The Missing File (15 page)

Meanwhile, to ease the fears of the public, the Brussels police hastily brought in two suspects for questioning—Johanna's boyfriend, who had spent the weekend of her disappearance in Antwerp; and the owner of the apartment, an eccentric sixty-two-year-old bachelor who lived on the third floor of the building. A pensioner now, he had worked previously as the principal and teacher at an elementary school. He looked like a madman in the photographs they had of him. The similar circumstances again sent a shiver through Avraham. His host didn't play a part in the interrogation of the detainees, who were questioned by the Division Centrale's two most seasoned and decorated investigators.

Jean-Marc didn't come to pick him up from the hotel on Thursday. He had been called out in the early hours of the morning to the other side of the city. He called at noon to apologize and suggest that Avraham spend the next two days in Brussels as a tourist. Compensation came in the form of an invitation to a family meal at the home of Jean-Marc's parents on Friday evening. Avraham tried to get out of it, but suddenly his host wouldn't take no for an answer. His father and brother were policemen, he said, and the conversation with them, in English, would be just like a true exchange session. He also promised to take him to the best mussels restaurant in town on Saturday, Avraham's last day in Brussels.

The girl behind the reception desk at the hotel tried to explain to Avraham—in broken English, with a Spanish accent—how to get to the center of the city. There was nothing to see around the hotel. He turned left and walked along Avenue Brugmann, which appeared to be the street he had wandered down in the dark on his first evening in the city. He passed by a Polish grocery store, a Thai laborers' eatery, a sushi bar, and a café that served a variety of dishes from the Ivory Coast—and ended up nowhere in particular. The city's main avenues eluded him, and he wasn't able to locate the palaces, pictures of which he had seen on Wikipedia, or the parks, which were supposed to be in full bloom.

Avraham's feet hurt from all the walking, and his trousers were wet. He realized, too, that for the most part he had been holding the map they had given him at the hotel upside down. The rain continued to fall, but he didn't want to waste money on a cab because he assumed he'd have to make his own way to the airport. In the afternoon he found himself at the top of a number of steep, narrow, and neglected streets and passed by several public housing projects and elderly individuals who appeared to be of Turkish origin. Without intending to, he came upon the red-light district, which, to his surprise, lay right at the feet of the shiny skyscrapers of the European Union institutions.

Reluctantly, he continued along Rue de la Prairie—as if he were Jean-Marc. In the windows, behind partially drawn curtains, sat young black women, chubby, pretty, all dressed in negligees with pink scarves around their necks. They smiled at him. A client emerged from one of the houses—a man in his sixties, unshaven, counting the money in his wallet.

Avraham stepped up his pace. He returned to what appeared to be a main street, and again found himself at a Subway sandwich shop. His phone rang. It was Ma'alul, who was calling to inform him that Ofer's bag had been found.

“W
e've finally got our hands on something concrete, Avi,” Ma'alul said. He sounded excited.

Ofer's black backpack had been handed in to the Tel Aviv police station by a building contractor, who had found it in a Dumpster he was using for rubble from an apartment he was renovating not far from the Nokia basketball arena in the south of Tel Aviv. The contractor hated it when residents in the area used the Dumpster to discard personal items, as it would then fill up too quickly, and each additional one cost him money. He'd also be slapped with a fine if he dumped waste other than construction rubble at the dump site. He had pasted a sign reading “
PRIVATE
” on the Dumpster, but to no avail. That morning, he had found the black backpack among the pieces of broken brick and empty cement bags. He had thought initially of throwing it into the building's trash bin, but could tell by its weight that it was full. Without thinking twice, he had opened it to find schoolbooks and folders, along with Ofer's ID card, which was in one of the inside pockets. He remembered the name and the boy's photograph from the television. Based on his statement, the bag hadn't been in the container for more than three days. It had been emptied the last time on Monday.

Avraham put down his sandwich and listened to Ma'alul.

