Sign of the Cross (26 page)

‘Here we are,’ the driver said, stopping outside a smaller door in the wall.

‘Can you wait for me here?’ Spike asked.

The driver adjusted his meter, then picked up a hardback from the passenger seat.

Spike got out. The door led to some kind of gatehouse: the main entrance to the castle seemed too fortified to be in regular use. It had a vertical letter box in the centre and a rusty bell in the jamb alongside. Nailed into the wood was a dented metal sign warning ‘Beware of the Dog’.

Spike held down the stiff button and heard a distant chime above the saw of the cicadas. He waited for a few minutes, then returned to the cab. ‘Have you got a pen and paper?’

The driver passed him a pad. Back at the wooden door, Spike wrote a brief note: ‘The painting wasn’t lost at sea. Meet me at the flat at 6 p.m. Spike.’ He folded the paper in two, scribbled ‘Michael’ on the front and pushed it through the letter box. Worth a punt, he thought to himself as the cab drove back to Valletta.

7

A van was parked opposite the Mifsud flat, hazard lights on. ‘You still here?’ the furniture remover asked as Spike unlocked the front door.

Within five minutes all the remaining crates had been piled into the remover’s van. ‘Sign and date,’ the remover said, handing over a clipboard.

‘How about this one?’ Spike asked, pointing at the hallway mirror. ‘It’s got a sticker on it.’

‘You won’t get that off without bringing half the wall down with it,’ the remover said. ‘Take it up with the landlord.’

The door slammed. The light was fading, so Spike fired up some candles, then went into the bedroom and set about packing. His wallet and passport were finally dry; he pocketed them, then moved to the bathroom, seeing a solitary stool unflushed in the lavatory, leaking colour like a tea bag.

Shaking his head in revulsion, he swept his wash things into the sponge bag, knocking over a shaving mirror, which broke in two on the bathroom floor. As he gathered the pieces, he caught sight of his reflection. He stared down, motionless. ‘Surely not,’ he said aloud, then turned back towards the hallway.

Standing in front of the mirror, he examined not his own image but the dimensions of its oval frame. Six shiny brackets were fixed to the rim, screwed directly into the wall. He brushed one with his thumb and found a fine plaster dust on the skin.

He reached for the frame and pulled it towards him. It held rigid. Crouching down, he saw a gap between the mirror and the wall. The tools in the flat had been removed, but he found a knife sharpener in the kitchen, its metal prong solid and stiff. Pacing back to the hallway, he shoved the implement down the back of the mirror and started prising it away. A crackling came from the wood, so he stopped, then banged the handle with the heel of his hand so it sank in deeper. This time when he prised it away, the bracket started to bend, flakes of plaster trickling down onto the skirting board.

He repeated the process for each screw, then threw the knife sharpener aside and began pulling with his hands. A moment later, he stumbled backwards as the mirror came free, landing with a heavy crack on the hallway floor.

Spike bent down, picking up the outer edge of the frame and rolling it over. The mirror tinkled and clattered to a rest beside the door. His hand went to his mouth and he tasted blood; a new cut, this time to his ring finger.

The mirror backing was fixed down by four large metal clasps. Spike slid them one by one across the frame, his fingertip bloody. As he lifted away the backing, he saw a wrinkled, reddish-brown canvas beneath. He wiped his hands on his trousers, then pincered up one of the frayed edges with thumb and forefinger. Heart thumping, he flipped it over, then took a step backwards.

Staring up at him was
The Martyrdom of St Agatha
. His eyes began to circle the oval canvas. A tickling fluttered in his stomach. Written in black at the base, along the lighter band once hidden by the frame, was the signature, ‘F. Michelangelo’.

8

Spike triple-locked the front door, then slid the bolts in place. After checking the security clasps on each window, he tested the plywood in the bedroom. Satisfied, he cut a strip from an almost-clean T-shirt and wound it around his bleeding hand. Only then did he touch the canvas again, carrying it by one corner into the kitchen, where he laid it down on the table.

