Sign of the Cross

by Thomas Mogford

  There was little to betoken a classroom: loose chairs rather than desks, a table at the front with a tired pile of children’s books. On the wall, a poster designated each letter of the alphabet with an animal: Alligator for A, Butterfly for B. Spike checked automatically for X and saw the inevitable fudge: eX-tinct, with a sad-eyed image of a dinosaur.

  Zahra straightened a few chairs, then pressed in the bar of a security door. They stepped out into a large fenced-off area. In front spread two tents; ranged to the side was a series of rusty corrugated shipping containers. Two women were exiting a doorway which had been soldered into the nearest. ‘Did they run out of tents?’ Spike asked.

  ‘Three years ago.’

  A circle of women sat on upturned paint pots heating a vat of water over an open fire. Spike caught a whiff of something caramelising in the embers: sweet potato, perhaps, or carrots. An older woman was pegging washing on a line, while two more stood by the chicken-wire fence, chatting to some men on the other side. Spike heard a distant cheer: a goal, at last, for the footballers.

  ‘Seen enough?’

  ‘Did Teresa teach any of these women?’

  ‘I don’t know. This isn’t my camp.’

  One of the younger girls rose to her feet and shouted into the container. Another woman emerged. A moment later, six of them were gathered round Zahra. ‘Dinah?’ one of them said.

  Zahra replied in Arabic, and the eldest woman raised a hand to her face. Zahra stepped back, undoing her headscarf, shaking free her inky-black bob. The women spoke to one another urgently.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Spike said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Zahra replied, edging away and directing a question at the younger girls. ‘They thought I was someone else,’ she said to Spike once she’d heard the answer.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A friend.’

  ‘Dinah?’ Spike said.

  ‘Dinah,’ one of the girls repeated. ‘She tall girl. Pretty like she.’

  ‘You speak good English,’ Spike said. ‘Did Teresa teach you?’

  ‘Teresa. Nice lady.’

  ‘They don’t know she’s dead,’ Zahra said quickly as she refastened her headscarf.

  ‘Can you ask them if they ever met Teresa’s husband?’

  Zahra spoke again in Arabic. ‘No,’ she translated back.

  ‘Did they see her with another man?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just ask.’

  She spoke again. ‘They’re saying the handsome American. That’s –’

  ‘John,’ Spike interrupted. ‘Can you ask them if –’

  ‘You can ask me,’ Zahra said. ‘John used to drive me and Teresa home after work. Any further questions?’ She turned abruptly and continued talking to the girls in Arabic.

  Spike walked away to one of the tents. The nearest end was open, lines of rags stretching over the lumpy ground, covering the indeterminate shapes of what looked like corpses. A reek of old urine sharpened the air; in one corner lay a picture book with a yellow duck on the front. As Spike peered in further, he saw one of the corpse figures rise up, a haggard leathery face staring from beneath a shroud. He raised a hand in greeting, but the figure slumped back down.

  Shaking his head, Spike walked back to Zahra, who was standing alone, jotting something in a notebook. ‘Do the press know about this place?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘It’s outrageous.’

  ‘Spoken like a true tourist.’ She put the notebook back in her bag.

  ‘What were you writing down?’

  ‘Their friend’s gone missing.’

  ‘Is that unusual?’

  ‘Not really; people skip across to Sicily the whole time.’

  ‘So why the sudden interest?’

  ‘Apparently she’s just had a baby. No one’s heard from her since last week.’

  ‘Wouldn’t she have moved to the family camp?’

  Zahra gave a weary sigh. ‘That’s what I’m going to find out.’

  They exited via a smaller gateway to the forecourt. ‘Why were you asking all those questions, anyway?’ Zahra said.

  ‘Just a concerned nephew.’

  ‘You’ve been listening to the gossip, right? Well, it’s bullshit. Teresa would never have cheated on David. She told me once that she had never thought she would get married. That she’d missed her chance. She felt blessed to have found him.’

  Spike stopped. ‘How are you getting back to Valletta?’

  ‘I have a lesson to teach.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘I’ll get a lift.’

  ‘From the handsome American?’

  ‘We’re going for a drink.’

