A Dead Man in Malta (6 page)

She went off and came back with a nurse Seymour recognized: Melinda.

The man’s eyes lit up when he saw her. They talked together for a little while. Then Melinda turned to Seymour.

‘No,’ she said. ‘He didn’t see anything.’

‘Oh, well, thanks—’

‘And says he wouldn’t have told you if he had.’

‘Oh? Why?’

‘He doesn’t like there being English on the island.’

Seymour shrugged.

‘Most Maltese like the Navy,’ said Melinda. ‘It brings money into the island. But some don’t. They don’t like the British running things, they think they should run them themselves.’

‘Good luck to them,’ said Seymour.

‘I rather think that way myself.’

‘Fancy yourself as a matron?’

‘I do, actually.’

‘I wish you luck. But, you know, there might not be a hospital on the island if the Navy went away.’

‘There would always be a hospital on the island. Although, I grant you, not so many.’

She turned back to the man in the bed.

They talked again. Then Melinda made a little gesture and turned away.

The man smiled and made the gesture, too. Then he lay back on his pillow.

Melinda led Seymour away.

‘He says he saw nothing,’ she said. ‘But I don’t think he’s telling the truth.’

‘I was watching him,’ said Seymour, ‘and I don’t think he was telling the truth, either.’

‘I don’t think he was lying,’ said Melinda, ‘but I don’t think he was telling the truth. Not all of it. He saw something. Or heard something. And he’s not saying what it was. It may have been little, whatever it was. But whatever it was, he’s not going to tell us.’

Seymour looked back at the man. He was lying there watching them. As he saw Seymour looking at him he raised a hand in acknowledgement and smiled. A smile, thought Seymour, of triumph?

She buttonholed him as he came out of the hospital.

‘Mr Seymour?’

‘Mrs Wynne-Gurr?’

They shook hands.

‘My son tells me you are a policeman?’

‘That is correct.’

‘Out here to investigate the dreadful things that have been happening in the hospital?’

‘If dreadful things have been happening in the hospital.’

‘Are not three deaths dreadful enough?’

‘Deaths are always dreadful.’

‘But
three
, Mr Seymour. Three!’

‘Let us not jump to conclusions, Mrs Wynne-Gurr.’

‘And let us not evade the uncomfortable truth!’

‘I am not aware of evading any uncomfortable truth, Mrs Wynne-Gurr.’

‘Not you, perhaps,’ she conceded. ‘Yet. But has there not been slackness and a refusal to acknowledge facts?’

‘I don’t know. That remains to be seen.’

‘I hope you are not going to join the general cover-up, Mr Seymour?’

‘I am sure that if I did you would do your best to rip the cover off, Mrs Wynne-Gurr.’

Unexpectedly she laughed.

‘I sometimes feel that I do give that impression,’ she admitted.

When she smiled and lost some of her intensity she was not unattractive, Seymour thought.

‘I gather you are bringing a party here,’ he said.

‘Yes. And one of the things I must not let us do is get distracted from the main purpose of the visit.’

‘Which is?’

‘To look into the origins of our Association. The St John Ambulance, you know.’

‘Most interesting. But there is not exactly a direct line from the Knights to the present-day Association—’

‘That is what my son says. “You’re not really anything to do with the original Knights, Mum,” he says. Almost accusingly. “Not quite directly,” I say. “But in spirit.”’

She looked at Seymour. ‘And that is surely the point here, isn’t it, Mr Seymour? Three men have died.
Someone
had to speak up.’

Seymour had some sympathy for her position: although he felt that it probably took a lot of living with on the part of her husband and son.

Down by the water he could see the remains of the German’s balloon. It had been hauled on to the land and allowed to deflate. But now the police were reinflating it part by part and studying its surface. On the shore two men, probably Kiesewetter’s technicians, were watching glumly.

‘For Christ’s sake!’ one of them muttered. ‘Don’t you people know anything?’

‘Keep off!’ the other one shouted suddenly in anguish. ‘Watch your shoes!’

The Inspector he had previously met came across to him smiling.

‘Already,’ he said, ‘we have discovered something.’

He took Seymour over to the balloon and showed him a great rent in its surface.

‘This is what brought it down,’ he said. ‘The question is: tear or cut?’

‘Tear,’ said one of Kiesewetter’s technicians. ‘Probably after it hit the water. While you guys were mucking around with it.’

‘Cut,’ said the Inspector. ‘With a knife or razor. Before take-off.’

‘Ridiculous!’ said the other technician. ‘No one was allowed near it before take-off.’

‘And we went over it,’ said the other technician, ‘inch by inch.’

‘Do you think we would let anyone fly it if it was like this?’

‘It probably wasn’t like this,’ said the Inspector. ‘Not while it was on the ground. It was probably very small, perhaps just a little nick. Which enlarged during the flight.’

‘Little nicks are what we look out for,’ said one of the technicians.

‘There was no nick and no tear and no cut,’ said the other technician. ‘Not before take-off.’