“So someone threw the bag there this week, at some point between Monday and today,” he then said, and Ma'alul replied, “Most likely on Monday or Tuesday. The bag's not in the best condition—very dusty and full of sand, even after the good shake it got from the contractor.”

“What an idiot,” Avraham said, adding, “It may or may not have been Ofer who did it.”

He wanted to hold the bag. To turn it over in his hands, to open it and look inside, to take out the schoolbooks and folders one by one.

“No way was it Ofer,” Ma'alul said. “He would walk around with the bag for two weeks without anyone seeing him and then suddenly get rid of it? He'd be walking around with his books as if he was going back to school?”

Avraham listened to Ma'alul, but his thoughts took him elsewhere. “The bag may have been lying somewhere else for two weeks, and someone may have found it and tossed it.”

“Perhaps, but I don't think so. Would someone pick up a bag that's lying in the street only to throw it away somewhere else?”

Was Ma'alul irritated? Perhaps he had had enough of updating the head of the investigation team, who was managing things by remote control from a different continent.

“So what are you doing with the bag?” Avraham asked.

“Shrapstein has gone to book it in. We'll send it to National Headquarters, although I'm not sure what we'll get from it, from the point of view of fingerprints or other forensic tests. I haven't seen it yet.”

“Even if we get prints, they won't tell us much.”

“Why?” Ma'alul asked.

“Do you know how many prints we're going to find?” Avraham responded. “Ofer's, his parents', his brother's and sister's perhaps, maybe even all his classmates' too. Are there any bloodstains, or anything that doesn't look like it belongs to Ofer?”

“Books, folders, an ID card, and a few sheets of paper and a pen—that's all. Oh yes, and two twenty-shekel notes and a handful of coins. No keys. No wallet. Nothing else.”

“And stains?”

“I haven't seen the bag, Avi, I told you. But I don't think so.”

“And have you called in his parents to identify the bag and its contents?”

“Sending it to forensics is more urgent. There's no doubt it's his bag. It contained his ID card, and it's exactly the bag we were looking for.”

Before leaving the station the evening Ofer's mother came to file the report, Avraham had given the duty officer a description of the bag. It had been his first course of action in the investigation. He remembered it—a black backpack with white stripes, a Nike imitation, not new. One large compartment, two side pockets, and a third at the front that closed with zippers.

Ma'alul was silent.

Avraham felt stifled by the despair of his miserable week in Brussels. He had been there for five days already, following—without understanding a word—an investigation into the murder of a young woman that had nothing to do with him. And all the while his investigation—yes, still his—was being conducted without him. And now this bag with Ofer's folders, his things, had slipped through his fingers. They had been waiting for a breakthrough like this, and he had no intention of allowing anyone else to run things.

“Have you called in the building contractor to make a statement?” Avraham asked, trying to hide the tension in his voice, and Ma'alul said, “Yes, he should be here in an hour or so.”

“And have you brought in a forensics team to check if there is anything else in the Dumpster?”

“Yes, Avi, we have.”

“Don't breathe a word about the bag to the media, okay? Ask for a gag order if you have to.”

Ma'alul didn't respond.

“What else are you doing?”

“We'll be doing a house-to-house to question the residents in the area. Perhaps someone in the street saw who threw away the bag.”

Such an operation required the recruitment of additional investigators. Ilana had been updated.

“Good idea. Are there security cameras in the area perhaps?” It was just a thought.

“Security cameras, Avi? We're talking about the southern neighborhoods, not city center.”

“Check it out. There may be traffic police cameras,” Avraham insisted.

“Okay,” Ma'alul said, sighing. “And you cheer up there a little. You sound terrible. Try to enjoy yourself. It won't be long now. The bag has to give us a lead. We'll stick with it until we get something out of it. We're getting close.”

