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.

His face spasmed in painful memory. "I thought she'd be happy, but she wasn't. When Talia woke up and saw the baby, she went insane. She wanted to know where Judah's body had gone and who the new baby was. When I told her, she slapped me and threatened to go to the police. It was all I could do to get her to keep her voice down so the neighbors wouldn't know what I'd done. I finally got her to calm down. I told her we could be happy again, that we could be a family, that we could say that this baby was Judah. No one will come looking for him. No one will know. All we needed to do was move to another city, where no one knew us or how the real Judah looked.

"For the next few days, I did not let Talia out of my sight. She seemed to be getting better. She took good care of the baby. I could tell she liked him. Then I had to go out to get food. When I returned, I found her dead. She'd opened her wrists in the bathtub."

Michael closed his eyes. His breathing sounded hard and fast in the stillness of the apartment.

"Talia left a note, blaming me for her death," he said, opening his eyes. "I burned it. After Talia was buried, I didn't want anything to do with the baby. He wasn't mine. I didn't love him. So I gave him to Malka, and I did my best to forget about him, to forget about Judah. I immersed myself in my work for the Irgun. But I didn't forget Judah, so I started visiting his grave and leaving flowers there."

"Why only on his grave?" I asked. "Why not on Talia's?"

"Because she wouldn't want me to. She died hating me. And—" his voice turned ugly "—it was all because of that traitorous bitch."

"Who?" I asked, the answer popping into my mind almost instantly. "Esther?"

"Yes. The traitor. Four good men died and Talia lost her mind fighting to free her from the British, and what did she do? Become the mistress of a British officer. And not just any officer, but of—"

"John Clapper," I finished his sentence for him.

Michael looked at me in surprise. "You know?"