Sign of the Cross (16 page)

‘Why?’

‘Grand Masters, secret handshakes: they’re no better than Freemasons. Especially when it comes to nepotism.’

‘Michael was always very kind to my uncle and aunt.’

‘Maybe I’m just an embittered commoner. But I still don’t have much time for Baron Malaspina.’ She tapped out a B&H and lit it. ‘Three years ago,’ she said, ‘we were looking for sponsorship for a Mattia Preti exhibition at the museum. The Baron’s famously well connected, so I put in a call. He said he’d help on one condition. That an external curator was brought in. When I asked why, he told me the native Maltese worked best when guided by outsiders. Apparently history demonstrates that we’ve always needed strong foreign leadership to thrive. He even gave a list: Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs, Normans, Knights, Brits. I told him we were more comfortable using local talent, and we never heard from him again.’ She inhaled, then smiled; Spike thought she should do it more. ‘I enjoyed talking to your father. He knows a lot about art.’

‘He knows a lot about a lot of things. Former English teacher. Bluffing is a job requirement.’

‘Is he . . .’

‘It’s called Marfan syndrome. A disorder of the connective tissue. Your joints and muscles are too loose. There’s a danger you’ll literally fall apart.’

‘Has he always had it?’

‘It was only diagnosed recently. Sometimes the symptoms don’t manifest themselves till late in life.’

Spike sensed Rachel eyeing his long, lean limbs. ‘Is it hereditary?’

‘It can be.’ He drank some vodka and Kinnie; the bitter-sweet local soft drink was one he’d be avoiding in future.

‘Sorry,’ Rachel laughed. ‘I don’t think I’ve made one of those before. I’m not much of a drinker.’

‘No wonder you got on with my dad.’

There was a pause. ‘Can I see the photographs?’ She came and sat beside him on the sofa, giving off a scent of freshly spritzed perfume: sugary as candyfloss, surprising somehow. He opened the sleeve and passed her the first one.

‘A pretty average St Agatha,’ she said, frowning downwards. ‘Some evidence of overpainting. Needs a damn good clean.’ She looked up. ‘It’s definitely Gozitan?’

‘From a clifftop chapel. Why would it have interested my uncle?’

‘Maybe he was overseeing the cleaning process – even the lowliest church needs to maintain its artwork.’

‘But why photograph this one?’

Rachel looked down again. ‘Malta’s full of paintings like this. Do you know the story?’

‘I know she’s your patron saint,’ Spike said, aware he was quoting a taxi driver.

‘One of our patron saints,’ Rachel corrected. ‘There’s also St Paul and St Publius. Then there’s the fact that during World War II, the German and Italian siege was broken on the day of the Assumption. So we like to think Mary looks out for us too.’

‘Another miracle.’

‘Another?’

‘The bomb that never went off.’

Rachel gave a snort. ‘You probably don’t know the whole story. Later, when they opened up the bomb, they found a note inside: “Greetings from Plze
n
???.” It had been made in the Skoda factory, and the Czech workers had been filling the munitions with sand instead of explosives.’

‘Is that why you drive a Skoda?’

‘As a reminder that human intervention is more reliable than divine?’ Rachel’s face opened into another smile, then she straightened her spectacles on her nose. ‘Back to St Agatha. She was a noblewoman from third-century Sicily. A famous beauty. The Roman governor took a shine to her. She fled across the water to Malta, but he dragged her back and locked her in a brothel. He tried to seduce her but failed. So he maimed her. Guess which type of cancer she’s the patron saint of?’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Not how I’d want a double mastectomy, but there you have it.’

Spike took another hit of perfume as Rachel pulled off her jumper. Underneath she wore a ribbed white T-shirt. No bra, he noted like a schoolboy before turning back to the photos. ‘These ones are a bit blurred . . .’

Rachel edged closer, then took the whole pile. ‘They look like infrared images. Were there more?’

‘Yes, but I lost them.’

‘
Lost
them?’

‘Someone tried to shove me into the St James Ditch. A few fell down.’

She gave a puzzled glance, then continued sifting. ‘They’re expensive. You need to rent equipment, pay development costs . . .’

‘This I know,’ Spike muttered.

‘Why didn’t you go down and pick them up?’

‘You try climbing down there. Anyway, they’re gone now.’

She didn’t seem to be listening. ‘Why would David Mifsud have wasted IR images on some workaday painting from Gozo?’ she murmured out loud.

‘You tell me . . . Rachel?’

She looked back up. ‘IR is normally used by an expert looking for something beneath the paint. The camera flash gives off infrared radiation – if there are traces of carbon beneath the paint, a particular type of film will pick it up. You get to see pencil lines, preliminary sketches. Or a palimpsest – one image on top of another.’

‘A bit like Malta.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Arabs, Normans, Knights . . .’

She stared at him blankly, as though baffled to find him capable of analogy.

‘I don’t see any pencil lines there,’ Spike said, looking back at the photos, which Rachel continued to shuffle through like a conjuror.

‘The flash isn’t powerful enough to capture an entire painting. You need to get in close to the paintwork; focus on one part at a time. Then you can slot the images together like a jigsaw.’

‘Can we try that now?’

‘Not if you’ve lost some of the photos. There’s a computer program back at the museum. I could scan the photos in, fit them together. I’m there from lunchtime tomorrow. Any good?’

‘Afraid not. We’re flying home to Gib.’

‘Jib?’

‘Gibraltar.’

‘Can I hang on to them? Give you a call?’

‘You’re a saint.’

‘Please; anything but that.’ She fixed him pointedly through her glasses. ‘Fancy a top-up?’

