Free The Solomon Scroll by Alex Lukeman Page B

you care for a cup of tea?"
    "That would be wonderful. Thank you, Sir Peter."
    "How do you take it?"
    "Milk on the bottom, please."
    Wainwright nodded approvingly. "And you, Mister Carter?"
    "I'll take a coffee if you have one," Nick said. "Black."
    Wainwright sniffed again. "I'll see what I can do. Let me go find someone to get it for us."
    He left them at the table and disappeared between the shelves.
    "Are you deliberately trying to piss him off?" Selena asked when he was out of earshot. "First that crack about the lions and now you want coffee?"
    "He's annoying," Nick said. "I don't like the way he looks at you. Besides, I don't like tea that much."
    "You're hopeless."
    Selena took out her phone and began photographing the scroll.
    "What does it say?" Nick asked.
    "Like I told Sir Peter, it will take me a little time to translate it. From what I can see, it's just what he said, a diary of a trading expedition south into the Arabian Peninsula from Jerusalem."
    "Carrying the body of Solomon?"
    "There's no mention that I can see," Selena said. She pointed. "This is the reference to the Queen of Sheba. It's in that section that's torn and there's something strange about the way it's written. I'll have to study it to make any sense of what it means."
    Wainwright returned. "Have you managed to complete your pictures, Doctor Connor? I've asked that tea be laid out for us in the canteen."
    "I'm almost done." She took two more pictures and put her phone back in her purse. "I could use a nice cup of tea."
    An hour later they were coming down the steps of the museum. Neither Nick nor Selena noticed the tall man who glanced at them as he passed them going up.
     
     

CHAPTER 17
     
     
    The next morning Nick and Selena went out for breakfast. Their plane wasn't leaving until the afternoon. They passed a newsstand.
    "Nick. Look at that headline."
     
    MURDER AT THE
    BRITISH MUSEUM
     
    Nick bought a paper and glanced at the article. "Guess who was murdered?"
    "Not Sir Peter?"
    "Right the first time. Somebody cut his throat. I didn't like him much but he didn't deserve that."
    "It can't be a coincidence," Selena said.
    "No."
    "Does it say anything about the scroll?"
    Nick scanned the article. "It says an inventory is being conducted and police suspect theft as the motive."
    "Somebody killed him and took the scroll," Selena said.
    "It looks that way. Good thing you have those pictures."
    "It has to be the same people who blew up the train and the research facility in Grenoble."
    "Seems likely." Nick looked at his watch. "A little early in Virginia to call Harker."
    "You think she'll want us to stay here?"
    "I don't see any reason why she would. Wainwright's dead and I'll bet that the scroll is gone. There's nothing we can do about it on this end."
    "What about breakfast?"
    "That's one of the things I like about you," he said. "The way you pay attention to what's important. We'll eat, go back to the hotel and get to the airport. I'll call Harker from there."
    Five hours later they were over the Atlantic headed home. The business class seats on the British Airways 777 were wide and comfortable. Selena sipped a Mimosa and began making notes as she worked through the pictures she'd taken of the scroll, reading the story.
    Ephram had left Jerusalem with a trading caravan in the same year the Romans reached the city, headed to the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula and what was now Yemen. There was no mention of Solomon or anything to do with the Temple. She came to the part of the scroll that seemed odd to her. Selena was familiar with many variations of classical and biblical Aramaic. She'd never seen anything like what Ephram had written.
    "This is really interesting," she said.
    Nick sat next to her. He was nursing a glass of whiskey and reading about the gadgets offered in one of the magazines provided by the airline.
    "What is?"
    "This part of the scroll." She tapped her finger on the notes she had made. "It just doesn't make sense.