Sign of the Cross (25 page)

She waits. The boat has become a van, the sea a winding road. But he will look for her. She knows he will keep looking, and in this she finds comfort.

Chapter Eleven

1

Spike sat at a table for one on the restaurant terrace. A family of British tourists were standing on the harbourside, the father snapping photographs of the
luzzi
, the child’s face hidden by a mask in the shape of a falcon.

Another
bajtra
ordered, Spike returned to the
Sunday Times of Malta
. An entire six-page spread was dedicated to the man known as ‘
is-Salib
’, ‘the Cross’, and his orgy of violence. Initial articles focused on the continuing mystery of his identity: the Prime Minister of Malta insisted there was no record of him coming from any part of the archipelago; Italy, and Sicily in particular, also denied him citizenship. The current hypothesis was that he hailed from the Balkan peninsula, apparently because his unregistered vessel,
Falcon Freight
, bore certain similarities to ships constructed in the eastern Adriatic. His motorbike, now dredged from the sea, had been reported stolen from an address in St Julian’s ten weeks earlier. A cautionary tale, one commentator said, highlighting the flaws of the Schengen Area, which allowed criminals free movement through Europe.

No mention was made of Salib’s connection to John Petrovic, nor of the number of times his boat had been seen moored in the Marsa docks. His most recent victims had all awoken in hospital to find themselves fast-tracked for EU passports, their desire to speak about their ordeal fading soon after.

Spike turned the page. Salib, it was believed, had circulated among the vulnerable migrant community of Malta, offering women the chance of hotel work in Sicily. After luring them to an abandoned warehouse, he had drugged and raped them, awaiting the cover of Carnival to move them to his boat. One girl, Dinah, had managed to escape the warehouse, but been killed in the attempt. Guessing that the police would now be close behind, Salib had scaled down his operation and selected just a few victims to take to his boat, where he had concealed them for three days in appalling conditions.

Salib was also implicated in the deaths of a parish priest, Father Philip de Maro, and of a middle-aged couple, David and Teresa Mifsud. The stabbing of an art historian, Rachel Cassar, had resulted in the victim being airlifted to a specialist unit in Palermo, where her condition was said to be stable. While the police were still trying to connect these seemingly unrelated crimes, it was believed that Salib had been pursuing a painting by the Maltese artist, Lorenzo da Gozo,
The Martyrdom of St Agatha
, which was thought to have perished in the sinking of his ship off Comino. Unbeknown to him, the painting was only considered to have been worth a few hundred euros.

Set into the text below was a headshot of Spike, the ‘Gibraltar lawyer’ who had helped the police locate Salib’s boat and had single-handedly saved the lives of two of his victims. Alongside was a large colour photograph of Zahra, the inclusion of which had been a condition of Spike’s agreement to speak to the press. ‘
Seen Zahra?
’ asked the caption. ‘
Then call this number. Substantial reward
.’

Elsewhere, ordinary Maltese news was already creeping back in. ‘
This year’s Carnival “best ever”, claims President
’; ‘
Calls for referendum on divorce reform
’; ‘
Five stars for Paceville Hilton
’ . . .

Spike raised his glass but found it empty. The restaurant owner approached. ‘Another?’

‘Just the bill, please.’

‘It’s on the house, Mr Sanguinetti.’

Spike walked back to the harbourfront. On the jetty, a group of fishermen were cleaning their nets. One looked over, eyes narrowed between mutton-chop sideburns. Spike looked back, then continued past.

2

As Spike arrived at the flat, he saw a curtain twitching in the balcony of Palazzo Malaspina: the Baron and Baroness, watching as usual, worrying. His reflection in the hallway mirror showed the Steri-Strips still bisecting the bridge of his nose – according to the doctors, it would always be a little crooked. With his thickening beard he was starting to look a lot like Uncle David. He turned away into the kitchen.

