something?”
Max let him stew in his ignorance.
“Jeez, there are some things about you Brits I’ll never understand.”
They emerged from the building into the dancing heat and the cyclopean glare of the sun. Elliott put on his sunglasses—he was very proud of his Polaroid sunglasses.
“Look, if you want to talk truth, come and see me tonight.”
“I can’t,” said Max. “I’m dining with Ralph at the mess in Mdina.”
“You call Maconochies stew and tack biscuits dining?”
“I’m hoping corned beef’s on the menu tonight.”
“How does grilled fish and a chilled bottle of Chassagne-Montrachet sound?”
“Chassagne-Montrachet?”
“You just have to know where to look.” Elliott grinned.
A shot of truth was an undeniable temptation. So was a glass or two of white burgundy.
“I can’t. I promised Ralph, and I haven’t seen him in a while.”
“Maybe I’ll join you.”
“I’m sure you’d be welcome.”
“I’m detecting a lack of enthusiasm.”
“That’s because I’m sulking.”
Elliott smiled. “I’ll call you later, when you’re over it.”
“Yes, do that.”
Elliott made off across the courtyard before stopping and turning back.
“Don’t let them get you down,” he called. “Like my granddaddy used to say: ‘There’s more horses’ asses in the world than there is horses.’”
The very first thing Max did on returning to the Information Office was snatch up one of the phones on his desk. He twirled the handle and asked the operator to put him through to the 90th General Hospital at Mtarfa.
Freddie wasn’t back yet. The car had probably been held up by the raid developing over Ta’ Qali.
Max replaced the receiver and stared at the papers that Maria had laid out in prioritized piles for his perusal. There was no point in even trying to work his way through them. He was too distracted, his thoughts turning to the ordeal of the past hour, skipping among Iris’s betrayal, his roasting in the lieutenant governor’s office, and Elliott’s promise of some answers.
It was a while before he was able to bring any order to bear in his head. Something about the meeting had struck a false note at the time, and he now realized what it was. Assuming that they’d learned of Max’s interest in the deaths from Iris, then there was no way they could have known about the shoulder tab. But if that was the case, then what were the two mystery men doing at the meeting? They had the distinct whiff of military intelligence about them—hardly the types to get involved in such an affair, not unless they knew there was more at stake than just a couple of local girls dying in what might or might not be suspicious circumstances.
Colonel Gifford, on the other hand, had appeared genuinely shocked when presented with the shoulder tab. His face had betrayed all the signs of someone coming to terms with the dire ramifications of such a discovery.
So what was going on? Colonel Gifford was in the dark while the others knew more than they were letting on? And where did Elliott fit? In one or other of the camps, or somewhere in between?
The questions kept proliferating, and Max was beginning to wish he’d taken Elliott up on his offer of barbecued fish, burgundy, and a heart-to-heart, when the steady wail of the “Raiders Passed” siren sounded outside.
He took himself up to the roof, where he smoked a cigarette and watched the dense pall of dust hanging over Ta’ Qali slowly disperse on the breeze.
Down below in the courtyard a fretful Father Bilocca was doing his best to marshal a bunch of boys into an ordered line, oblivious to the obscene gestures and the faces being pulled whenever his back was turned.
“Is everything okay, sir?”
Max hadn’t heard Pemberton join him.
“Fine. Just dandy. Smoke?”
Pemberton took a cigarette, and Max lit it for him.
“I hear Rosamund came up trumps.”
“She certainly did. I even have my own bathroom, not that there’s any water in the pipes.”
Rosamund had found him digs in Saint Julian’s, living with the Copnalls. Their eighteen-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, was a pale and pretty creature prone to blushing who worked in the naval cipher department at Fort Saint Angelo. Max could picture her state of agitation at having Pemberton living under the same roof. The same thought must surely have occurred to Rosamund.
“How’s Elizabeth?”
“She’s a fine pianist.”
It all sounded very Jane Austen: the daughter tickling the ivories for the benefit of the handsome house guest. Rosamund was definitely up to something, but he couldn’t see it yet.
“I had a shot at that piece for the