  ‘Drowning your sorrows?’

  ‘Sticking together. It’s been tough.’

  ‘Which bar?’

  ‘Pasha.’

  ‘Sounds like an ideal place to mourn.’

  Zahra set off towards the Portakabin, then stopped. ‘I’ll see you at the funeral, Spike,’ she called back.

  Spike headed for the gate, then remembered his ID and returned to the Portakabin. On his way out, he paused by the side door, staring in at the classroom. Five women now occupied the chairs, each with a child on their lap. Two were breastfeeding. At the front, Zahra was holding up a sheet of A4 paper in lieu of a blackboard. A clumsily drawn car, a stickman family beside it. Zahra said something, and Spike heard the chant of the women repeating it. She was focusing so intently she didn’t see him peering in.

  Outside, a figure was sitting on the wall by the road, picking at the sores around his mouth with a long curly thumbnail.

  ‘Hello,’ Spike said.

  The man glanced up. Opening his hand, he revealed Spike’s slim mobile phone. ‘Je m’appelle Frankie,’ he said. ‘Comme Frank Sinatra, uh?’

  Spike took the phone. Just one call made, he saw as he walked away – duration three minutes.

  A bus was parked ahead on the verge. In a nod to the ancien régime, a sticker had found its way onto the windscreen. ‘The driver carries no cash,’ it said, with the pay-off below, ‘he’s married.’

  Spike bought a single ticket back to town.

  4

  Spike picked up a portion of deep-fried dates from the kiosk by the bus terminus. The pain-au-chocolat-shaped package was dripping with oil, but its dark chewy centre was honeyed and delicious. Behind him ran the St James Ditch, the moat built to protect the land approach to Valletta from attack. People kept coming and going over its walkway: language students, lawyers, disaffected Africans.

  A black, low-slung motorbike drew up on the other side of the walkway. The driver dismounted, helmet on, as Spike checked the time: 10.40 a.m. He knew he ought to be pressing on with the business of probate – filling in the grant of representation, establishing debts, life insurance, beneficiaries – but instead he dug into a trouser pocket and pulled out his uncle’s diary.

  The man on the motorcycle was still watching. Something about him prompted unease: the sun was warmer now, yet he’d kept his helmet on. As soon as Spike started walking towards him, he swung a leg over his bike and gunned the engine into the suburb of Floriana.

  5

  In the square outside the Co-Cathedral of St John, a ponytailed South American had set up a stall selling CDs of pan-pipe music. Tootling from a battery-powered stereo was an Andean version of ‘Buffalo Soldier’. The man gazed at Spike with hopeful, off-season eyes as he walked past him up the cathedral steps.

  ‘I have a meeting with the chief curator,’ Spike said, holding up his uncle’s diary.

  ‘You’ll have to buy a ticket like everyone else,’ the woman at the counter replied curtly.

  Six euros for entrance, another twenty to join a tour that was already under way. Vatican, Inc. must be turning a tidy profit.

  Spike pushed through a turnstile into the interior of the cathedral. The usual baroque excess: golden sunbeams exploding from the backs of saintly heads, frescoed ceilings, gilt cornices, tablets on the
floor depicting the skeletons of those buried beneath. Piped choral music came from hidden speakers as a few visitors milled about, struggling to decipher their guidebooks in the dim light.

  From the oratory at the edge of the nave, Spike heard clipped female tones. The baroque found a new pinnacle in this small, high-ceilinged annexe. It was clear where the main attraction lay: a group of tourists was gathered together as a woman held forth in English, gesturing towards a painting above the altar.

  Spike moved closer, sliding the rope soles of his espadrilles over the worn, inlaid marble. The canvas was almost the size of a city billboard. It showed a stone wall, with a barred window on the right-hand side, through which two grimy-faced prisoners were peering into a courtyard below. In the foreground, a heavily muscled, bare-chested man was bending to a figure splayed on the mud-packed ground. Judging by the hue of the figure’s skin, he was already dead. As Spike drew closer, he saw blood spilling from a recently slit throat, hands tied behind back. The executioner was gripping the figure’s hair, preparing to complete the decapitation with a razor blade. A maid stooped alongside with a dish to receive the head, as a thickly bearded jailer stood behind, holding a set of keys, open-mouthed as he issued instructions. The only member of the group showing any emotion was an elderly woman, hands clasped over her ears, presumably to blot out the dead man’s screams.

