Ten Years Gone полностью

"When Talia saw Judah dead, she lost her mind. She began shrieking, tearing out her hair, punching herself in the thighs and stomach. I had to restrain her. I managed to give her a sedative, and she fell into a deep sleep. I knew that in a few hours, when the drugs wore off, she would awaken to a reality she could not bear. She could not live without her son, so I decided to give her another one."

"By stealing Esther's baby," I said.

"He wasn't hers." Michael's voice was sharp with anger. "She wasn't his mother. He was another woman's child, and that woman had given him away. By the time I took him, he had been in Tel Aviv for nearly six months and there was no sign of his mother. I didn't think she was ever coming after him. He was no one's child."

"So you took him."

He nodded. "I wrapped Judah in a blanket and carried him with me. He was still warm when I got to Lunz Street. It was after midnight and the street was dark and empty. I went up to the apartment where Esther and Willie lived. The lock gave me no trouble. I put Judah on the living room sofa and went into the bedroom. I must have made a noise, because Esther was up. She opened her mouth to scream, but didn't. I think that recognizing me gave her pause. She didn't see the knife. I slashed her across the throat. She died almost instantly. I don't think she felt much pain."

The anger had gone from his voice. Now he sounded clinical, as if he were reporting on an operation he had conducted.

"I found some of Willie's clothes in a closet, took them to the living room, and put them on Judah. Back in the bedroom, I lifted Willie out of his crib—he'd carried on sleeping through all this—and laid him on Esther's bed. I put Judah in the crib. Then I stabbed him through the chest."

"How could you do that?" I asked, horrified. "To your own son?"

"That was the hardest part," he said. "That, and what came next. But Judah was already dead, and I wanted to save Talia, so I did what I had to do. I stabbed Judah several times, making sure I got the heart. That was important, because a heart wound was the only way to explain the near absence of blood around his body. And it worked. The police bought it, didn't they?"

I nodded. It was easier than uttering the single syllable a "yes" would have required. Despite the heat and the jacket I had on, I was suddenly cold. I shuddered.

Michael noted my distress. "Want me to stop, Adam?"

I shook my head, finding my voice. "No. I want to know everything."

"All right," he said. "What I did next I did because I had to, not because I wanted to. It was the only way. I had to make Judah unrecognizable so the police would assume he was Esther's baby. They were the same age, the same size, they even had the same hair color. But their eyes were different. That was why I had to stab Judah through both eyes. That wasn't easy. It went against every instinct in my body. I had to force myself to do it."

"Why did you also disfigure Esther?"

"To throw the police off track. I didn't want them to focus on the baby. I wanted them to think this was the work of some madman."

And it was, I thought. Just not the sort of madness the police had envisioned.

"And then what did you do?"

"I had brought a change of clothes with me. After washing my hands in the kitchen, I removed my bloodied clothes and put on clean ones. Then I went back to the bedroom to take the baby. He was still asleep. I picked him up and got out of the apartment. I descended the stairs slowly, but then the baby woke and started bawling. I didn't want his crying to wake any of the neighbors, so I hurried down the stairs and out of the building. Then I was in the clear."

That explained what Haim Sassoon had heard. The baby's cries sounded louder to him because they did not come from the third floor as they usually had, but from the staircase. The crying softened gradually because Michael was putting more distance between himself and the building with each step.

Michael had stopped talking. He was rubbing his hands together, his palms making a soft scratching sound.

"You didn't take anything from the apartment? No money?"

His hands stopped moving. He shook his head resolutely. "Of course not. I'm not a thief."

No, you only stole a child, I thought with sadness. So Yossi Cohen had told me the truth. He was the one who had ransacked the apartment and stolen the money from Esther's purse, but he wasn't the murderer.

"What happened then?" I asked.