Raisins and almonds - Poisoned Pen Press (UK)

18 Kerry Greenwood
‘No one as clever as this bastard would come to burgle a dark
cellar without a light,’ grunted the policeman. Phryne nodded.
Silence fell again. Phryne began to suffer from the darkinduced
illusion which caused so many sentries to pepper innocent
shadows with shot during a long night. She thought she saw
movement, then realized that it was her own eyes requiring some
contrast to this black dark. The smell of rotten fruit enveloped
the watchers, and the bitter city dust settled down on them.
Yossi, at Phryne’s side, was kneeling on the hard floor, and
Phryne could hear him as he rocked and swayed. ‘Shema Yisroel,’
he began, very quietly. ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord, the Lord is One.’
It was the martyr’s prayer, the last words of so many Jews tortured
and murdered by so many people through the ages. Rabbi Akiva
had died with those words on his lips. Phryne fidgeted, then folded
her hands. She wondered how soldiers managed to stay alert and
not become exhausted, and decided that they must be like cats.
Ember could crouch, paws out, head up, like a sphinx before a
mousehole for hours and hours, perfectly composed and utterly
alert for the twitch of a mouse’s nose through the gap. And he could
control himself not to move until it had come all the way out of
the hole, so that it would have to turn to retreat, before the clawed
paw came thudding down, merciless and faster than sound.
What am I doing, playing games with lives? thought Phryne,
as the night deepened outside, the air grew heavier and the trams
clanged past.
She strove for the cat’s resting trance, and achieved it so well
that she heard Jack Robinson’s hand move to touch her.
The door had creaked again.
A bright pinpoint of light flickered and moved over the walls
and then the floor. A heavy tread. Phryne saw nothing of the
incomer but the gleam of his shoes. He passed her hiding place
and located the pile of boxes.
The torch was laid on the floor. The unseen person shoved
the boxes aside until he found the one addressed in big black
letters to the Mission to the Islands. A knife blade flashed as the
paper was cut and the box opened.