Getting close? He was in a Subway sandwich shop in Brussels. The closest he could get was via the telephone line in room 307 at the hotel. He assumed the bag would get to the forensics lab only later that evening and that they wouldn't get started on it right away—and might even wait until after the weekend. Was he hoping they wouldn't deal with it till Sunday, when he'd be back in Israel?

He took a cab back to the hotel, tried to get through to the office of the Forensics Department's evidence locker to ensure that the bag would find its way not only to the fingerprints lab but would also be examined for foreign fibers and polymers, both inside and out.

“What are you talking about? What bag?” grunted the desk clerk in the office.

He left her his telephone number in the room. He opened the window, lighting one cigarette with another against the hotel's policy.

Then he tried to get hold of Shrapstein, but got no response.

His cell phone rang, and he found it under his suitcase, which he had lifted onto the bed to find his notebook. Of all the people who could have called, it was Ze'ev Avni.

“I'd like to arrange another meeting with you,” the neighbor said.

Avraham explained that he wouldn't be able to see him before Sunday, perhaps even Monday. “Do you have any additional information concerning the investigation?” he asked, and Avni said, “Not exactly about the investigation. It's a different matter.”

“If it isn't about the investigation but is urgent, I suggest you call the station. I'm only dealing with Ofer's case.”

“I don't want to speak to anyone else—only you. And it can wait until Sunday. It isn't urgent.”

Nevertheless, Avni did sound less sure of himself than he had in the office at the station.

The phone in the hotel room rang and he ended the conversation with Avni. The desk clerk at the Forensics Department confirmed that the black bag had arrived and was properly logged in. “But I can't promise they'll begin working on it today,” she said.

T
he next evening, when the Forensics Department at police headquarters in Jerusalem was already closed for Shabbat, Avraham sat down to dinner in a villa in Anderlecht, a suburb of Brussels. On one side of him sat Jean-Marc, and on the other, his host's brother, Guillaume, who was similar in appearance, but less flashy and charismatic. The two Belgian giants looked like children next to their father, a former police investigator who now served in an administrative capacity at the national police academy. He sat at the head of the table.

Jean-Marc's wife, Elise, was very beautiful. About five feet nine inches tall, with long, strong arms, she wore a dress that exposed her shoulders. Her every movement was a vision to behold. She and the mother of the Karot brothers were the only ones at the table who didn't work for the police—them and the two children, of course. At least for now. Elise worked as a sales manager for Mercedes-Benz.

Marianka sat two chairs away from him, alongside Guillaume, and there was almost no interaction between her and Avraham despite the fact that both were foreigners.

Her foreignness was unmistakable.

Everyone made an effort to speak in English, but naturally drifted back to French every now and then, particularly because of the children. They spoke about Johanna Getz's murder investigation, about budget cuts in the police force, about the food in Belgium and in Israel, and about Tel Aviv.

“Jean-Marc told me that the beaches in Tel Aviv are beautiful but that he barely had a chance to enjoy them because you kept him so busy with work,” Elise said.

Smiling bashfully, Avraham confirmed.

The first course of the meal consisted of slices of smoked salmon and asparagus done in butter; duck was served as the main course. The head of the household hardly spoke, and when he did, Avraham almost choked. He asked if their guest's family was involved in the diamond and gold business like all the other Jews, in Belgium at least. The father chewed his food slowly, with his mouth closed, and sipped his beer after each mouthful.

Marianka's English was better than the others', yet she spoke very little. Most of time she smiled, seemed tense, and was trying to pay attention to all that was said around the table, even when it got complicated because everyone was talking at the same time. When they were done with the main course, she offered Jean-Marc and Guillaume's mother help with clearing the table. She and Guillaume had been together for just three months, and it was the second time she had been invited to dinner at the family home. They were both traffic police officers. But Marianka was born in Slovenia and had moved to Belgium as a young girl. She was short, about five-two, and had a slim, boyish figure. Brown, short hair. Brown eyes. She was dressed in black jeans and a gray turtleneck top, and from time to time, when she thought no one was looking, she would tug the collar up over her chin.