Rachel frowned. ‘We never spoke about his personal life.’
‘But when you saw them together they . . .’
‘Seemed fine.’ She paused. ‘But who knows what really goes on in a relationship.’
Spike glanced automatically at her left hand: no wedding ring. She followed his eyes. ‘I’d better get back,’ she said, standing.
‘Thanks for taking the time to talk to me.’
‘A pleasure. It’s been on my mind. So, do you want me to make out the cheque to you?’
‘Leave it to Teresa’s charity.’
Spike thought he caught a flash of disapproval. They shook hands; now it was Rachel whose eyes dipped to Spike’s fingers.
‘One more thing,’ Spike called out.
She stopped, hand on hip.
‘When David was cataloguing the reserve collection, what sort of work did it involve?’
Her face fell a little. ‘Provenance, first and foremost. Visits to the archives. Fact-checking, really.’
‘Photographs?’
‘That’s always the starting point.’ She half turned away.
‘Had he taken all the photographs he needed?’
‘Yes, and we’d set them into the catalogue. Why?’
‘No reason. Goodbye.’
Spike set off back to the street, opening up his uncle’s diary as he walked and tearing out the receipt for the print shop. Whatever these photographs were, they didn’t relate to work David had been doing for Rachel Cassar.
7
The Omertà Photographic Centre lay midway down a dingy triq on the western fringe of Valletta. The shops on either side were boarded up: even UNESCO World Heritage Sites had their run-down neighbourhoods. A small copper bell above the door tinkled as Spike pushed through a veil of multicoloured ribbons. He handed the print slip to an obese man with a beard, who rolled reluctantly off his stool to go to the back of the shop.
A few moments later, the man returned with a thick sleeve of photographs. ‘Two hundred and eighty-three euros,’ he said flatly.
Spike looked up in surprise. ‘Christ! How much was my last set?’
‘What was the name again?’
‘Dr David Mifsud.’
As the man bent to his computer screen, Spike peered inside the pack of photos. The first few were blurred black-and-white smudges. Mifsud may have been an artist but he was no photographer.
‘No previous jobs on record,’ the man said.
‘How about for the National Museum of Fine Arts?’
The man sighed and returned to the screen. ‘Nothing.’
Spike paid up and left. The sun had dipped behind a cloud: there was better light at the end of the triq, so he walked along the cobblestones, emerging at the edge of the St James Ditch. He looked down over the protective wall and saw what looked like a dried riverbed fifty feet below: bin bags, cacti clumps, an open-topped skip where some builders appeared to have been repairing the foundations.
Facing outwards, Spike laid the sleeve of photos on top of the wall. More of the same black-and-white smears, each with a date in the corner, 16 January, two weeks before Mifsud’s death. He flipped through further: he’d just spent the thick end of three hundred euros on some out-of-focus prints.
As he turned over the next photo, he stopped. This time the image was clearer. It showed an oval-shaped painting, still in its frame: in the centre stood a dark-skinned woman, her brown hair tied in a loose knot at her nape, her arms above her head, her wrists shackled to a ringbolt on what looked like a cell wall. Her dress had been pulled down, dangling by her waist. Alongside her stood a man in leather breeches, a pair of bolt cutters in his hands.
Spike tilted the photo to the light. The woman’s left breast had been cut off, blood streaming down her midriff. The jaws of the cutters were clasped around her right breast, ready to slice again.
So lost was Spike in grim fascination – the jailer’s business-like expression, the woman’s semi-conscious face – that he didn’t hear the sound of a motorbike pulling up behind him.
8
As Spike turned over the next photograph, he felt something smash into the small of his back. His groin collided with the low wall in front. He managed to sweep most of the photographs behind him, but a few slipped over the edge, fluttering down into the void.
Hands pressed to the top of the wall, he tried to push himself backwards, but the weight on his spine was too great. His heels began to rise from the ground; now his head was leaning out over the wall. He twisted his neck, glimpsing something shiny at the periphery of his vision. The pressure increased; his chest was now protruding over the edge, just his toes on the ground. ‘Wait,’ he gasped.
‘Go home, foreigner,’ came a whispered voice.
