by Lyn Hamilton
“Marek was definitely in the market the day Graham was killed, and could easily have seen, and possibly even heard, Graham try to warn me. I think that was what led to his death. From what you’ve told me, Sidjian does not strike me as someone who would leave anything to chance.”
“I suspect we’ll never be able to prove why, but with that hat as evidence, we can be almost certain either Sidjian or Francesco killed Graham. My money is on Francesco only because the hat was in his room, but it doesn’t really matter because they’re both dead,” Rob said. “What is more important is the question of who was Sidjian’s client and who was the intended victim. Frankly the intended victim could be anyone in the front row of the VIP tent, including the foreign ministers of three European countries, but Lara, I know, thinks it was Prime Minister Abela who was the target, and Giovanni Galizia the culprit, and it’s as good a place as any to start, I suppose. Did you check Abela’s schedule, Vince?”
“I did. We’re working with European authorities on the subject of the possible target, but if the Prime Minister was the intended victim, there were not too many opportunities to do it, because Abela’s been ill. He hasn’t been doing much in the way of public appearances since his surgery; just the play and state dinner were in his official schedule. What’s interesting, however, is that it seems Galizia was the one who prevailed upon Abela to come to the play. The Prime Minister’s secretary told me that because he was convalescing, he was only planning to attend the state dinner, but he was persuaded by Galizia to do both. The Prime Minister’s attendance was critical to the success of the negotiations, Galizia apparently said.”
“But what’s the motive here?” Rob asked.
“Abela was in his way, metaphorically speaking. Minister of External Relations wasn’t good enough,” I interjected. “Galizia wanted the top job. Pathologically ambitious, I’d say.”
“Hasn’t that man heard about nice democratic processes like elections?” Rob grumped. “Anyway, this is all speculation, isn’t it?”
“On the strength of a hunch, to say nothing of the persistence of a Canadian shopkeeper whose main tourism experience in Malta would appear to be the finding of dead bodies,” Tabone said, “I have begun an investigation of the Honorable Giovanni Galizia. I sincerely hope this shopkeeper’s hunch is correct,” he added, looking at me, “because otherwise, this investigation will undoubtedly put my illustrious career in policing at risk.”
Rob raised his eyebrows, “So what have you got? I hope it’s more than getting the PM to come to the play.”
“Not much, so far. I have moved very quickly to get phone taps on Galizia and to get Galizia’s bank accounts—it’s amazing what police powers you acquire after something as messy as an assassination attempt—and I already have a forensic accountant following the money. He’s told me there are some interesting large bank transfers, done through rather convoluted means, but he is already convinced they will lead to a numbered Swiss bank account. We’ll see where that takes us. You don’t suppose the accounts would actually be in the name of Sidjian, do you?”
We both shook our heads.
“Too bad. We haven’t much,” he sighed. “With Sidjian and Francesco dead, it’s going to be hard to prove Galizia was involved. In fact, he’s already positioning himself as the hero of the events of last night, although what he did that would earn him that title eludes me for the moment. I don’t know how we’ll get him.”
“What about that nasty little incident in the backstreets of Mdina?” Rob asked. “Are you still insisting they were coming back to say they were sorry, Vince, or do you think there might be something there we could hang on Galizia?”
“Maybe. If Galizia is the guilty party, then I think our friend Lara would have been getting to him,” Tabone replied. “If he really was working with Sidjian, then he’d know who she was. He’d know that she’d found the body of Martin Galea, that she was staying at the house, that she was involved with the performance at Mnajdra. She turns up at his office with some story about being a journalist and asks about his friendship with Martin Galea, then is really foolhardy, stealing an invitation and crashing the party. Now, whether it was Sidjian and Francesco in the car or just a couple of goons who are employed by Galizia, I don’t know yet, but I fully intend to find out, I can assure you. We’re going door to door right now to see if anyone heard or saw anything that might help.”
“Still, pretty sketchy evidence,” Rob said.
