I slackened the belt and pulled it off his leg. The blood started pumping from his wound. I put the gun away.
He protested, pleaded with me, and reiterated his ludicrous claims in ever more desperate tones. When he saw I was unmoved, he cursed me and then began shouting for help. I crouched beside him, slapped one hand over his mouth, and held him down. He thrashed, but he was weak from blood loss. It took less than three minutes for him to bleed to death.
The casing of the bullet I'd fired had landed beside the kerosene lamp. I bent down, picked it up, and put it in my pocket. I inspected my clothes for blood and found none. I hung the lamp back on its peg and used my handkerchief to wipe the lamp, door, and door handle. I took a final look around, saw nothing amiss, darkened the lamp, and exited the shed.
There was no one outside. Music floated from the cafés and dance clubs facing the beach a few hundred meters away. I walked south along the water's edge where it was darkest for half a kilometer before cutting east across the beach and into the city streets. I tossed the casing into a sewer grate. Then I went home.
About eight the next morning I went to the hair salon. Mira wasn't there.
"She starts at ten," said the hairdresser on duty. "It's a slow morning."
I walked to the corner of Frishman and Sirkin, ascended the stairs, and knocked on her door. When she opened it, I was filled with a sense of accomplishment that I had completed the task she had given me.
Mira had on a sky-blue shirt with a high collar and a cotton white skirt that went to the middle of her shins. Her hair hung loose and tousled, as if she'd just gotten out of bed. It made her face look softer. Her lips hung slightly open and I caught sight of the tip of her tongue resting on her lower teeth.
"Can I come in?" I said, and Mira nodded, saying that of course I could. She led the way to her living room.
"Anything to drink?" she asked.
I shook my head. "Not just yet. Maybe in a little while. I have some news, but first I want some answers."
"To what questions?"
"Just one, really: Was Esther sleeping with Inspector John Clapper because she was an Irgun agent?"
Mira's mouth dropped open. She drew in and blew out a deep breath and sank onto the sofa, putting her head in her hands. I sat beside her.
"It's true, isn't it?"
Mira slid her hands off her face and nodded slowly. "How did you find out?"
I told her about Strauss and how he had threatened to expose Esther's affair with Clapper if she wouldn't sleep with him. I did not tell her where Strauss had learned about the affair—I wished to spare Leah Goldin Mira's wrath and retribution. I explained that the idea of Esther becoming the lover of a British officer, in particular one who was in charge of preventing Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel, struck me as improbable in the extreme. The only way it made sense was if Esther was working for the Irgun. I finished by relating to her the events of the previous night: how I had managed to overpower the man Strauss had sent to kill me, the same man who had murdered Esther and Willie.
"He tried to deny it by feeding me some cockamamie story, but it was clearly all lies. He killed them. Strauss had arranged for an alibi the night of the murders—not that he ever needed it."
Mira listened to me without speaking, all the while wearing an expression of such unadulterated pain that it was a struggle not to look away from her. When I was done, a single tear broke free from each of her eyes and ran in parallel lines down her cheeks.
"It's my fault," she said in a bleak voice. Her eyes were wet, shining like the flat surface of a lake on a blindingly sunny day.
"No," I said.
She wiped her cheeks with her hands. "It is. She wouldn't have died if not for me. I should have never allowed her to become Clapper's lover. I was her handler."
"Her handler?"
"I was the one she reported to, the one she gave information to."
"Information from Clapper?"
"Yes. Pillow talk, mostly. The man couldn't keep his mouth shut around Esther. He liked to paint himself as large as possible, to impress her. She encouraged him of course. She knew how to get him to run off at the mouth."
"Whose idea was it? For Esther to do what she did?"
"Hers. Esther's."
"No one pushed her into it?"
"No one. In fact, I tried to talk her out of it. I found the whole notion distasteful. I told her there were other ways she could be of service to the Irgun. But Esther was adamant. She said she could do more good by getting intimate with Clapper than by being just another run-of-the-mill Irgun member. She convinced me, and she was right. The information she got for us was priceless."
"Why did you choose Clapper?"
"For a number of reasons. One, his wife had remained in England, so he was here without a woman. Two, his position and role in the CID made him a prime target. In more ways than one, actually. The bastard's lucky to be alive."
"Why do you say that?"
