JERUSALEM, THURSDAY, 12.46 AM

Their first stop had been the central police station in Tel Aviv, dropping off a distraught Eyal Kishon so that he could file a missing person’s report on his father. He was convinced that whatever curse had killed Shimon and Rachel Guttman had now passed, like a contagion, to his family.

All the while, even as he drove, Uri was working his mobile, starting with directory inquiries, trying to get any information he could on Afif Aweida. The phone company said there were at least two dozen, though that narrowed down to nine in the Jerusalem area. Uri had to use all his charm to get the operator to read them all out. There was a dentist, a lawyer, six residential listings and one Afif Aweida registered as an antiques dealer on Suq el-Bazaar road, in the Old City. Uri smiled and turned to Maggie. ‘That’s the shouk. And that’s our man.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘Because my father already had a dentist and he already had a lawyer. And he hardly had hundreds of Arab friends. Antiquities: that’s about the only thing that could have made him talk to an Arab.’

As they approached Jerusalem, well past midnight, Uri was wondering whether he shouldn’t head for the market there and then, try to track down this Aweida immediately. Eventually he conceded that it was pointless, that all the stores would be closed. Unless they knew the address of his home, not just his shop, it would be impossible to find him.

He drew up among the taxis outside the Citadel hotel, ostentatiously pulling up the handbrake to signal the journey was over.

‘OK, Miss Costello. This is the end of the line. All change here.’

Maggie thanked him, then unlatched her door. Before getting out, she turned back to him with a single word: ‘Nightcap?’

He was not a drinker, she could see that. He nursed his whisky and water as if it were a rare and precious liquid that had to be observed, rather than consumed. Her own style–a quick knock-back and then ordering a refill–looked positively uncouth by comparison.

‘So what about this film-making then?’ she said, removing her shoes under the corner table they had taken and enjoying the relief that coursed through her feet and upward.

‘What about it?’

‘How come you’re good at it?’

He smiled, recognizing the return of his own inquiry. ‘You don’t know if I’m good at it.’

‘Oh, I think I can tell. You hold yourself like a successful man.’

‘Well, it’s kind of you to say so. Did you see The Truth about Boys?’

‘The one that followed those four teenagers? I saw that last year: it was brilliant.’

‘Thank you.’

‘That was you?’

‘That was me.’

‘Jesus. I couldn’t believe what those lads said on camera. I thought there were hidden cameras or something, they were so honest. How on earth did you get them to do that?’

‘No hidden cameras. There is a big secret though. Which you mustn’t let on. It’s commercially sensitive.’

‘I’m good with secrets.’

‘The one thing you have to do, and this is really the key to the whole thing. You have to…No, I can’t.’ He screwed his eyes into a look of mock suspicion. ‘How do I know if I can trust you?’

‘You know you can trust me.’

‘The secret is listening. You have to listen.’

‘And where did you learn that?’

‘From my father.’

‘Really? I didn’t imagine him as the listening type.’

‘He wasn’t. He was the talking type. Which meant we had to listen. We got really good at it.’

He smiled and took another sip of the amber liquid. Maggie liked the glow it made around his mouth and eyes. He had, she told herself, one of those faces that you wanted to look at.

‘Anyway, you only answered half my question before. I get how you’re a mediator, but not really why.’

‘You asked me “how come”.’

‘Right. And that’s part how and part why. So tell me the why.’

Maggie looked at this man, leaning back in his chair, also relaxing now for the first time since they’d met. She was aware that this was some kind of respite for him, a break from mourning, a chance for lightness after the weight he had been carrying around for four days. She was aware that it was a fleeting mood, that it could not possibly last. Yet she couldn’t help herself: she was enjoying this moment between them. She wouldn’t just swat aside his question with a joke or a change of subject, as she had learned to do with the countless men who had come on to her in late-night bars in foreign capitals. She would be honest.

‘The why sounds so corny no one ever talks about it.’

‘I like corny.’

Maggie looked at him hard, as if she was handing him a fragile object. ‘The very first time I’d been abroad was when I volunteered in Sudan. While I was there, a civil war was raging. One day we were driving back and we saw a village that had been razed to the ground. There were bodies on the roadside, limbs, the whole thing. But the worst of it were these children, alive, but wandering around aimlessly, stumbling really. Like zombies. They had seen the most awful things, their parents killed, their mothers raped. And they were just dumbstruck. After that, I thought if I could do anything, anything at all, to stop a war lasting even one day longer, then it would be worth it.’