Drying on the table were the contents of his pockets – wallet, credit cards, passport. His phone had been lost at sea, one advantage of which was an end to any more angry or concerned calls from Gibraltar – Jessica, Galliano, Stanford-Trench. The only person he’d spoken to on his new Maltese mobile was his father, who’d seemed entirely unconcerned by his son’s failure to return home. Spike checked it now for messages, hoping for some news from Azzopardi, a response to the article in
The Times
. Nothing.

He picked up Salib’s Maglite, which had somehow clung on in his pocket, and went into the sitting room. Since the electricity had been cut in the flat, its powerful beam was proving essential.

The cellar had been another welcome discovery, revealed when the rug covering its hatch had been taken away for auction. Spike fingered up its metal hoop and descended the narrow staircase.

Flashing the torch around the wine racks, he chose two bottles of a surprisingly good Maltese red, then steered himself back up. Yesterday’s empties he filled with candles, lighting them off the gas hob, the one utility which still worked.

As he sat down at the table, his thoughts moved again to Zahra, imagining scenarios in which she could be safe. Stuck in one of the camps after losing her passport. Or back home in Morocco, having left the country the day of their argument. He tried to picture her in Tangiers, in a foulard and kaftan, reunited with her cousins, but then the horrors began to return – Dinah lying on the pathologist’s slab, her baby’s icy eyes . . . He poured himself more wine, but the images worsened until Zahra herself reappeared, held down beneath Salib, or drugged in a massage parlour as a laughing Italian tore at her dress. He remembered Salib’s last words: ‘She gone.’ Gone where? he asked himself as he opened another bottle. Dead or alive, her body, her bones, her face, her heart – they had to be
somewhere
, and the sickening certainty of this made him keep drinking until sleep came stumbling in.

3

An unknown ringtone wheedled its way into Spike’s brain; he ignored it, then realised it belonged to his new phone. Rolling from between the sheets, he loped through the flat into the kitchen. A Gibraltarian number. He killed the call and went back to bed.

His hangover vied with the pain across the bridge of his nose. Dawn was leaking in through the boarded-up bedroom window. The phone went off again, a message presumably. He waited for it to stop. When it went off a fourth time, he moved reluctantly back to the kitchen. ‘
What?
’

‘Thank God!’

‘Jessica?’

‘Why the fuck don’t you answer your phone, Spike? I’ve been trying to reach you for three days.’

‘How did you get this number?’

‘I found it in your father’s bedroom. While I was packing him a bag.’

Spike stared at the empty wine bottles, their necks seamy with melted wax.

‘Your dad’s in hospital, Spike.’

He pulled up a chair and sat. ‘Heart?’

‘Lungs.’

Spike let out a low groan.

‘He’s in ICU. Apparently they got it early. Something to do with his syndrome, pneumo . . .’

‘Pneumothorax.’

‘He kept asking for you.’

‘I’m on the next plane.’ Spike got to his feet. ‘Thank you, Jess.’

‘Any time.’

He hung up, then moved to the sink. The water came out in a dribble. He waited for enough to collect in his palm, then smeared it on his face, tasting limescale, sweat, stale wine. His stomach heaved and he threw up into the sink. There was insufficient tap water to wash away the vomit.

4

Spike walked alone down Triq ir-Repubblicca, airline ticket in hand. The next flight home was at 9 p.m. He checked the time now: midday.

Two bicycles leaned against the facade of the Baron’s palazzo. He tried the knocker, and the door opened to reveal a squat dark youth in a tight Lycra T-shirt.

‘Is the Baron in?’

‘
Che dici?
’

‘I wanted to say goodbye.’

The youth puffed out his chest, a buff Italian homunculus.

‘Michael?’ Spike enunciated. ‘Or Natalya?’

The youth signalled with his bullet head for Spike to enter. Music boomed from the first floor, duetting with the whine of a vacuum cleaner. The youth called to the top of the stairs, then gestured for Spike to go up.