He turned, looking out at the bookshelves, thinking again of Zahra. She hadn’t even turned up for the funerals. One petty argument and she’d chosen to overlook all the kindness David and Teresa had shown her. Unbelievable . . . ‘Why not?’ he said, holding out his glass.

‘So what was that about the St James Ditch?’ Rachel asked as she mixed his drink.

‘I seem to have upset someone local.’

‘That happens a lot, does it?’ she said as she returned to the sofa, ‘in
Gib
?’

‘You’d be surprised. The Spanish hate us. British squaddies are always spoiling for a fight. It’s a violent place to grow up.’

‘So you’re just a street thug?’

‘Of the vilest sort.’

Rachel’s lips parted, glittering with a gloss which seemed to have been mysteriously applied. ‘Then I’ll have to keep my eye on you,’ she said, shifting closer on the sofa. ‘Cheers, Spike Sanguinetti.’

‘Cheers.’

2

Hair unkempt, still wearing his suit, Spike paced through Valletta, sensing glances from the early-morning office workers who were now streaming into the city. Waiting outside the flat was a furniture remover, a stack of flattened boxes propped against the facade. ‘Late night, was it?’ he said, glancing at his watch. ‘The estate agent’s already left.’

Spike let him into the flat. ‘Anything I’ve marked with a red sticker goes for auction. The unmarked stuff you can chuck away.’ Spike licked his lips, then put a hand to his mouth, seeing a smear of glittery gloss come away on his fingers. ‘The Madonna and Child up there is thought to be a Baglione. Be careful with it.’

He turned for the door, but the remover called after him. Though a short man, he had the tough, wiry frame of a jockey. He dipped into his overalls and held out an envelope. ‘The estate agent wanted you to have this.’

Inside were two latchkeys, both labelled with an address in Valletta. ‘What is it?’

‘They’re for a property. By the Italian Auberge.’

‘What kind of property?’

‘Fucked if I know, mate,’ the remover said as he turned to a depiction of the Ascension and wrenched it roughly from the wall.

3

The Italian Auberge now housed the Ministry of Tourism. Head throbbing, Spike found the address down an alley to its side. The bell pushes suggested the building was being used by local professionals supplementing their income through private tutoring. ‘Dr David Vasallo, BSc, MA,’ said one, ‘One-on-One Classes, All Sciences to A Level’.

Spike unlocked the door to number 16. The room was unfurnished save for a Van Gogh-style wicker chair and a cheap wooden easel. Though the easel was facing away, Spike could already see that the stretcher upon it was oval-shaped.

He edged towards it past a crate of tubes, brushes and solvents. The painting was unfinished – half the canvas still blank – but Spike recognised its subject matter. So Mifsud had been making a copy of the Gozo ‘St Agatha’. Not a very good copy – colours too bright, faces clumsily rendered – but at least Spike now had an explanation for the photographs. The impetuous young man who had laid down his brush in a fit of pique had decided to resume painting after his retirement. Why he’d started with this unexceptional version of St Agatha was unclear, but there it was – Uncle David returning to his first love.

Spike put the easel, stretcher and crate inside a cardboard box. Maybe they would do as a memento for the distant cousin. The chair could wait for the next tenant, he thought to himself as he locked up.

4

Spike dropped off the box and keys at the flat, then headed through the City Gate towards Floriana. It took a few minutes to locate Zahra’s address, a humble set of rooms above a grocer’s. She wasn’t answering her buzzer, so he went into the shop below and negotiated an extortionate rate for the purchase of a single envelope and biro.

He sealed her watch inside, then scribbled a message on the back, mentioning only the time of his flight and his mobile number in case she had misplaced it.

Back at the hotel, Rufus was still in bed. ‘Been with your old friend again?’ he said archly as he slid a skin-clad bone from between the sheets.

‘Something like that.’

They caught a taxi to the airport. An hour later, Spike stepped out of the boarding queue and phoned Rachel. Perhaps she was still sleeping off last night: straight to voicemail. With a craven sense of relief, he left her a message, filling her in on Mifsud’s rented art studio, and the fact that he’d been copying the Gozo painting. Back in the queue, he felt his phone vibrate. A Maltese number; he ducked aside to answer. ‘Rachel?’

‘Spike?’

‘Yes.’

‘This is Chen.’

‘Who?’

‘I have envelope. With the watch.’

Spike moved away to the glass partition which divided the gate from Arrivals. Above the exit, a banner welcomed tourists to ‘Malta Carnival – Introduced by Knights, Enjoyed by Nights’. Fire the copywriter, Spike thought. ‘You live with Zahra, right?’ he said.

‘Flat-mate,’ she replied, splitting the word with Oriental precision.

‘Is she with you now?’

‘Gone.’

‘Gone where?’

‘Not sure. I think she leave with boyfriend.’

‘Which boyfriend?’

‘You?’

Spike glanced back at the queue, where his father was nearing the front. ‘When did you last see her?’

‘Friday.’

‘
Friday
? So Zahra hasn’t been home for five days?’

‘Her passport is gone. I thought maybe you had both left for trip.’

‘Have you had any contact from her since?’

‘No.’

Spike heard his father’s voice echoing through the terminal: he was trying to keep his place in the queue without surrendering his boarding pass. ‘Chen,’ Spike said, ‘you have to report this to the police. To Assistant Commissioner Azzopardi. Do you understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘Tell them Zahra is missing. That you haven’t seen her since Friday.’ He heard his name called; Rufus’s cheeks reddened as irate travellers jostled him from behind.

‘Can you do that for me, Chen?’

‘I try.’

Spike hung up and returned to the queue.

‘You see?’ Rufus said. ‘My boy’s here.’ He held out his boarding pass.

‘Something’s come up, Dad.’

‘We can talk on the flight.’

‘No, we can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I’m not getting on the plane.’