Spike caught a sweet smell on the man’s breath. ‘OK,’ he said, as the photographs still zigzagged downwards, finally landing in the builders’ skip, ‘OK, OK . . .’
The force reduced, and for the first time Spike felt pain where his palms had been digging into the top of the wall. As soon as his heels touched the ground, he swung an arm backwards, swivelling with his hip for maximum impact. His elbow hit something hard. He clutched it to his chest, stumbling away from the wall.
The man was walking casually back to his motorbike. He wore blue canvas trousers and a white T-shirt. Over his head was a black helmet. As he hoisted a leg over the bike, Spike caught sight of a strong, grizzled jaw.
The man smiled, then slid down his visor and drove away. As soon as he was gone, Spike bent down and gathered the remaining photographs.
The boy adjusts the vice, then steps away from the head. The entire four-foot length of the unicorn’s horn is now coated in a transparent gum; the boy attaches a line of silver ribbon to the base, then begins winding it up around the papier-mâché cone, trying to keep the spiral even as he moves steadily upwards to the point.
His mind turns again to this evening’s plans: meeting Luisa Camilleri in Paceville. What if she prefers Anthony to him? He knows Anthony will not hesitate.
Still circling the head, the boy passes by the warehouse wall. A low, bestial grunting vibrates through the brickwork. The boy stops, then continues his work, arms rising higher as he walks.
He stops again. The animal sounds have returned, followed by a distant high-pitched wail, like a child’s scream. The boy feels his heart start to beat; dropping the silver thread, he goes to the doorway and pushes it open.
It is dark outside; he is meeting Luisa in less than an hour. A breeze is blowing through the masts of the boats ahead, creating a soft wail; as the boy turns back to the warehouse, he sees shadows cast by the finished Carnival floats: the flame of a dragon, the jaws of a lion. In the centre, the huge head of the unicorn still sits in its vice, decapitated, ribbon dripping from its horn like silver blood.
Quelling his unease, the boy flicks off the lights and steps outside, pulling the door behind him. His hand shakes as he fumbles for the padlock.
He strides away along the concrete. Another squall of wind rattles the ships’ rigging; a few yards on, he slows, chiding himself for behaving like an infant, wondering what Luisa would think if she could see him now. By the time he is climbing the steps back up to the road, he has forgotten the noises, his thoughts already on the rich possibilities of the night ahead.
Chapter Four
1
‘So I thought why spare the horses?’ Rufus said. ‘Mercedes hearse. Three-car cortège. Hundred white lilies. You only get one send-off, after all.’
As they approached Triq Sant’Orsla, Spike’s eye was caught by a statue adorning the street corner. A bare-chested woman staring up at the sky, both breasts missing.
‘No doubt the estate will cover it, but in the meantime, I wondered if . . . son?’
Feeling a touch on his elbow, Spike started a little, then turned to his father. Long white hair pushed back from his brow, Rufus wore his best dark suit, lightened by a mauve Gibraltar Heritage Committee tie, an instituti
on of which he was chairman.
Spike exhaled, then pointed to the statue. ‘Do you know who that represents, Dad?’
‘Whom what represents?’ Rufus said, fumbling in his pocket for his bifocals.
‘Never mind. You were saying?’
They continued along the cobbles. Spike still hadn’t told his father about the attack by the St James Ditch. Hadn’t told anyone, in fact. A case of mistaken identity, he repeated dubiously to himself as he reached into the pocket of his jeans and checked his phone. Still no reply from Zahra.
‘. . . of course the big question is the venue for the wake. While I think the Phoenicia would be nice, it’s not exactly –’
‘Dad?’
Rufus was standing outside the Mifsud flat. Realising his mistake, he turned and joined Spike by the entrance to Palazzo Malaspina. A Maltese flag dangled from the oak-framed door, a George Cross on its left-hand side beside the phrase, For Gallantry.
Rufus shook his head in disapproval, then reached for the pomegranate knocker.
2
The Malaspina maid was surprisingly young and attractive, squeezed into a hi-vis anorak as though interrupted en route for a bike ride. She pointed apathetically at the dark curving staircase which dominated the hallway. Rufus went first, gripping the mahogany banister with long, splayed fingers. Spike followed behind.
