“Where is she?”
“At home. She thought we should talk.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true. Call her if you’d like. Cigarette?”
“I have my own.”
“Try one of these—they’re Russian.”
Mario heard the cigarettes being lit and then the balding man say, “What’s your secret?”
“My secret?”
“You’ve barely aged in ten years.”
“Nine.”
“It feels longer.”
“Does it?”
“I miss Malta.”
“I doubt that.”
“You don’t seem very pleased to see me.”
“What did you expect? The last time I saw you, you tried to kill me.”
Mario almost toppled a wineglass on table 10.
“Is that what they told you?” asked the balding man.
“They didn’t have to. I was there, remember?”
“You’re wrong. I could have killed you. Maybe I
The other man gave a short snort of derision.
Mario was well out of his depth now and regretting his decision to eavesdrop. Help came in the form of a large party of diners who blew in through the door on a gale of laughter. Mario couldn’t see them from where he was lurking.
“Isn’t that the actor everyone’s talking about?” said the balding man.
“I think so.”
“I’m not sure a fedora and a cloak suit a fellow that short. He looks like a kid playing at Zorro.”
MALTA
SHE KNEW THE CEMETERY WELL—NOT EVERY GRAVESTONE, tomb, and mausoleum, but most. She certainly knew it well enough to tread its twisting pathways with confidence, even on a moonless night such as this. Before the blackout restrictions, she would have been assisted on her way by a constellation of flickering candles, but with the deep darkness as her only companion, she still walked with confidence and purpose.
The mellow scent of pine sap came at her clear on the warm night breeze. Tonight, however, it did battle with the rank odor of decay, of putrefaction. Two wayward German bombs—or possibly Italian, now that the
It was Father Debono who had drawn this parallel for their benefit at early-morning Mass, and while it was the sort of observation for which he was known, and the sort that endeared him to the younger members of his flock, his willingness to flirt with irreverence was a source of ongoing distrust among the more elderly. Many had furrowed their brows; some had even tut-tutted from their pews.
She knew where her sympathies lay, though. She knew that it was Father Debono, not old Grech and his wizened holier-than-thou sister, who had spent that day in the thick of it, toiling through the pitiless heat and the inhuman stench to ensure that all the corpses were recovered and reburied with all the proper rites.
Judging from the smell, Father Debono and his small band of helpers had not been able to complete their grim task before nightfall, and she picked up her pace a little at the thought of the rats feasting on flesh nearby. She had always hated rats, even before the war, before the stories had begun to circulate about what went on beneath the rubble of the bombed-out buildings.
She saw a light up ahead: a flickering flame … the vague contours of a face … a man lighting a cigarette. Then darkness once more.
She slowed, more from respect than fear. With the cemetery doing a roaring trade, it was not the first time she had come across some grieving soul while making her way home from work in the early hours of the morning. She had once heard deep male sobs in the darkness and had removed her shoes so that the unfortunate person would not be disturbed by her footfalls on the paved pathway.
“Good evening,” she said quietly in Maltese as she drew level.
He was seated on the low stone wall to the right of the path, and he responded in English.
