Raisins and almonds - Poisoned Pen Press (UK)

1 0 Kerry Greenwood
‘It wasn’t like that,’ protested Simon, and subsided as the
knife nicked his throat.
‘A slave in his house, that’s all I was.’
Phryne watched in horror as a thin trickle of blood slid down
the young man’s smooth throat and puddled in his collarbone.
Murder under the ground, the Rabbi Elijah had said. Death
and weeping. Greed caused it. Here was murder and greed. But
Phryne could have coped much better with being threatened
herself. Watching this madman murder her lover was as terrible
an ordeal as she could imagine. Such a beautiful boy. She had
to keep Chaim Abrahams distracted and talking.
‘That must have been awful for you,’ she prompted. ‘Then
what happened?’
‘I heard of Yossi’s work. A clever boy, that Yossi. Clever and poor
and mad about Zion, that pipe dream! Palestine, what is there in
Palestine but dust and camels and pogroms? Yossi wanted to sell the
compound for guns, such a fool, he didn’t realise what it was worth.
For this formula he could have bought the British Protectorate
and everything in it. Artificial rubber? The whole world wants it.
He could have owned every yard of his precious Palestine! And he
came to me, Yossi. To ask me to arrange a sale.’
‘Why should he come to you?’ asked Phryne, watching the
trickle of blood overflow the collarbone and stain Simon’s shirt.
‘He thought I was sympathetic to his aims, what a meshugenner!
No use talking to my so-clever brother, no, it was well
known he was no Zionist. So he came to me! Of all people!’
Chaim Abrahams laughed, a deep pleasant chuckle.
‘I see,’ encouraged Phryne.
‘I knew people, I told him. Bring me the formula and I’ll put
you in touch with those who can deliver your guns. But I had
to get rid of the go-between, see?’
‘Not precisely,’ said Phryne. ‘Why didn’t you just steal the
formula?’
‘Look how much you know,’ sneered Chaim. ‘Yossi would
know when the Chaim Abrahams Rubber Plant started production.
I thought that it was Yossi who would make the exchange,