Rufus took it one step at a time. He refused to walk with a cane despite the doctors’ insistence that the ligaments in his legs could give way at any point. A fall Spike could catch: it was the possibility that Rufus’s aorta might split in two that worried him. The democratic nature of Marfan syndrome: all connective tissue equally at risk.
‘Almost there . . .’ Rufus said as he neared the landing.
Upstairs, two life-size portraits hung on either side of a double-doored entrance. On the right-hand wall stood a younger Baron Malaspina, captured in front of a bookcase, his right hand cupping his left elbow, his three-piece suit and waxed moustache suggesting a touch of the dandy in his early years. On the other side of the door frame, straight-backed in a Louis Quinze chair, sat the Baroness. Spike was reminded of the unusual beauty which even as a child had moved him. Golden hair snaking over bare shoulders, pale oval face with a heart-shaped mouth, the narrow hips and long svelte legs of a dancer . . . There was a reason she was seated, Spike thought – five in fact, one for each inch she towered over her husband.
One might have taken their union as a straightforward transaction of looks and status, except that the Baroness’s family was said to outrank even her husband’s. Her mother had been a young Russian aristocrat, evacuated by the British after the Bolshevik revolution, arriving in Malta on HMS Marlborough in 1919 as part of a convoy of White Russian refugees. The Russian connection had been maintained by the Baroness teaching ballet in the years before she’d met her husband.
‘Hel-lo?’ came a shrill voice from behind the doorway.
‘It’s only us,’ Spike called back.
As the doors opened, Spike glanced from portrait to subject: the Baroness’s cheekbones were more pronounced, her skin more parchment-like, yet she remained a beauty.
‘My darlinks!’
Rufus was drawn into the Baroness’s floating chiffon dress, freezing like a cat in a child’s embrace. As he pulled away, Spike saw a touch of pinkness in his face.
‘And you,’ the Baroness said, turning to Spike. ‘Michael forewarned me, but what a man you have become.’ She pecked him on both cheeks, trailing a rose-scented powder. ‘Like that matinee idol of the forties, the Spaniard, so rangy and handsome, but with those eyes . . .’ She glanced back at Rufus. ‘Why, you have given him your blue eyes, Rufus! If I were only twenty years younger. Or five!’
The maid was waiting on the stairs, mouth set. ‘Off you go, Clara,’ the Baroness snapped, before wafting inside past the image of her younger self.
Rufus remained swaying on the landing; placing a hand on the small of his back, Spike encouraged him inside the drawing room. Frayed rugs lay seemingly at random over uneven oak floorboards; tucked against one wall was a harpsichord, its cypress-wood lid decorated with pastoral scenes. Tall windows gave onto an inner courtyard, orange trees growing from below, pressing their leaves to the glass as though seeking to eavesdrop. The central coffee table was piled with Russian art books, enclosed on three sides by sofas draped in moth-eaten cashmere throws.
At the end of the drawing room, a covered balcony gave onto the street. The Baron emerged from its shelter, his faded blond hair combed back, pinstripe suit a little tight, a pink square of kerchief poking jauntily from his breast pocket. He glided between the antique furniture, one arm behind his back, with the rictus grin of a man well used to meeting and greeting. The only element detracting from the statesmanlike bearing was the geriatric Maltese terrier snuffling behind, nose pressed to his ankle.
‘Rufus Sanguinetti,’ he said. ‘What’s it been? Ten years?’
‘Seventeen.’
Rufus stiffened slightly as the Baron shook his hand. Even with his father’s stoop, their height difference was less than expected: Spike glanced down and saw stacked leather heels on the Baron’s brogues.
The Maltese terrier switched attention to Rufus’s trouser leg. ‘She can smell something,’ the Baron said.
Rufus glanced down as well. ‘Must be the General.’
‘The General?’
‘General Ironside, our Jack Russell.’
‘You have a dog now, Rufus? I didn’t know.’
‘Why would you?’ Rufus screwed up his eyes. ‘Is that a nef?’