We all sat for a while, brooding over that one.
“What bothers me about this is, Rob’s right. Short of a miracle, Galizia will get away with this,” Tabone said. “He’ll get to be PM someday, not as fast as he’d like, maybe, but he’ll get there. And then what? If that isn’t good enough for him; what will he aim for next? Head of the European Union? Director General of the United Nations. Head of NATO? It boggles the mind!”
“It seems to me you’re doing everything you can,” Rob said soothingly. “And I’m happy to help as long as I’m here. But I was sent over here to help out with the investigation of the murder of a Canadian citizen, Martin Galea, and now that the autopsy has determined he was murdered in Canada, there won’t be much more I can do here. I don’t suppose anyone can think of any link between Galea’s death and these other incidents? I can’t believe I said that, actually. I sincerely hope Lara’s harebrained ideas aren’t contagious.”
I glared at him. “I think there is a link. Galea’s house. I know it’s a long shot, but I think we should at least talk about it. You said yourself, Vince, that there were very few opportunities to get the Prime Minister these days. What about the party at Galea’s house? What if Sidjian had a plan A and a plan B? You’ve said he planned every detail; surely a fallback would be included. Maybe plan A was the party at Galea’s. According to Marilyn Galea, her husband renewed acquaintances with an old boyhood friend. Galizia, perhaps? Do we know if either Galizia or the Prime Minister were included in the guest list? That should be easy enough to find out. It was supposed to be important people. Surely they would qualify.”
Tabone shrugged and with some reluctance, I could tell, picked up the phone. After waiting for a few moments, Tabone spoke to someone in Maltese, and then, with a look of some surprise, jotted something on his notepad.
“Well, well,” he said as he hung up. “That was Abela’s secretary. She told me she was holding an evening a few nights ago for a private party. It didn’t show up on the official schedule because the Prime Minister apparently considered it personal, and because it was just penciled in as tentative. It was a small get-together, just five or six guests, at the home of Martin Galea. It was to be confirmed by Galea when he arrived, and of course, when he turned up dead, it was simply deleted from the diary.
“And guess who issued the invitation on behalf of Galea? Our friend Giovanni Galizia, of course.”
“Forgive me, but so what?” Rob said. “We have nothing linking the house with Sidjian.”
“Oh, I think we may,” I said slowly. “The first night I was here, I thought I saw someone, a man wearing a hood over his head, at the back of the yard. I was pretty frightened at the time, and I never saw him there again. But there was something about him, his stance, perhaps, and although I can’t prove it, I think it was Sidjian. When he was standing for that second or two on the edge of the cliff last night, before he went over… I don’t know… something just clicked.
“And there was the incident with the dead cat and the car. Strange, these kinds of incidents only happened after I arrived. The Farrugias have told me they’d never known anything like this.”
“It does sound as if someone wanted you to leave the house,” Tabone agreed. “But you, being exceedingly stubborn, didn’t budge.”
“I didn’t. I think that right from the start, the idea of using the house as the site of the assassination just didn’t work out. They would need to have access to the house at some point, to move the weapon in and look the place over, but the workmen were
there all day, and I was there at night. So they tried to scare me off, but that didn’t work. That’s when Sidjian started to develop plan B, the play at Mnajdra.”
“And Galea? Are you saying they killed him so they could use his house? Rather drastic, wouldn’t you say? And surely that wouldn’t work. The party wouldn’t go on if he didn’t show up.”
“You’re right,” I agreed. “Unless, of course; they were going to pretend he was there. When I first saw Sidjian, at Mnajdra that first day, I thought to myself that he looked a little like Galea. Do you think he might have been planning to impersonate him?”
“Could do, I suppose,” Tabone said. “It does sound a little far-fetched, though, you have to admit. In any event, Sidjian was already here. He arrived at the same time you did, so he couldn’t have been in Toronto killing Galea.”
I shrugged. “I know. But what about Francesco? Where was he and what was he doing all this time?”