‘How do you account for the hole, then?’ asked the Inspector.

‘Propeller blade on the
dghajsa
,’ suggested one of the technicians. ‘While it was towing it in.’

‘Ridiculous!’ snapped the Inspector.

‘Why do
you
think it came down?’ asked Seymour.

The technician shrugged.

‘Couldn’t say,’ he said. ‘Not until we’ve gone over it.’

‘Could be the valve,’ said the other technician. ‘It came down slowly. I was watching it and it seemed all right at first. But then, when it got over the harbour, it began to drift lower.’

‘I could see something was wrong,’ said the other technician, ‘but it looked as if he could handle it.’

‘But then, at the end, it came down quite sharply,’ said the first technician. ‘So I reckon he was bringing it down. He knew he’d be all right on the water. One of the safest places to land.’

‘And he was all right, wasn’t he?’ said the other technician. ‘It was only afterwards that—’

‘In the hospital,’ said the other technician.

* * *

Seymour walked over to where the Inspector was standing looking down on the balloon. Half of it was in the water and half was on the land. The police were drawing it up inch by inch so that they could go over it minutely. They were, he thought, doing a thorough job.

‘You think there was an attack on his life before he got to the hospital,’ he said.

‘I do,’ said the Inspector.

‘Why?’

The Inspector motioned down at the rent in the balloon’s surface.

‘This,’ he said. ‘I believe what they said, that they checked everything. They’re conscientious men. They wouldn’t have missed anything.’

‘But they
did
miss something. You think.’

‘I was there on the racetrack when the balloons were launched. Yes, they were keeping people away, but there were many balloons and lots of technicians. And just at that point they were running around like crazy. It would have been easy for a technician on another balloon to pick his moment, just as they were launching—and after they’d done the checks—and make a little cut. A little one would do. The pressure inside would do the rest.’

‘So you think it was sabotage on the part of a rival?’

‘I think it could be. These people are very competitive, you know.’

‘
That
competitive?’

The Inspector shrugged. ‘I go to Marsa racetrack every weekend. My wife likes to see the horses. Everyone likes to see the horses. Half of Malta goes. And the races! Talk about rivalry! I tell you, I see more than this—’ he gestured at the rent balloon—‘every Saturday!’

‘But he died in the hospital,’ said Seymour. ‘Are you saying that a rival followed him here?’

The Inspector shrugged. ‘It seems unlikely, I know. But I’ve seen these sportsmen! And is it more unlikely than someone creeping into the hospital and … I mean, without any apparent motive. I believe in motive. In my experience, when people kill, they do it for a reason. This at least suggests a reason.’

‘Two other men died,’ said Seymour.

‘They died, yes,’ said the Inspector, ‘but were they killed? Whereas in the case of the German—’ he looked down at the rent balloon—‘there is independent reason to suggest an attempt to kill.’

When Chantale stepped off the boat in Valletta she was still under the spell of recovering the Mediterranean. The recovery had begun the moment the train had got south of the Loire and continued as it went south to Marseilles. The clouds suddenly cleared away, the sky became that marvellous blue that she had grown up under, the sun—The sun. She had forgotten about the sun and the difference it made: in your bones, in your heart, in your mind. Why had she ever left it? The past winter in London had been like living in a dark tunnel with no end to it. It cramped you, chilled you, stiffened you all over. And also inside. Chantale suddenly realized that she had been stiffened inside too. Why had she ever agreed to leave Tangier?

She knew very well why she had left Tangier. Seymour. Well, she didn’t regret that. At least, not deep down. For the sake of their life together she would put up with the tunnel. But, oh, it was good to get out of it occasionally!

When Seymour had told her he was being sent to the Mediterranean for a time, she had at once assumed that she would go with him. She had been unable to understand it when he had said that she couldn’t. There were the rules, yes; but surely rules were meant to be broken? Or at least, slid round. She had grown up in the Arab world and in a military world and had imbibed early the understanding that to live in those worlds, particularly if you were a woman, you had to show a certain agility.

So when Seymour had told her about Mrs Wynne-Gurr and the projected visit of the St John Ambulance to Malta she had at once seen the possibilities. She hadn’t been too sure what the St John Ambulance was: something to do with ambulances, obviously. Well, she wasn’t against ambulances, she thought that on the whole they were a good thing, so if enthusiasm for ambulances would get her back to the sunshine of the Mediterranean enthusiastic she would be.

She then learned that it wasn’t just ambulances, or even necessarily ambulances at all, but by then she had the bit between her teeth. How did you join forces with this St John Ambulance? Well, Seymour’s sister explained, you joined the local Association. Just around the corner? Perfect. Well, not so perfect, actually, because this branch of the Association was not going to Malta.

The Association’s Headquarters, however, was in London and she went there. A possible recruit? Excellent! and from … Tangier, was it? They had never had a recruit from Tangier. Might not this open up possibilities? Chantale cottoned on at once. What was in her mind, she said, was the possibility of opening a branch in Tangier.

