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Christmas in Baltimore
Chapter 8
The phone next to Abe rang. It was eight o’clock, Christmas morning, in a hotel in Baltimore. I guessed it must come from a long way eastwards of here – somewhere people are awake at this time. I was right. It was Dee calling from Cairo. Abe put it on speaker.
‘Greg has been in touch. He knows you used my card to access the apartment. He has sworn “to fix me and all my tribe.” It sounds bad. Does he mean my family or you two, who it seems, despoiled his cathedral?’
Abe was silent. Dee and I knew him well enough to not interrupt his thoughts.
‘The tribe will be we three, Dee. I wouldn’t bother warning your family - just cause unnecessary anguish.’
‘What if you are wrong, Abe?’
‘I’m well paid not to be wrong on these matters. Trust me! I’m more trustworthy than your previous c
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Chapter 12I had thought I would have to look up where Abe, as a name, has its origins. The hotel clerk in Las Vegas saved me the trouble. He led us to sign the certificate, or whatever it was, on an oak table in front of the marriage centre, (which was little more than a set of broom cupboards). To get us to the honeymoon suite (it came as a package, like everything else in Las Vegas), he called the lift operator and announced loudly, ‘Honeymoon Suite for Mr and Mrs Abraham Bentwhistle.’ I died a little on my wedding day.Abe comes from Abraham, father of the nations. Bentwhistle comes from the same place as Grimshaw and should have stayed there. My childhood dream of one day ridding myself of Grimshaw is over. I pray I will wake one morning and discover Bentwhistle is one of his many aliases.‘No one uses Bentwhistle as an alias,’ he assured me. ‘Aliases m
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