He drank a measure of rum, then sat. The candles flickered in their bottles. Arching his neck over the table, he stared down. The painting had evidently been cleaned, as his eyes took in details he had missed in the photographs. A single tab of tooth between Agatha’s lips. A metal piercing in the left lobe of the jailer’s cauliflowered ear. A spray of ruby droplets as the jaws of the clippers bit into Agatha’s remaining breast.

The horror of the painting was different to the
Beheading of St John
, Spike thought. Caravaggio’s
St John
had been static – theatrical, Rachel had called it. In this painting, Saint Agatha’s fingers weren’t frozen in time, they were twisting in a continuing agony. The amputation of her breasts seemed more than just a depiction of pagan cruelty: it felt like the death of motherhood, of morality, of optimism. The man who’d painted this hadn’t been buoyed up by his newly attained knighthood: he’d lost all hope, betrayed by his nature, signing his name for the last time as ‘Brother Michelangelo’, aware that his imminent expulsion from the order would reveal him for what he was: a violent criminal on the run.

Spike looked up at the darkened curtains. He’d lost track of time – it was 6.30 p.m., just two and a half hours until his plane left. As he got to his feet, he sensed something move at the periphery of his vision. Turning his head, he saw a man standing in the kitchen doorway. Clamped to his shoulder was a rifle.

The man wore a checked hunter’s shirt. His neat moustache twitched in amusement.

‘Good evening, Spike,’ said the Baron.

9

‘You’re early,’ Spike said, sitting back down.

The Baron was pointing the rifle at Spike’s chest. ‘I wanted to surprise you.’

‘How did you get in? Through the bedroom window?’

The Baron moved forward, rifle still pressed to shoulder. ‘Didn’t you know? There’s a tunnel that links the flat’s cellar to the palazzo.’ He chuckled. ‘Funny, I thought Natalya had told you.’

Spike remembered what Zahra had said on the ferry – stories of escape routes built to protect Valletta’s wealthy against Ottoman pirates. ‘Is that how Salib got in?’ he asked. ‘On the night he murdered my uncle and aunt?’

The Baron’s eyes flicked towards the table, where the canvas still lay, surrounded by guttering candles. ‘You found it then,’ he said.

Spike nodded.

‘Not lost at sea.’

‘No.’

‘Where was David hiding it?’

‘Behind the mirror.’

The Baron smiled. ‘Your uncle always enjoyed the sight of his own reflection.’ He lowered his arms slightly. The rifle was now pointing at Spike’s thigh.

‘He confided in you, didn’t he?’ Spike said, edging his chair back. ‘Told you about his great discovery. And how did you reward him? By paying some thug to steal the painting.’

The Baron shook his head, gaze moving again towards the table.

‘Did you pay Salib to murder them too? To rape my aunt, then kill them both? Or did he use his own initiative?’

‘You seem to hold your uncle in very high regard.’

‘He was a good man.’

The Baron’s eyes shone in delight. ‘Well, you’re right about one thing. David did tell me about the painting. He was bragging about a letter he’d found in the Notarial Archives. From a knight of the order to his valet. Written in 1798, just days before the arrival of Napoleon. The knight didn’t want to risk losing his property to the French, so he ordered his valet to misattribute the Caravaggio. The valet changed the inventory, the knight died, and the painting was lost. Do you know why he told me?’

‘You were his friend.’

‘Greed, Spike. He was going to try and sell it, and he thought I’d have the connections to help him find a buyer.’

‘You can’t sell a stolen Caravaggio.’

‘Not on the open market. David might only have got a fraction of the value, but it would have been more than enough for him and Teresa to retire on. There are plenty of people who’d like to own one, even if only they could enjoy it.’

‘My uncle wasn’t interested in money.’

There was pity in the Baron’s tone now. ‘You don’t understand human nature at all, do you? Everyone’s interested in money – even David. He was so scared about leaving the painting in the chapel, so afraid someone else might find it, that I suggested he bring it home.’

