“In Rubin’s office?” Shorer asked.
“No,” Michael answered after careful consideration. “In the String Building, near the scene of the first murder.”
“Well, Monsieur Poirot, this is genuine Agatha Christie, isn’t it?”
Balilty muttered. “That’s where you think we’ll have the fatal meeting that’ll get him to talk?”
“It’s worth trying,” Eli Bachar said. “And it’ll give us the chance to—”
Shorer flashed a concerned look at Michael.
“So, you need all of us there?” Nina asked. Michael glanced at Shorer, placed a hand on his arm, and said, “We’ll know that in a little while. In the meantime, you’re all on standby. Everyone.”
“Hey, look, it’s already getting light outside,” Nina exclaimed. “And it seems the rain has cleared up, too.”
In place of a response, there was a knock at the door. In the doorway stood Elmaliah the cameraman. Bleary-eyed, he asked when they would finish up with him; behind him a curl of smoke rose in the air, and he made way for Hefetz to enter the room. “May I have a word with you?” Hefetz asked Michael. “I’ve got to talk to you about something.” Looking at the assembled team, he fell silent.
Michael stepped outside and motioned to Hefetz to follow him to his office at the end of the hallway. He removed a pile of cardboard files from one of the chairs and, in silence, offered Hefetz a seat. When he sat down, Michael felt for the first time just how very tired he was.
He could not decide, however, whether it was the hair that had disappeared from the forensics lab—about which he had told no one, not even Shorer—that had broken his spirit, or whether it was this interminable contact with life and death for days on end without sleep that had caused his limbs to feel so very weak. Or maybe it was having given up smoking, that strange mourning he felt inside: true mourning. What was he mourning, anyway? That faithful convoy of cigarettes that had suddenly been stopped short after so many years? Or was it that multitude of times and people and loves and essential life moments that were hanging from that priceless chain of cigarettes?
Quitting smoking—which he was supposed to regard as the “beginning of a healthy life”—seemed merely to be the end of many lives and the start of something detached, severed, and there was no way of knowing what new spark would come along to carry it forward. He wondered how he could ever make anyone understand how those little creatures made from paper, tobacco, and a flame had become the pillar of fire that had led him on his long journey through the wilderness.
He was stunned by this train of thought; perhaps even this tendency to exaggeration stemmed from the extreme fatigue brought on by giving up smoking.
“Is it okay if I smoke in here?” Hefetz asked as he looked at the plume of smoke rising from the cigarette in his hand. “I’d actually given it up, but yesterday I couldn’t take it anymore. This is my first in more than three years,” he said, taking a heavy drag. “They tell you it’s not good for your health, but in the end you die of something anyway, right? If not a heart attack, then somebody comes along and kills you.”
“How can I help you?” Michael asked, snapping the toothpick between his fingers into two.
“I don’t know what to do about Meyuhas,” Hefetz said. “I don’t know what to tell people, how to deal with it on the news, whether or not to announce that he’s been detained on suspicion of murder. And the worst of it is …” He fell silent and stared at the butt of his cigarette.
“The worst of it?” Michael asked after a long moment of silence.
“The worst of it is what people are saying… . Balilty told me I should announce, on the same morning that Benny Meyuhas has been picked up, that his production of Iddo and Eynam will continue as though nothing’s changed. But how can I say such a thing after what’s happened? The guy is a suspect for the murders of two, no three, people, and I—”
“The matter necessitates some discretion,” Michael warned him. “If you can promise to keep a secret.”
“Of course. I mean, I don’t have to give anybody a full report,” Hefetz said, inflating his chest. “I can … even the director general doesn’t need to know yet.”
“I’m talking very seriously about complete secrecy,” Michael warned him again.
“Come on,” Hefetz said, offended, “what do you think? That I’m going to run around shooting off at the mouth? You think I can’t be trusted? You think I was just handed the position of director of Israel
Television because there was nobody else who could do it after Zadik?”
“The truth is, we are not holding Benny Meyuhas as a suspect for murder,” Michael declared. “He’s not a murderer, and he’s not an accomplice to murder; in fact, he’s about to help us clear up the whole matter. But we have to pretend that he is still a suspect, so therefore I am asking for your cooperation.” Michael looked into Hefetz’s frightened eyes, which were darting around the room.
“So what do I need to do?” Hefetz asked as he stubbed out his cigarette on the sole of one of the cowboy boots he was wearing.
“You’ve got to act as though you yourself don’t understand, as if he’s a suspect but temporarily free. You should treat him for the time being with compassion, like someone quite ill, if you understand what I’m getting at. Let’s say, you shouldn’t express astonishment if he returns to work on his production, and you should probably let people know he’s coming back to work on Iddo and Eynam.”
“Where?” Hefetz said, alarmed. “What people should I tell?”
“Nobody special,” Michael advised him. “Just act normal. At the morning meeting, when you go over your daily schedule, you should say something noncommittal about his being a suspect but out on bail, or something like that. Give people the feeling that for the time being, to make life easier for him, you’ve decided to let him continue with his life’s work. Is that clear?”
“Yeah,” Hefetz said. “I hope I can pull it off successfully without understanding what …” He glanced at Michael, who maintained a neutral expression. “But thank God,” Hefetz hastened to add, “you have no idea what a burden you’ve lifted from me to know that he’s not a suspect.” He sighed, then, tense again, he asked Michael, “Why can’t we just announce that he’s been found alive and well and that he’s not a suspect for murder?” When Michael rose from his chair and walked silently to the door, signaling him to follow, Hefetz stopped in the doorway and said, “So if it’s not Benny Meyuhas, then who’s been … Who is the murderer?”
c h a p t e r s e v e n t e e n
At seven-thirty in the morning, just as a sharp-tongued anchorwoman interviewing the minister of labor and social affairs tossed her long hair away from her face and boldly asked her interviewee whether her private affairs had perhaps clouded her judgment with regard to the future of the unemployed workers from the Hulit factory—the camera tarrying over the minister’s face, beads of sweat already shining from her powdered upper lip—Tzilla appeared in the doorway to Michael’s office to inform him that Rubin had arrived.
“Hang on a second,” Michael said without moving his eyes from the screen on the small television set that had been placed in the corner of his office. “Look what’s happening,” he muttered. The minister could be heard saying, “I don’t know which private affairs you are referring to, but the matter of the Hulit factory workers was in my mind—”
“I’m speaking about a romantic relationship that had already begun,” the anchorwoman said, twirling her hand in the air, “before the tunnel hijacking.”
Tzilla was watching the screen now too. “Oh, my gosh, I don’t believe what’s going on here!” she exclaimed.
“That’s because of the photos, they got caught in the act,” Balilty offered from the doorway. “She’s been blackmailed, and this is even before the press conference. I’ve seen the front page of the paper,” he said, waving the rolled-up newspaper in his hand, then spreading it out for them to see. “Look.” Balilty was beaming as he pointed a thick finger at the huge photograph at the center of the page, which featured the minister of labor and social affairs at the entrance to a building, with Danny Benizri standing close behind, his hand on her shoulder.
“This pushed everything else aside,” Balilty proclaimed, “even the murder of some burned-up Orthodox Jew. See?” he asked, showing them the lower right-hand corner of the paper. “There’s nothing hotter than a steamy, forbidden new romance: the media and politics, super-sleazy. Great, isn’t it?” Balilty said mockingly while the minister droned on in the background: “Whoever believes that my private affairs have any influence on my
