When Lilian made for the staircase, Max followed, glancing at Rita as he went. She peered back at him over the top of her spectacles with an impassive expression.
Max trailed Lilian up the narrow stone staircase to the newsroom. She was wearing a short linen skirt, fraying at the hem, which revealed the full glory of her legs. They had an aesthetic dimension, long and slender, tapering to ankles so narrow they looked as though they might break at any moment.
A sudden urge made him reach out a hand and run his fingertips down her left calf.
She gave a small yelp and spun round, glaring down at him.
“What do you expect if you insist on leading the way?”
“Then you go first,” she said.
He squeezed past her. “You’ve changed your tune since last weekend.”
“I was drunk last weekend.”
“Oh, that’s why you slurred your words when you said, ‘Don’t stop’?”
It had been their first kiss, and it had taken place under an orange tree in the garden of her aunt’s palace in Mdina.
“Well, I hope you enjoyed it, because it was the last time.”
As deputy editor of
“Close,” said Max.
“No one was killed.”
“That’s good to hear.”
He turned back in time to see her unpin her hair and shake it out. It fell like silk around her shoulders.
“Better?” she asked.
“You could shave it all off and you’d still be beautiful.”
She cocked her head at him, deciding whether to accept the compliment.
“It’s true,” he said.
It was. She could get away with it, with her large almond eyes, the sharp high-bridged nose, and full lips. She was of mixed parentage—half-Maltese, half-British—although her temperament owed considerably more to her Mediterranean blood. He still smarted when he remembered some of the words she’d directed at him, but he’d also shared many a full and proper belly laugh with her. He suspected that when it came to pure intellect there were few to match her on the island. He knew for a fact that he struggled to keep up.
“We don’t have long,” she said. “I have to be in Sliema at twelve o’clock and there are no buses.”
“Sliema?”
“To talk to Vitorin Zammit.”
“You’re going to run the story?” he said hopefully.
“Felix isn’t sure.”
Felix was the editor, a plump and ponderous little character who didn’t seem to do a whole lot around the place. It was common knowledge that Lilian effectively ran the show.
“What the old man did is not legal,” Lilian went on. “We don’t want half the island shooting at planes.”
“I don’t know. The artillery could do with all the help it can get right now.”
She smiled. “True. But they’ll shoot at everything, even our own planes.”
“They’ll have to find one first.”
“But there are more Spitfires coming.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“Is it true?” she asked.
“There are always more Spitfires coming. When was the last time there weren’t more Spitfires coming?”
Her eyes narrowed, seeing through his evasiveness, but she let it go unchallenged.
Max sat himself on the corner of her desk and lit a cigarette. “You have to run this story.”
“I don’t know, Max.”
“Let’s see the photos.”
She pulled a folder from a pile of papers and spread a handful of black-and-white photos on the desk. They were almost identical. In a couple of them Vitorin Zammit was shaking the hand of the downed Italian pilot, whose parachute was piled up at his feet, and in all of them a ragtag band of grinning Maltese stood stiffly behind.
The young Italian was ridiculously handsome, and knew it; he had run his fingers through his thick hair to give his fringe some lift as Max had been preparing to take the first shot. Old Zammit’s suit was powdered white with dust from their breakneck dash up into the hills. Wedged in between Max and Pemberton on the back of the motorcycle, he had complained all the way about his abduction, and had only ceased his moaning when they’d
