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 odour of decay, of putrefaction. Two wayward German bombs—or possibly Italian, now that the cicci macaroni were back—had smacked into the hillside the previous night during a raid, reducing family tombs to rubble and wrenching coffins from the thin soil. Corpses in various states of decomposition had been scattered in all directions, their rude awakening like some dress rehearsal for the Day of Judgement.
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 which 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 of what went on beneath the rubble of the bombed-out buildings had begun to circulate.
That’s when she saw the 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.
‘I think you’ll find it’s morning, Carmela.’
She didn’t know the voice, or if she did, she couldn’t place it.
‘Did you make good money tonight?’
He not only knew her, he knew what she did, and she was happy he couldn’t see the colour rising in her cheeks.
‘Yes, not bad.’
‘Oh, but you are, and you know it.’
It wasn’t so much the words as the slow, easy drawl with which they were delivered that set her heart racing.
His small laugh did something to soothe her building apprehension.
‘I was only joking.’
He drew long and hard on his cigarette. In the dim glow of burning tobacco, she could just discern that he was wearing khaki battle-dress: shirt and shorts. This didn’t help much. All the services had adopted it recently, and she was unable to make out the shoulder flashes.
‘Who are you?’ she asked.
‘Ah, now I’m insulted.’
It could have been Harry, or Bernard, or even young Bill, the one they all called ‘little Willy’ (before invariably erupting in laughter). But she didn’t feel like laughing, because it could have been almost any one of the officers who passed through the Blue Parrot on a typical night, and this man remained silent, enjoying her confusion, her discomfort, which was cruel and uncalled for.
‘I must go.’
He was off the wall and seizing her arm before she had taken two paces.
‘What’s the hurry?’
She tried to pull free, but his grip was firm, vice-like, painful. She let out a small cry and attempted to twist away. The manoeuvre failed miserably and she found herself trapped against him, her back pressed into his chest.
He clamped his free hand over her mouth. ‘Ssshhhh…’ he soothed.
He spat the cigarette away and put his mouth to her ear.
‘You want to know who I am? I’m the last living soul you’ll ever set eyes on.’
She didn’t need to know all of the words, she understood their meaning. And now she began to struggle in earnest, her thoughts turning to her home, her parents, her brothers, her dog, all so close, just a short way up the hill.
He repaid her efforts by twisting her left arm up behind her until something gave in her shoulder. The pain ripped through her, carrying her to the brink of unconsciousness, her knees starting to give. In desperation she tried to bite the hand gagging her cries but he cupped his fingers away from her teeth. His other hand released her now useless arm and jammed itself between her legs, into the fork of her thighs, pulling her back against him.
His breathing was strangely calm and measured, and there was something in the sound of it that suggested he was smiling.
When she felt him hardening against her, she began to weep.
‘Tea or coffee?’
‘Which do you recommend?’
‘Well, the first tastes like dishwater, the second like slurry run-off.’
‘I’ll try the slurry run-off.’
Max summoned the attention of the waiter hovering nearby. He was new—squat and toad-like—some member of the kitchen staff drafted in to replace Ugo, whose wife had been wounded in a strafing attack at the weekend while out strolling with friends near Rabat. Gratifyingly, the pilot of the Messerschmitt 109 had paid for this outrage with his life, a Spitfire from Ta’ Qali dropping on to his tail moments later and bringing him down in the drink off the Dingli Cliffs.
‘How’s Ugo’s wife?’ Max enquired of the waiter.
‘She dead.’
‘Oh.’
In case there was any doubt, the waiter tilted his head to one side and let a fat tongue roll out his mouth. The eyes remained open, staring.
‘Two coffees, please.’
‘Two coffee.’
‘Yes, thank you.’
Max’s eyes tracked the waiter as he waddled off, but his thoughts were elsewhere, with Ugo, and wondering how long it would be before he smiled his crooked smile again.
He forced his attention back to the young man sitting across from him. Edward Pemberton was taking in his surroundings—the tall windows, the elaborately painted walls and the high, beamed ceiling—apparently immune to the mention of death.
‘What a beautiful place.’
‘It’s the old Auberge de Provence.’
Once home to the Knights of St John, the grand Baroque edifice now housed the Union Club, a welcome haven from the hard realities of war for the officer classes. The building seemed to bear a charmed life, standing remarkably unscathed among the ruins and rubble