  ‘When Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio first came to Malta in 1607 –’ The tour guide broke off as Spike approached. She was an attractive woman in her early forties with wavy, shoulder-length dark hair. A neat ski-jump nose was topped off by a pair of chunky black-rimmed specs.

  ‘Sorry,’ Spike mouthed. ‘Running late.’

  The tour guide peered over the frame of her glasses. Her low-cut silk blouse was lent a degree of demureness by an expertly knotted Hermès scarf. Her petite legs looked toned in gleaming stockings and kitten heels. ‘Where was I?’ she said.

  ‘In 1607?’ offered an eager American.

  Glancing again at Spike, the tour guide returned to the painting. ‘In 1607, Caravaggio was on the run after murdering a pimp in Naples. Why would the Holy Order of St John harbour a notorious criminal and womaniser? Why would this brotherhood of Christian soldiers compromise their strict codes of piety and chastity to take him in? Here, in The Beheading of St John the Baptist, we find our answer.’

  Spike followed the group’s gaze. Light illuminated the Baptist’s body from above; Spike looked for a window or open roof, but its source was unclear.

  ‘Talent,’ the tour guide said with a smile. ‘The knights had to decorate their new city, so Caravaggio and the Grand Master struck a bargain. Caravaggio would produce religious works of art, such as this depiction of the order’s patron saint, in return for which he would become a knight, so gaining redemption in the eyes of God, and a pardon, he hoped, from the Pope in Rome. The knights received their masterpieces at a discount, and Caravaggio got his salvation. A win–win situation. Or so it seemed.’ The tour guide lowered her voice stagily. ‘See the blood streaming from the Baptist’s neck?’

  The Americans crowded closer.

  ‘At the base, the words “F. Michelangelo” – “Fra” – or “Brother” – “Michelangelo” – are written in black in the blood. As well as being the largest painting Caravaggio produced, it’s also the only one he signed. You can see how proud he was to have become a knight. Alas, the mutually beneficial arrangement was not to last.’

  The tour guide stepped back to a pinboard of photographs. ‘Here in the oratory, in the very room where Caravaggio received his knighthood, where his masterpiece, The Beheading, still hung, he was defrocked in absentia by the order. Why? An altercation with a brother knight in a tavern in Valletta. Caravaggio’s violent nature won through. The order had him imprisoned in Fort San Angelo, just south of here, but he managed to escape by boat to Italy, where he died not long afterwards of fever.’ She pointed up at a print of an engraving. ‘Here we see an image of the Venerable Council of the Order convening for a criminal trial. The same body would have met to expel Caravaggio; in the centre would have sat Grand Master de Wignacourt, whom Caravaggio had captured in a personal portrait only a few months previously . . .’

  Spike moved back to the main event, staring up at the blood spilling from the martyr’s neck. ‘No flash photography,’ hissed a security guard, alerted by his sudden focus. When he rejoined the main group, the guide was pointing at a less dramatic canvas at the other end of the oratory.

  ‘All the Maltese Caravaggios are now abroad, save for two, The Beheading of St John, which you have just seen, and here, the less famous but equally exquisite St Jerome Writing. Some of you may recall that for a while we lost one of these masterpieces. See, to the left of the scribe’s hand, damage incurred when the painting was stolen in 1984. Pieces of the canvas were mailed back in order to try and secure a ransom. Thankfully it was recovered after an extensive police operation.’

  ‘Who took it?’ asked an American.

  ‘The thieves were never brought to justice. But don’t forget, Malta is only eighty kilometres south of Sicily.’

  Polite chuckles; Spike looked up and saw a black CCTV camera peering down from the doorway.

  ‘The use of chiaroscuro, literally “light-dark”, gives a famously theatrical quality to Caravaggio’s work, which . . .’

  Once the tour guide had wound things up, Spike went over. ‘May I have a word?’

  She tilted her head.

