My mind drifted back to my meeting with Yossi Talmon. I could appreciate his rage. As a policeman you quickly learned that, while the law might group them all under a single category, murders came in a variety of shapes and forms and degrees of severity. Some were relatively clean—a gunshot to the head, a push off a tall building, a knife in the heart—you got used to those. They became part of the job, and only the job. Other murders were acts of such evil and savagery that they screamed for justice in a voice that could invade your dreams. What had been done to Maryam Jamalka was such an act. I thought of Talmon. He had seemed tired when we met. Was his sleep infested with nightmares? Was he kept awake by guilt, knowing that he was doing nothing to solve this murder?
I gritted my teeth. This murder deserved a whole team of detectives, the full resources of the police, until it was solved. But it didn't have a single policeman working on it. All it had was me. And if I couldn't find this killer, then no one ever would.
I snuffed out my cigarette, lit another, and stood in the window some more, watching the silent street below, the dark buildings across the road. People were asleep in those buildings, unaware that such a brutal murder had taken place in their city.
A thought came to me: Should I go to the press with what I learned? I decided that it would be risky and pointless. Any story about the murder would either have to list me as a source or keep the source anonymous. In the latter case, Inspector Rosen and those higher-ups who gave the order not to pursue the case would naturally suspect Yossi Talmon of being the source. Even if I were willing to be named as the source of the story, Rosen would go after Talmon, suspecting that he had fed me the information. Either way, it would likely cost Talmon his career. It would be a betrayal of the faith he had placed in me by showing me the file.
And this sacrifice would be for nothing, for little would change. The police would flatly deny shelving the investigation. They would say that they were hard at work at it. And soon a new story would claim the headlines and the police could go back to doing absolutely nothing.
No, going to the press at this time was not the answer. As Talmon had said, I needed to present proof of the killer's identity to force the police to act. And Talmon's certainty notwithstanding, there was no proof linking the Jamalka brothers to the murder of their sister. Unlike Ahmed Jamalka, I was not convinced of their innocence, but by taking his case, I had committed to maintaining an open mind on the matter, and so I would.
I smoked the cigarette all the way through, stubbed it out on the windowsill, and went back to my table. I proceeded to summarize the important findings so far in my notebook. Tomorrow I would return the report to Talmon and would likely never be given access to it again. I needed to get all the pertinent information in my notebook, and in my mind, before morning came.
I was tired, and I found myself casting longing glances toward my bed. But I had to get this done. I would have to catch up on my sleep tomorrow.
There was a good chance I would miss things. An investigation was like that. You absorbed a great number of details and you could never be sure which of them would end up being crucial. Some minor thing, some seemingly inconsequential fact, could turn out to be the key to a solution, and I might fail to note it in my summary. I took copious notes, looked over all the pictures again, read the medical report once more, and hoped I was getting everything I would need.
Once I had a detailed summary of what I'd read so far, I went back to the report. And I learned why Talmon had told me to start with Maryam Jamalka's record. It was short enough to read in less than a minute, and I wondered if Ahmed Jamalka knew about his sister's history. I doubted it. It further supported Talmon's theory that Jalal and Kadir Jamalka were behind the murder. It appeared that Maryam's transgressions against the honor of her family went beyond an illicit love affair. She had been arrested. The arrest had taken place a mere three weeks before her death, and she had spent the three days following it in a jail cell.
The charge was solicitation. Maryam Jamalka had been a prostitute. I could think of little that would bring more shame upon her family.
I copied the details of the arrest—date, name of arresting officer, the outcome of the arrest, the case number—into my notebook. Talmon had advised me to start with her record. But there were many possible roads stretching from this starting point. And a wide range of possible killers. A prostitute faced a greater danger of being killed than most people did. Their work involved being alone with strange men, most of whom were physically stronger than they were. It was not easy to determine at a glance which men were just interested in sex and which harbored darker fantasies. It was a skill prostitutes developed with time and bad experience. The killer could be a client, and he could also be a disgruntled pimp whom the prostitute had tried to flee. Another option was that the killer was not a man Maryam Jamalka had known professionally, but someone who specifically sought out a prostitute to kill, knowing that it would be easy to get her alone. A man who simply wanted to kill a woman.
I piled the papers and pictures back into the file and put it in the jute bag. A glance at my watch revealed that it was past three o'clock. I was tired and my muscles ached. I rose and stretched my arms and shoulders. I went to the window again but did not light another cigarette. Outside, the street was dark and still. No animal or human sound came to my ears. The cool night air seemed to be sleeping. It stood motionless, like an inhalation right before its discharge.
The quiet disturbed me. It did not seem right that with an unsolved brutal murder in our city, my neighbors, and even the elements, were unperturbed. Of course, they hadn't seen the pictures I had. They did not even know that Maryam Jamalka had ever been alive, let alone that she was dead. That was how most deaths went—especially the brutal ones of lonely and helpless people. They caused not a ripple, made not a sound, left not a trace in the minds of most people.
I ran a hand over my eyes. They were heavy and my whole body felt the need for sleep. I shut the window, turned off the light, and, in the darkness that fell, removed my clothes and got into bed. I waited for the nightmares to come. They did not keep me waiting for long.
11
I got out of bed shortly before ten, shaved, had a quick breakfast, and left the apartment with the jute bag under my arm. I walked to Ben Yehuda Street, found Talmon's building, and stuck the crime report in his mailbox.
The rest of the day I passed at Greta's, playing chess, drinking coffee, and listening to the other regulars discuss the dismal state of Israeli politics. I returned to my apartment shortly after eight thirty to shower and grab my jacket.
At nine o'clock I walked to the corner and got on the same bus I had taken the night I broke Charlie Buzaglo's ribs. The bus smelled of stale cigarette smoke despite all the windows being open. The driver looked tired and drove with the speed of a man who was desperate to end his shift and go home. I had my knife with me. Its weight felt comforting in my jacket pocket.
The arrest of Maryam Jamalka, a mere three weeks before she died, took place in a bar called Club Adom on Elifelet Street in the south of Tel Aviv. I was going to see if I could pick up her trail and learn more about how she had lived her life.
I got off the bus on Shalma Road and turned south onto Elifelet Street. Near the southern tip of the street, between a drapery and a photography studio, was Club Adom. The place was large with a long bar on the right side and tables on the left. At the far end, a dozen couples danced with varying degrees of awkwardness to the sound of lively, Eastern European music that was coming from a dark-brown gramophone with a gigantic speaker. I took a seat at the bar and looked around at the patrons. There were a bit more men than women, and some of the women seemed younger than their dance partners. The scent of perfume and cologne permeated the air.