Uri said nothing, just kept his eyes locked onto hers.

‘Which is why I couldn’t bear to be kept away from it all this time.’

He furrowed his eyebrows.

‘I haven’t told you, have I? This is my first assignment for over a year. I’ve been brought back out of retirement.’ Maggie drained her glass. ‘Forced retirement.’

‘What happened?’

‘I was in Africa, again. Mediating in the Congo: the war no one ever talked about. No one gave a fuck, even though millions died there. Anyway, it had taken eighteen months, but we finally had all the parties on board for a deal. We were days away from a signing, maybe weeks. But very close. And I made—’ She looked up at him, to see if he was still with her, and he was, his concentration absolute. ‘I made a mistake. A terrible, terrible mistake.’ Her voice was cracking now. ‘And because of that mistake, because of me, the talks broke down. The deal was off.

‘I had to leave the Congo a few days later and when I did, when I took the main road out to the airport, I saw them again. Those faces, those kids, teenagers, young girls, that same stunned look in their eyes. And I realized that they were like that because of me, because I had fucked up so badly.’ A tear trickled down her cheek. ‘And those faces will haunt me for the rest of my life, no matter what I do.’

Only then did Uri put down his glass and lean forward out of his chair to touch Maggie’s hand. He held it tightly, until he eventually stood up and brought Maggie up with him, so that her head was resting on his chest. Without saying a word, he stroked her hair, over and over, which only made the tears come faster.

They moved upstairs, to her room, in silence. Once the door was closed, they stood together for a while until, without any act of volition either of them could remember, their lips touched. They kissed slowly, shyly, their tongues making the lightest possible contact with each other.

Her hands were the first to move, placing themselves on his chest, feeling its muscled hardness. He moved gently, his right palm only grazing the side of her breast, a touch which made her shudder with pleasure.

When his left hand found the space between the top of her skirt and her shirt, his fingers tingling across her naked skin, she pulled away.

‘What? What is it?’

Maggie stumbled backwards, until she was sitting on the bed. She leaned across and found the light switch, dazzling them both and breaking the spell between them.

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ she said, shaking her head and avoiding Uri’s eye. ‘I just can’t do it.’

‘Because of the man at home.’

It should have been because of Edward, she realized with a guilty start; but it wasn’t. ‘No. No, it’s not that.’

Uri turned his face away from her. The look in his eyes changed, as if a protective cover was being drawn over them.

‘Uri, please. I want to tell you.’

He let his eyes meet hers, then lowered himself into the chair at the desk.

‘You see, I didn’t tell you everything about my mistake. Back in Africa. It wasn’t a—’ She struggled to find the right word. ‘It wasn’t a…professional error. I didn’t screw up the negotiations.’ She gave a bitter smile, realizing the linguistic trap she had just walked into. ‘I screwed one of the negotiators. That was my mistake. A leader of one of the rebel groups.’ She looked up at Uri, expecting the disapproval to be etched into his face. But he just listened. ‘Of course, everyone found out. And when they did, they said I could no longer be impartial. And that therefore the United States was no longer impartial. The talks were suspended.’

Uri sighed. ‘And that’s why they sent you into exile, away from your job. To punish you.’

‘No, not really. That was me who did that. Punishing myself.’ She offered him a wan attempt at a smile, but she could barely see his reaction: her eyes were too blurred with tears. It was such a relief to be telling him. ‘You know, people keep telling me I should move on. Edward would say it again and again. Move on. But I just can’t. Do you understand that, Uri? I can’t move on. Not until I’ve made things right. And I won’t do that if I make the same mistake again.’

‘But, Maggie.’ He smiled. ‘I’m just some guy you met. I’ve got nothing to do with the peace talks.’

‘No, but you’re an Israeli. And you know how crazy this place is: that counts as taking sides.’

‘You’re assuming people would find out.’

‘Oh, they’d find out.’ She was trying not to look at him for too long, her eyes darting back and forth to the floor instead. She feared that if she saw him as she had seen him just a few moments ago, her resolve would crumble.

She got up off the bed and opened the hotel room door, wide enough so that both of them could see the corridor outside. Uri rose to his feet. Her eyes still wet, Maggie said quietly, ‘I’m sorry, Uri. I really am.’