Spike edged his chair back another inch. ‘Then all you had to do was pick a night when they were out – and you had an alibi – and send in Salib to steal the painting.’

Spike checked the Baron’s face; his moustache quivered, as though he were trying not to succumb to some wickedly amusing anecdote.

‘Except they came home early,’ Spike said. ‘Surprised Salib.’

The Baron took another step closer.

‘You used me,’ Spike went on. ‘You learned from my father about David’s plan to return to Gozo, so you sent Salib there to check if he’d put the painting back in the chapel. But it wasn’t there. When Salib attacked me in Marsa, you only called him off because you thought I might finally be closing in on it. Otherwise, you’d have let me burn.’

The Baron seemed to have lost interest.

‘Then when you saw Rachel Cassar carrying an oval-shaped canvas from the flat, you contacted Salib and told him to steal it. What did you think would happen? That he’d ask her politely?’

He turned his head back to Spike, irritated now. ‘A man cannot steal what belongs to him. That painting was commissioned by the Order of St John. It was produced in secret by Caravaggio while he was still in prison, in exchange for his safe passage to Italy after his expulsion from the order. One last masterpiece before they lost him for ever. That was why so few people saw it, even before it disappeared. Such a bargain would have caused a scandal. So it was kept for the order’s private delectation. A reminder that even in brutality, in dissolution, God’s beauty can exist. And within beauty, lies hope.’

Spike sensed that the Baron had rehearsed this speech. ‘Why not just tell David to surrender the painting to the authorities? Let it hang with the other Caravaggios in the oratory? You could have enjoyed it there.’

‘In that circus?’ the Baron spat. ‘No,
The Martyrdom
was painted for the order. It belongs to us.’ He raised the rifle back to his shoulder. ‘Now stand up.’

Spike got to his feet.

‘Into the bedroom.’

Spike stepped backwards, hands in the air; as he passed the table, the Baron stopped before the Caravaggio, lost in its terrible beauty. Creeping forward, Spike looped his arms around the Baron’s flanks, pinning the rifle in front. A bullet fired up into the ceiling, cratering the plaster. There was a delay as both Spike and the Baron watched the dust particles land on the canvas. No sound from upstairs: Clara and her friend were long gone. Then the Baron began to struggle.

10

Spike wrestled the Baron to the floor. Grabbing the barrel of the rifle, he prised it from his fingers. It came away easily, and he threw it aside, then rolled the Baron onto his back.

‘What was his name?’

Another shower of dust dropped from the ceiling, creating an iron-filings flare as it burned in the flame of a candle. The Baron tried to get to his feet, desperate to protect the painting, but Spike pressed down on his shoulders, pinning him to the floor. ‘I asked you a question, Michael. Who was Salib?’

‘Nobody . . . nothing.’ The Baron’s voice was urgent and high; smoke from the burning plaster dust was now rising from the table. ‘Just someone I used to get things done –’

‘Did you pay him?’

‘In a sense; I knew he had interests in Sicily.’

‘So you gave him John Petrovic. Someone he could use to source vulnerable women and children.’

The Baron bared his teeth. ‘The immigrant camps are a blight on Malta. A second Great Siege. Why do you think the police have turned a blind eye all these years? They breed like rabbits . . .’

‘So you made them into a commodity. Allowed dozens of women to be sold into prostitution.’

‘What happens in Italy is not my concern.’

‘And the tattoo?’

The Baron’s expression softened. He gave a gentle, almost paternal smile. ‘Salib may have been damaged, but he was a patriot. He came to see me as something of a father figure.’

‘The son you never had.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘He was a rapist. A murderer –’

‘So was Caravaggio,’ the Baron called out, glancing back at the painting. He started to stand but Spike shoved him forward against the table. A bottle fell, leaking rum as it rolled, knocking over one of the candlesticks. An orange glow rose from the table, followed by the sweet aroma of burning alcohol.

‘My painting,’ the Baron gasped.

Spike wrapped an arm around his throat. ‘Where’s Zahra?’