  ‘It’s about David Mifsud.’

  Her smile died. ‘Ten minutes,’ she said, before turning back to the Americans.

  6

  Spike exited the cathedral past racks of overpriced religious tat into a graveyard giving onto the street. Sitting down on a wooden bench, he caught strains of a pan-pipe version of ‘My Heart Will Go On’ filtering through the railings.

  The tour group began filing out, the more inquisitive pausing to read the knights’ crumbling gravestones, then giving up as they registered their illegibility. At last the chief curator appeared. She glanced about uneasily, then set off up the path.

  Spike stood as she approached. He’d been intending to accompany her wherever she was going, but she swept her hands down the back of her herringbone-check skirt and sat down.

  He retook his seat. ‘I’m Spike Sanguinetti.’

  ‘Rachel Cassar.’

  They shook hands sideways.

  ‘David was my uncle.’

  ‘I can see the resemblance. And you’re from . . . ?’

  ‘Gibraltar.’

  She looked puzzled.

  ‘My maternal grandparents were Maltese. They emigrated to Gibraltar after World War II. When Malta became independent, David moved back. My mother stayed on.’

  ‘Sanguinetti sounds Italian.’

  ‘My father’s family were merchants from Genoa. Many generations ago.’

  Rachel’s scarf slipped a fraction from her shoulder; she lifted it back in place. ‘I presume you’re here for the money.’

  Spike paused, then gave a non-committal smile.

  ‘I’ve already made out the cheque to David, but I can easily write another. I’m not sure what one does in these situations.’

  ‘So David was working for you?’

  She nodded, smoothing the front of her skirt over her thighs.

  ‘And that was why you were scheduled to meet last week? To settle up?’

  ‘He didn’t come to the meeting, so I left it to him to get in touch. Then a few days later I read about what had happened in The Times. Just the most awful shock.’ Behind her glasses, Spike saw her dark brown eyes brim with tears.

  ‘What kind of work was he doing for you?’

  ‘We have a reserve collection at the National Museum of Fine Arts.’ She nodded as he offered her a handkerchief. ‘Minor and damaged works. David was cataloguing them.’

  ‘And he’d finished?’

  She dabbed at the corners of her eyes, then passed the handkerchief back. ‘Three
months ago. The meeting was to iron out any final issues. Then he was going to retire.’

  ‘How did he feel about that?’

  ‘I’m not sure . . . I suppose I thought he might return to his roots.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Well . . . you know he trained as an artist. He was quite talented actually – particularly his still lifes in oil. When he was in his thirties, I believe he put on an exhibition in Valletta. Sadly very few paintings sold. They were too old-fashioned; the wrong register. So he leapt completely to the other extreme. Pursued an academic route at the University of Malta. But that was David . . . Of course, you must know all this already.’

  ‘Not really.’

  Rachel gave him a look.

  ‘We weren’t close.’

  ‘I see. Well, he threw himself into the art world as much as Malta allows – curating the odd exhibition, writing articles in the local magazines. We used him at the museum whenever we could. He was extremely knowledgeable.’

  ‘Did he seem depressed to you?’

  ‘I don’t know if depressed is the word . . . Dispirited, maybe. There was always a sense that the work was beneath him. Which it was, in a sense. Though recently . . .’

  ‘What?’

  Spike saw her roll her eyes to the right, remembering. ‘Well, I wasn’t that surprised when he didn’t turn up for the meeting. He’d seemed a bit distracted lately. As though he had something else on his mind.’

  ‘Something other than the work he was doing for you?’

  ‘Yes. He’d seemed . . . excited, almost.’

  ‘About what?’

  She shrugged, scarf slipping again. This time she let it lie. ‘At our last meeting in the museum he had a bit of a spring in his step. Normally he was quite formal. But when he arrived that time, he kissed me on both cheeks. Then as he left, he kind of . . .’ She smiled, flushing slightly. ‘Well . . . he was nearly as tall as you. He practically picked me up.’

  ‘Do you think he was on something?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Antidepressants.’

  ‘I’m not a doctor, Mr Sanguinetti.’

  ‘What about Teresa? Were they happy?’