It began:
‘An opinion for the Governments of Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq by Rachel Jameson, Advocate, and Michael Mortimer, Advocate, on the legal basis for the foundation of the State of Israel.
This opinion establishes, beyond what its authors believe to be reasonable doubt, that the signatories to the Treaty and Declaration by which Israel was established in 1948 as a so-called sovereign state, acted without any legal jurisdiction or authority, and in contravention of the principles and practice of international law and of many treaties stretching back over the centuries.
It will demonstrate that the Jewish tribes had no prior right to the territories which they were allocated in 1948, and that the so-called ancient Jewish homeland was never more than territory seized by force by bands of nomads and held, for a time, against the will of its native occupants.
It will demonstrate that Israel exists as a state today only by force of arms and oppression, and that there is no basis in law for its occupancy of any territory, not just the occupied territories in Gaza, on the West Bank and in Jerusalem, on the Golan Heights, and in Lebanon, but of any of the lands which it now controls, when this is set against the justifiable claims of the descendants of the people who were the original indigenous occupants of the land known as Palestine.
This opinion will be followed by notes on differences in the methods of presentation required for the presentation of the case to the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council, the International Court of Justice in the Hague, and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Warmth was beginning to return to the room from the log-effect gas fire set in the fine, high, marble-topped fireplace. Skinner took off his jacket, draped it over the back of his chair, as he and Martin settled down for a long read.
Long before it was over, their eyes were smarting from the strain of the screen. Martin removed his contact lens and put on his spectacles. They were mesmerised by the detail which was spread out before them. Each had a policeman’s grasp of the law, and could follow the complex arguments.
Through them all, there emerged with clarity, a powerful case for the eviction of the Israelis from the government and domination of the land they now called home, and for the right of settlement and enfranchisement to be extended to all Palestinians as well as to all Jews, leading to free elections in time.
The conclusion of the document was that since the Israelis had followed a systematic policy of oppression of the Palestinian population, and since it was clear that they would never grant this right of free settlement, or amend their constitution, the just solution of the Palestinian problem, on the basis of the precedent established in 1948, could be enforced by the nations in the region, acting in concert.
After three hours they finished reading. The documents, in total, were over three hundred pages long.
When they had finished, Skinner leaned back in his chair. His face was drawn. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he whispered to Martin, ‘this is dynamite!’
He looked at the dot matrix printer. It had a tractor feed for loading fan-fold paper. He looked around the room, and found eventually, under the desk, a deep box of computer paper. It was almost full.
Clumsily he fed the first sheet into the machine. He pressed the key marked ‘Printer’ and found a new menu. He set the printer to run on continuous stationery.
It took almost five hours to run the full series of documents. Throughout that time, Skinner sat by the printer like a father-to-be in the labour ward. It had been dark for two hours by the time the print-run came to an end.
They looked at it in wonder. Could this be the Holy Grail? Could this really have cost all those lives? It was, at the end of the day, no more than an excellent piece of research, and a seemingly sound, if controversial, legal view, which any one or two among hundreds of advocates in Scotland, and thousands beyond, might have prepared. Yet, it seemed, it could kill. It had killed. It was still killing.
In a desk drawer Martin found some brightly-coloured Christmas wrapping paper. Neatly he packaged the discovery. Skinner withdrew the disk from the drive and slipped it, with the system disk, into his pocket.
They left the flat ostensibly as they had found it, but in fact relieved of an awesome secret.
83
It was 7.00 p.m. A hard rain drummed against the window of Skinner’s office.
‘Either Mortimer hid the files himself, or whoever broke into the flat thought that he had wiped them out. Whichever it was, this is the link. That’s what the twenty grand was for.’
‘It answers that question,’ said Skinner, ‘but it throws up others. Just for a start, why them?’
‘Probably because Fuzzy knew that Rachel was loyal to the cause. Mortimer gets involved because he was loyal to Rachel.’
‘Some machine, this Fuzzy. He comes back into the lives of Rachel and the Harveys after all these years, and he uses them. Now they’re dead, and it looks as if he may have killed them all.’
Martin broke in. ‘But why kill anyone over this. It’s a good piece of work, but other people could do this research and reach the same conclusion. It’s been written for use, not to be kept secret, so why kill the authors?’
‘I don’t know. I’m not convinced that friend Fuzzy did that anyway. But they are dead, and they sure were killed. Maybe the Israelis found out and decided to clean out the whole house. Maybe Fuzzy’s on the run from them.
‘No, my guess is that this is only part of something very big indeed. When we find Fuzzy we might find out what it is.’
84
But finding Fuzzy was easier to order than to achieve, with no photo to aid identification, and only Marjorie Porteous’s thirteen-year-old description to go on. ‘Slim, quiet, good-looking chap. Brown skin, dark hair, dark moustache. That’s all I can remember.’
The hotels yielded nothing. The few bed-and-breakfast houses open for business in January reported only sales reps as overnight guests.
‘Check them again, and every day from now till Friday,’ Martin ordered.
Skinner briefed the team on Tuesday morning on the discovery in Mortimer’s files.
Mackie looked embarrassed. ‘Sorry, boss,’ he said. ‘I should have found that.’
‘Bollocks,’ said Skinner dismissively. ‘You’re a copper not a computer man.’
To keep the team active, Martin sent them out to make their second round of checks in person, rather than by telephone. ‘Remember that cover story. We’re trying to trace him because of trouble at home.’
After the four had left, Skinner picked up his jacket, and motioned to Martin to follow.
‘Where are we going?’
‘We’re going to the airport to meet a man. We wear these so he’ll recognise us.’ He pinned a small gold lion badge into his lapel, and handed one to Martin, who fastened it to his tie. The lions were sometimes used by Special Branch and protection officers to indicate to each other that the wearer was armed.
The visitor approached them quietly as they stood at the bookstall opposite the British Midland arrival point.
‘Mr Skinner, Mr Martin? I’m Maitland.’ He spoke in flat clipped tones, with no trace of a regional accent.
