He offered me coffee and seemed not offended when I declined. We sat in two chairs that were more comfortable than they looked. Sassoon smoked and drank his coffee. I added to the stinging odors that pervaded the room by lighting a cigarette of my own. Bluish-black smoke swirled in the air between us. He told me about the day he'd discovered the bodies, touching his kippah every other sentence with nicotine-stained fingers, as if needing to reinforce his belief in the Almighty.

"You heard nothing during the night?"

His answer echoed the one he'd given Rivlin in 1939. "Not a thing. It has troubled me ever since, that I slept peacefully in my bed while a ruthless, depraved murderer was killing two of my tenants a mere two floors above my head."

"Are you a heavy sleeper?"

"I'm afraid that I am, but that's not the worst of it. I also snore. My dear departed wife used to say I sound like a locomotive undergoing a coughing fit, but it has never disturbed my sleep."

"When did you lose your wife?"

"It will be eight years in December."

I told him I was sorry for his loss. He accepted my condolences with a heavy nod.

"She didn't hear anything either," Sassoon said. "For the same reason, I suppose." He shook his head again and sucked on his cigarette.

"What can you tell me about Esther?"

He touched his kippah. "Not much, I'm afraid. I can tell you she was a good tenant. Never late with the rent, didn't make noise, seemed to get along well with the other residents. But I can't say I knew her all that much. Esther was very friendly with another tenant of mine, Natalie Davidson. Maybe you should talk to her. She and her husband and son lived in apartment three."

I nodded. I had read Rivlin's interview with Natalie Davidson, in which she had presented herself as a friend of Esther, and I was planning on talking to her.

"Do you happen to know where the Davidsons are living these days?"

Sassoon started shaking his head, but paused midway. "I got a letter from them at Rosh Hashanah two years ago. I should have it somewhere…now where did I put it…ah, here it is."

He had been rummaging in a desk drawer and now presented me with a white envelope. Inside was a generic greeting for the Jewish New Year. Printed on the envelope was a return address on Ben Yehuda Street, in Tel Aviv. I copied it in my notebook.

"Do you know where I can find the other neighbors who lived here at the time?"