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.
‘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?’
&
nbsp; ‘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.’
Sign of the Cross Page 18