“Good question,” Tabone said to me, as a young policeman came to the door with an envelope. As he took it, Tabone said, “No way to find out until we know who he is, either. Maybe this will help,” he said, taking two photographs out of the envelope. “Take at look at these for me, will you?”
The two photos were placed in front of me. I looked carefully at each. They were not very good quality, having been taken with a long lens from a considerable distance, I thought, but they were good enough. I pointed to one.
Tabone grimaced at me. “Afraid you’d pick that one. Franco Falcone, actually Franco Falzon. Maltese, regrettably. From Xemxija on St. Paul’s Bay. Left Malta as a very young man to go to Italy, where clearly he picked up some nasty habits.”
“Franco the troublemaker,” I said. “The boy who grew up to be a gangster. That’s it! That’s what we need!” I was up and dancing around the room.
“What is she talking about?” Tabone asked Rob in a puzzled tone. “Is it shock, do you think?”
“Franco the troublemaker. That rings a bell. Why does that ring a bell?” Rob asked me.
“Three pals at school. Marcus the young bull, Giovanni the rat, and Franco the troublemaker. Marcus grew up to be an architect, Giovanni became External Relations Minister, but Franco grew up to be a gangster. Ask the Hedgehog.”
“The Hedgehog?” Tabone groaned. Rob just grinned at me.
“Grizzled old guy who sits on a deck chair beside the grocery store at some steps that lead up the hill in Mellieha. If anyone would know about this, the Hedgehog would,” Rob said.
“Send Esther,” I added. “Tell her to take a six-pack of Cisk lager. He’ll like her. I’d tell her to mention my name, but he wouldn’t remember me.” Tabone threw up his hands. “Don’t worry,” I said. “He may not remember me, but he’ll remember Giovanni the rat and Franco the troublemaker just fine.”
Rob turned to Tabone, still smiling. “I’m calling this name in, Vince. See what we can find out about Falcone and his activities in the last while. Back soon,” he said as he left the room. While we waited, Tabone got on the phone to Esther and gave her instructions on how to find the Hedgehog. “Get on this, Esther. It may be the break we need in this mess.”
About fifteen minutes later, Rob returned with a rather bemused expression on his face. “I’m a bit reluctant to tell you this, because I can already see what you’ll want to do with this bit of information,” Rob said slowly, “but I guess I have to. I’ve just been talking to a friend of mine in the CIA. I’d called him with Lara’s ID of Falcone and asked him what information he had on the man. I mean, we know how Sidjian got here, but where did Falcone come from? As it turns out, the Americans have been wondering where Franco went to. The CIA caught a glimpse of him in a random check of airport video footage a week or so ago—he’s a known criminal wanted all over the place—but he’d vanished without a trace. The photograph you saw, Lara, was taken off the videotape, which is why it was rather grainy. On a hunch, I asked them to check where he was videotaped and when—the tape will give them that—and then to check them against flight schedules and departure gates at that time. It seems our friend was just a few yards from a gate where a flight bound for guess where was about to take off.”
“Rome,” Tabone said. “Malta,” I chipped in.
“Both wrong. Toronto!” the Mountie said. “About twentyfour hours before Galea died.”
“So are you saying Lara might be right about Galea being killed because of the assassination plans? Do you think it was Franco who killed Galea and then used his ticket and travel documents?” Tabone exclaimed.
“It’s a long shot, but I suppose it’s possible. On the strength of this bit of information, let’s throw caution to the winds here, and see if we can pull it all together.”
