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326 Robert Maxwell, Israel’s Superspy

on board. The others were going to mourn. The pathologists were on their
way to work.

All Saturday evening limousines travelled from Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion

airport to the forecourt of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. In one car
sat Isabel and her husband, David, red-eyed from the long flight from San
Francisco. Then came Helene and Michael from New York; they were the
eldest children of Maxwell’s sister. Another car brought another sister,
Sylvia, arriving with her husband and three children; all those years ago
Maxwell had located Sylvia in a refugee camp in postwar Germany and he
had cared for her ever since. Then came Kevin and his wife, Pandora, with
Anne, Philip’s wife.
Other cars brought friends from England, mainland Europe and the
United States.
Each was shown up to the presidential suite Maxwell had always
occupied, which was now Betty’s domain. Before anyone could enter the
suite with their bunches of flowers, baskets of fruit and newspapers from
all over the world reporting the latest details about Maxwell’s death, they
were subjected to a police security check.
Betty greeted each arrival with an embrace and kiss, glanced at the
headlines, and handed over the fruits and flowers to hovering waiters.
There was a buffet and soft drinks. In a corner of the suite fax machines
poured out an endless stream of messages.
Some were for Kevin. Before leaving London he had asked Ya-atov
Neeman to try to arrange a private loan of £24 million. He was offering
stock in a Maxwell company, Teva. He had not told the lawyer, who had
been his father’s most trusted friend in Israel, that the shares were already
pledged to several banks.
While Ghislaine and her sisters discussed what to wear to the funeral
and used the suite telephones to book hairdressing appointments, Kevin
and Neeman huddled with lain and Philip to discuss business matters with
Sam Pisar, who had flown in from Paris.
Betty had placed several calls to the French capital, where her daughter,
Christine, was awaiting the birth of her third child in a few days. She was
distraught at not being able to be at the funeral and Betty had spent time
trying to comfort her.
In between, she had discussed with her other children the speech for the
funeral service, and who should deliver it. Protocol required it would have
to be one of her sons - ideally the eldest one, Philip.
But Betty had noticed that Philip was showing signs of increasing stress,
the aftershock of the 'trials and tribulations’ of Spain. She decided to
postpone any decision on who would deliver the homily.
By now the suite had taken on the appearance of ‘an Oriental bazaar’,

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