened out a hand, asking for more detail. The girl fumbled with the crucifix. When she answered, her voice had dropped even lower, forcing the archbishop to tilt his head to catch her words.
‘She says she was fourteen when they took her,’ he translated. ‘She was walking home from school. They snatched her off the road. Men. Two of them. She doesn’t know who they were. Azerbaijani, possibly – her village was right on the frontier.’
A connection sparked in Ben-Roi’s mind. Something Zisky had dug up earlier in the investigation. About Barren. A gold mine they’d been operating in eastern Armenia. Near the border with Azerbaijan. He put it to Vosgi, asked if she knew of it. She didn’t. There were no mines where she’d lived. Nothing much at all except mountains and rivers and a chicken-processing factory where her father and brothers used to work. Ben-Roi let it go, motioned her to continue. Petrossian took her free hand, held it.
‘
They drove me to a house
,’ he translated as she started speaking again. ‘
And then to other houses. There were other girls. They made us
. . . I think we can take it as read what they made her do.’
The archbishop’s eyes met the detective’s and Ben-Roi nodded, indicating it wasn’t necessary for Vosgi to relive the precise details of what she’d been through.
‘Do you know where you were?’ he asked.
‘
I was moved around a lot
,’ relayed Petrossian. ‘
I know I was in Turkey. I could hear voices outside the window. I recognized the accent. And then I was sold to other people and they took me on a boat to a place with
–’ Petrossian broke off, queried something. The girl explained.
‘
Tourists
,’ he resumed. ‘
Young people. Different countries. German
maybe. English
. She can’t be sure.
Then Turkey again. A big city. I was in a basement. It was dark.’
The girl’s voice had grown slightly louder as she relaxed into the narrative. At the same time the tone had become blank, detached, as if she was describing someone other than herself. Ben-Roi remembered what Maya Hillel had told him at the Hofesh Shelter, about the girls using assumed names:
It helps distance themselves from what they’re being made to do. Allows them to think it’s someone else who’s doing it, not the real them
.
‘
I think I was in the city for almost a year,
’ Petrossian’s translation continued. ‘
And then a group of us went in another boat. And then some Arab people took us across a desert and that’s how I came to Israel. There were three, four of us in a flat. We were watched all the time.’
Ben-Roi held up a hand, motioning her to stop. The story was running ahead of him. His mind had snagged on something further back.
‘Can you rewind a moment,’ he said. ‘You say you were in Turkey, in a city . . .’
Vosgi nodded.
‘And then you were taken on a boat?’
Another nod.
‘To a port?’
She frowned, turned to the archbishop, said something. He listened, then nodded.
‘
Not a big port
,’ he said. ‘
Small. Just single dock. It was night. There were cranes
.’
Without him being aware of it, Ben-Roi’s foot had started tapping on the floor.
‘This place,’ he said, ‘this dock – you told Rivka Kleinberg about it?’
She nodded.
‘Was it in a town called Rosetta?’
She shrugged, uncertain.
‘Egypt? Was it in Egypt?’
Another shrug.
‘
I never knew where we were
,’ Petrossian translated. ‘
They told us to look at the ground. So we couldn’t see.’
‘But after you got to this dock – then you were taken across a desert into Israel.’
She shook her head.
‘
They put us in a van first
’ – Petrossian’s voice shadowed hers – ‘
drove us till dawn. Then we were in a house. With Arab men. They
. . .’
From the way her fist clenched round the crucifix it was clear what the men had done. Ben-Roi waved a hand to show she didn’t need to dwell on it.
‘
The next night they took us in jeeps. Then we had to walk. For about five hours. It was cold. One of the girls tried to run and they shot her. And then other cars picked us up. That’s when we were in Israel
.’
Ben-Roi’s foot was tapping faster as his mind worked backwards. She’d been brought into Israel across a desert. That had to be the Sinai. And she’d been driven into the Sinai from a port, dock, whatever she wanted to call it. That
had
to be Rosetta. Where Rivka Kleinberg had been going on the night of her murder. And she’d been trafficked into Rosetta on a boat. He could sense the pieces moving, slotting into place, although he was still struggling to make a link with the two main elements of his case: Barren and the Labyrinth.
Take it slowly
, he told himself.
Cover the angles
.
‘Do you know who trafficked you?’ he asked.
She didn’t. Men, that’s all she could say. Violent men.
‘Genady Kremenko? Have you ever heard of him?’