“Sidjian does the deal with Galizia and checks on the PM’s schedule,” Tabone hypothesized. “Not too many opportunities here, because as we know Abela’s been ill. But there is the soirée at Galea’s house and they decide to do it there. Sidjian makes his way from France, planning to set up operations in the house. Franco kills Galea in Toronto to get him out of the way, then travels to Rome using Galea’s documents. I suppose Sidjian could have planned to impersonate Galea. I mean, Galizia knew what Galea looked like, they grew up together, but the Prime Minister might not, nor might the others. Galea left here a long time ago and he’s an architect, not a movie star, after all. Galea was not exactly a household name around here, at least not until he died. And if Galizia were the perpetrator of all this, then he wouldn’t say anything. Marissa and Joseph might be a problem, but, not, I would think, an insurmountable one. They could be avoided. I’m not sure he’d have to, however. With Galea out of the way, he could just wait in the house until the victim showed up.
“But the house, when he gets there, is now occupied,” Tabone said.
“Exactly!” I said. “I show up at the house and spoil that part of it. So they try to scare me away with the dead cat, and maybe even try to kill me with that business with the brakes, but neither works and the house would remain off limits to them.”
“If this is true, then where the plan to use Galea’s house really ran into a glitch,” Rod said “is when Galea turned up here dead, a fact that must surely have put a crimp in their plans. It’s ironic when you think about it. Sidjian plans this down to the last detail. But Franco stuffs Galea into a large chest to buy himself some time, not knowing that the furniture is destined to arrive here the next day.”
“But what about the yellow sticker? It was the wrong piece of furniture,” I asked, then answered my own question. “It’s probably as simple as Galea changing his mind about which piece of furniture he wanted to send. He changed the sticker himself probably, or Marilyn did.”
“We’ll probably never know the answer to that one, with Martin dead and Marilyn nowhere to be found,” Rob replied. “But given that this is what happened, which I still really can’t buy, your explanation is as good as any.”
Tabone said excitedly, “Sidjian, who is already here and has seen Lara in the house, begins working on alternate plan B, the fallback position as Lara calls it. He isn’t in contact with Franco yet, and anyway, he has no way of knowing how long Lara will be here. She might well leave before Franco arrives, and they can go back to the original plan. But then Galea turns up in the furniture, and that means plan A is as dead as Galea is. What a terrible waste, if it’s true.”
We all sat and thought about it for a while. Finally Rob spoke up, “I don’t suppose that I have to point out that if the evidence linking Galizia to the assassination plot is rather thin, the evidence linking him to Galea is virtually non-existent. It wouldn’t even qualify as circumstantial, interesting though all this may be. We’ll have to continue the investigation into Galea’s death in Canada. I’m not the officer in charge of the investigation, but I’ll tell him about Falcone and our theories about the link. It’ll be up to him and our superiors as to whether they think this does it or not.
“One thing, though, Lara. You may
have to come to terms with the idea that Marilyn Galea is dead. If our theory is true, then Marilyn was probably killed by Falcone too. He just did a better job of dealing with her body. Maybe he killed her, hid the body, and waited for Galea to come home. It was the maid’s day off, you’ll recall. In any event, her credit cards have not been used, no checks have been cashed since the day Galea died. It doesn’t look good.”
“I know,” I said. “I’d already thought of that. As much as I don’t want her to be the killer, I don’t want her to be dead even more.”
“I think,” Rob said gently, “that we would be better off concentrating on how to prove that Galizia is guilty.”
*
Later that day, Rob and I went over to the Farrugia house in Siggiewi. Marissa had called to tell me that she and Joseph had decided to tell Anthony everything—about his acceptance at the University of Toronto, his inheritance, and about his father. She said they’d very much appreciate having me there, and Rob too, if he’d come, as neutral parties, and in case their courage failed them.
We joined them in their tiny living room for a cup of tea. All three Farrugias were there as was Sophia. There was lots of idle chitchat for some time, but eventually, Marissa got around to the subject at hand. Joseph sat quietly, almost numb with anxiety, in a chair in a dark corner of the room.
“Anthony,” Marissa said quietly, “we have some news for you. About University, and about other things. Your father and I have done something we aren’t proud of, and we owe you an apology. Our only excuse, I guess, is that we love you and we have been afraid of losing you, so afraid that our judgment has been clouded.”