The shutters on the balcony were closed, the silver nef glinting on its console table as though newly polished. Clara was hoovering next door, a CD player on the dining-room table pumping out a pan-pipe version of ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’.

‘I’m looking for Michael,’ Spike shouted.

Clara clicked off the Hoover with a prod of the foot. ‘You wanna Baron?’

‘Or Baroness –’ Spike broke off as his eye was caught by the portrait above the dining-room table.

‘Inna the countryside,’ Clara said. ‘Wardija. Hunting lodge . . .’

Spike switched off the stereo, still staring up at the Baron’s monastic robes. Set into the white arms of his Maltese cross was a now familiar sequence of emblems – falcon, galleon, evil eye . . .

Clara’s head appeared between him and the painting. ‘You need doctor again?’ she said, pointing to his nose.

Spike put a hand to his face: his nose was bleeding. Clara held out a tissue but he wiped his bristly upper lip with the back of his hand.

‘Take message?’ she said.

‘What? No . . . I’ll go myself. Wardija, you say?’

‘Wardija.’

5

The taxi wound slowly up the hill. The sun seemed higher in the sky, and for the first time Spike could sense the true intensity of the climate, a drier, crueller heat than Gibraltar. He turned away from the window, thinking again of the Baron’s cloak in the portrait. He was certain he’d seen the same heraldic devices in Salib’s tattoo.

The driver braked. ‘See that?’ he said, pointing up through the windscreen.

Spike leaned forward. A small, plaster-of-Paris madonna swung like a censer from the rear-view mirror. ‘What?’ he asked impatiently.

The driver opened his door and got out. Suppressing his annoyance, Spike did the same. A low, drystone wall ran along the near side of the road. Cacti and shrubs grew beyond; Spike heard the first cicadas of the season chirruping in the undergrowth.

‘I’m in a bit of a hurry . . .’

‘Up there,’ the driver said, pointing into the bright blue sky.

Spike formed a visor with his hand: a black dot hung in the air three hundred feet above.

‘Maltese falcon,’ the driver said.

‘You must have good eyesight.’

The falcon hovered, wingtips fluttering.

‘It’s a subspecies of peregrine,’ the driver went on. ‘Very rare.’ He put an arm across Spike’s chest as he turned back towards the car. ‘Patience . . .’

The falcon had dipped down a few feet. ‘They can see everything from up there,’ the driver said. ‘Nothing gets past them. Here we go . . .’ He nodded at the field on the far side of the wall. At its edge, grazing on some goat-cropped grass, sat a baby rabbit. Spike looked back up at the falcon, which had dropped down a few more metres, hanging in front of the sun.

‘Any second . . .’

All of a sudden, the falcon tucked its wings behind its back and arrowed downwards. Its line was straight, gathering speed as it neared the ground. The rabbit gambolled a few paces towards greener pastures, but the falcon was locked on like a missile, wheeling around at the last moment, then smacking into the rabbit claws first with a thump that was audible even from this side of the field. Clamped together, bird and beast rolled away until concealed by a cactus.

‘. . . now,’ the driver concluded with a smile as he got back into the cab. A thin scream cut the air. ‘Wardija, was it?’ he said.

6

The village spread over the brow of the hill, a vista of the sea and St Paul’s Islands in one direction, sloped terraced fields in the other. Stone walls flanked the road, delineating the grounds of the knights’ various hunting lodges. ‘It’s the Malaspina place, right?’ the driver said.

‘Yes.’

‘You a friend of the Baron’s?’

‘He knew my uncle.’

‘He’s a good man. They were going to close down my daughter’s school in Mdina. He brought in outside investment, now we have the best school in the area.’

As they drove past a set of wrought-iron gates, Spike glanced in at an alley of gnarled olive trees stretching into the distance. A crenellated stone wall ran off the gate, the bell tower of a private chapel rising behind. The wall adjoined what looked like a miniature castle. It was built with the same golden limestone as the houses of Valletta, though the statues in the decorative niches were crumbling and smashed.