No, just hopeful. So there was no way of knowing whether Klinger was away from home that night. I was ten years too late. Again.

I kneaded the back of my neck. The wound behind my ear throbbed. "Were you satisfied with his work?"

"Yeah. He did his job fine. Truth is, there's not much to excel at. It's a simple job: you take stuff from one place and drop it off at another. As long as you're on time and nothing turns up missing, I'm happy."

"What kind of man is he?"

"What kind?" Harel sounded bewildered. "I don't know. A regular kind. We weren't close or anything. Like I said, he did his job. That's all I cared about."

"No problems with other employees or customers?"

"What kind of problems?"

"Anything. He ever get angry or physical with anyone?"

"No, nothing like that." He had said this slowly, suspicion creeping into his voice. I had asked a question that seemed out of place—if indeed I was not interested in Moshe Klinger as a suspect of a crime.

"When was the last time you saw him?"

"His last day of work here. He moved to Netanya and now works for our outfit there."

"What made him leave Haifa, do you know?"

"No," Harel said. "Now that you mention it, that was the only time I was angry with him."

"Why?"

"Because he hardly gave me any notice. Look, I run things in an orderly manner here. I plan things in advance. Klinger just came into my office one day and told me he was moving to Netanya in a week's time. Just a week. I had to scramble to find a replacement driver. Lucky for him I didn't make any noise about it, or he would have been out of a job, you can believe that."

"Why the sudden move?"

"I don't know. I asked, and he mumbled something about his wife. That made me even angrier. It's a cowardly thing to hide behind your wife. You're a man, stand by your decisions."

"But you don't remember the exact reason?"

"No. Listen, I gotta ask you, what's this about? Why do you care about what happened ten years ago?"

"It's confidential," I said, knowing that I would get no more from him. "I can't talk about it, and I'm instructing you to keep quiet about it as well. It's police business. Don't mention our talk to anyone. Is that clear?"

"Yeah, yeah. I gotta get back to work, all right?"

I considered asking him for names of colleagues of Moshe's, but decided not to. Harel would likely keep his mouth shut about our talk; anyone close to Moshe wouldn't. For the time being, I saw no upside in Moshe knowing that I was considering him as a suspect.

I handed some money to the hatchet-faced barwoman.

"For the call," I said. "Can I get a coffee?"