The Baron turned. On the console table behind lay a gleaming model ship, a silver galleon with four masts. ‘My great-great-grandfather was awarded it for services to the Maltese fleet.’
‘A drinking vessel?’
‘Ornamental. Though we do have a salt-cellar nef at our hunting lodge in Wardija. That said, if you detach the nautilus shell . . .’ The Baron turned and headed back across the drawing room, Rufus following slowly behind, dog still attached to his leg.
The Baroness placed a hand on Spike’s shoulder. ‘Poor Rufus,’ she whispered. ‘After what happened to your mother. And now David . . .’ She inhaled suddenly through yellowing teeth. ‘A drink?’
‘Allow me.’
The decanters on the drinks trolley were strung with tarnished silver name tags. On the lower shelf squatted a phalanx of ancient-looking mixers. ‘I take a vodka and ice,’ the Baroness said. ‘A Scotch and dry for Michael.’
The icebox exuded the aroma of stale freezers.
‘Please,’ the Baroness said. ‘Your father first. I forget: what is his tipple?’
‘Just fizzy water these days.’ Spike instantly regretted the suggestion, seeing that there was none. ‘I’ll give him some tonic. He’ll never notice.’
‘Standards, darlink,’ the Baroness chided. ‘Come. We find some in the cellar.’
3
They descended the palazzo through rooms of dust-sheeted furniture and unintelligible, bleached-out tapestries. On the occasional exposed table, amid the tea caddies and potpourri, sat photo frames of the Baron and his wife, posing with international dignitaries of another era: minor British royals, ageing French rock stars, a suited Asian who might once have been the Prime Minister of Japan. The absence of family portraits was a reminder to Spike that – like the Mifsuds – the Baron and Baroness were childless.
The kitchen lay in the basement, small barred windows high in its walls, like a prison cell, Spike thought. A wooden ceiling fan hung motionless, while open on the Formica table was a Maltese newspaper: evidently the kitchen was Clara the maid’s domain.
‘This way.’
The Baroness was beckoning to Spike from the open doorway. Within, a broad stone staircase curved downwards. The steps were worn with footmarks, their pallor a reminder that Malta was formed of the same limestone as a certain British-forged fortress at the mouth of the Mediterranean. What was it about Empire-builders and mallea
ble rock? Places in which to carve their own image?
The temperature fell. ‘Eccoci,’ the Baroness murmured, falling for some reason into Italian. She flipped on a stuttering light to reveal a cellar lined with wine racks, most of them empty. ‘You used to like it down here as a boy,’ she said. ‘You remember? When you visited with David and Teresa. You said it reminded you of St Michael’s Cave in Gibraltar.’
A drop of murky water fell onto the Baroness’s hair, melting into the sand-coloured strands. ‘San Pellegrino in the corner. We bring up four, da?’
Spike crouched beneath the vaulted roof towards the racks. Carved into the walls, a foot or so above the floor, was a line of small crucifixes.
‘They date from the Second World War,’ the Baroness said, seeing Spike looking. ‘The Malaspinas opened their cellars as an air-raid shelter. Hundreds of people sleeping on the floor each night. They used to carve crosses above their camp beds to keep themselves safe.’
Spike slid out the first two bottles, their labels slick and loose.
‘A charitable family,’ the Baroness said, ‘even then.’ She held out an elegantly wrinkled hand. ‘Come. We go back up.’
4
Rufus and the Baron sat on the covered balcony, rocking in their chairs like a couple of Mississippi landowners out on their porches. As Spike approached, he heard Rufus saying, ‘But he’d had business meetings scheduled, he’d been in Gozo . . .’
‘Gozo?’
‘Visiting a church, I believe. No thanks, son, not thirsty. Which church was it David went to in Gozo?’
‘Our Lady of St Agatha.’
‘Our Lady of St Agatha,’ Rufus repeated, ‘and at 10 a.m. on a Monday, which sounds like work to me, so hardly the conduct of someone about to –’
Spike cleared his throat. ‘I think we’re sitting down.’
As soon as the Baron began to move, Rufus clambered to his feet. ‘Michael’s offered to help with the wake.’
‘That’s very kind,’ Spike said to the Baron as he passed.
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