Even more excellent! But first she would like to see how a branch operated. Might she not visit—? Most certainly! There was a very lively branch in Wigan—Wigan?

Up in the north.

That was
not
what Chantale had had in mind. Fortunately, there was a lady visiting Headquarters at the time who came from the sunnier climes of West Surrey. She was, in fact, a member of the West Surrey Branch, tying up a few last things, in Mrs Wynne-Gurr’s absence, Mrs Wynne-Gurr having gone ahead to prepare the way, to do with the scheduled visit to Malta. She and Chantale got talking.

West Surrey seemed a much more suitable place for a visit than darkest Lancashire and this was confirmed in Chantale’s mind when the lady spoke glowingly of the lovely Surrey greensward.

Sword?

Obviously something to do with the Knights, although the lady had pronounced it in a slightly funny way. Dialect perhaps. Chantale spoke English well but would be the first to admit that she hadn’t properly attuned to all the dialect variations of that most exasperating of languages. But, clearly, she was on the trail. She asked the lady if she might attend the next branch meeting. Flattered, the lady invited her to come down on the following Wednesday. Among the matters discussed was the right sort of clothes to be worn for the visit. Here Chantale, with her experience of the Mediterranean, could be of great help. The thick uniform worried her, she had to admit. When she started her branch in Tangier they would have to look for something lighter—Branch in Tangier? The ladies were all of a flutter. Perhaps it might be possible to pull Tangier and Malta together in some unspecified way. Lessons would surely be learnt.

They surely could. But, alas,—Chantale sighed—she would not be going to Malta with them.

But that was no problem! No problem at all. There was room for another one on the party. There might even be the possibility of a small grant towards expenses, given the possibilities Chantale’s attendance might open up for the advance of St John in North Africa, if that was where Tangier was.

This was more than Chantale had dared to hope. She had only a very little money of her own and Seymour would go berserk if she exhausted their joint account on some unagreed private initiative.

Fired with enthusiasm for things ambulatory—if that was the right word for an adjective derived from ‘Ambulance’—she even considered the possibility of actually starting a branch in Tangier. It could certainly, on the basis of her experience, do with one.

So Chantale joined the party and went with it by train across France and then by boat across to Malta.

And there, of course, on disembarkation at Valletta, she had been struck by the Arabic language all around her. She felt that, in a way, she had come home.

Chapter Four

He caught sight of her when he returned to the hotel. She was standing in the middle of a group of sensibly dressed, middle-aged women who could only be Mrs Wynne-Gurr’s Ambulance Militant.

He edged towards her; she edged away.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he whispered.

‘Come to join you,’ she whispered back.

‘Yes. I can see that. But—’

‘I thought you would like it.’

‘Well, I do. But—’

‘I thought,’ said Chantale accusingly, ‘that it would be what you wanted.’

‘Well, it is, but—’

‘
Don’t
you want me?’ said Chantale, putting him as usual on the wrong foot.

‘Of course I want you! But—’

‘You keep it well hidden,’ said Chantale.

‘Look, I want you. But not when I’m at work.’

‘You wanted me when you were at work in Barcelona.’

‘Not when I was at work. I thought I might sort of fit it in. As a break.’

‘That’s not what you said.’

‘Briefly.’

‘You said forever. And talked me into coming back with you to London. Don’t you want me any more?’

‘Of course I want you. But not when I’m at work.’

‘I don’t
often
come to you when you’re at work. I don’t come to you in London, do I?’

‘No, and I should bloody hope not.’

‘It’s only when you work in
interesting
places. I want to share them with you.’

‘Yes, well, that’s very nice, and I would like to share them with you, too. But not when I’m working.’

‘But that’s the only chance we get to go away together!’

‘No, it’s not. I’ve suggested going on holiday together somewhere.’

‘Brighton.’

‘Well, that’s all I can afford. We’ve got to be realistic.’

‘Or ingenious,’ said Chantale. ‘All I am doing is being ingenious.’

‘Unscrupulous.’

‘Ingenious is the way I prefer to think of it. And it’s worked. I can slip along the corridor and—’ But there’s many a slip between slip and lip.

‘I see you know each other,’ said Mrs Wynne-Gurr.

‘Run into each other somewhere,’ muttered Seymour.

‘In Tangier, I think,’ said Chantale demurely.

‘In Tangier? Oh, how exciting! I wonder if you know, Mr Seymour, that Miss de Lissac hopes to start a branch of the Association in Tangier? We’re very thrilled about it. And of course, we would want to give her all the help we can. She will see a lot about our work while she’s here, and it will be particularly useful to study a branch in a place like Malta. I’m sure you will learn a great deal.’

‘Oh, good,’ said Seymour. ‘But—’ But Mrs Wynne-Gurr had done with social niceties and moved back to business.

‘If you’ll just come over here, dear, I’ll give you the name and address of the people you’re going to stay with.’

‘Stay with? I’m not going to stay in the hotel?’

‘Well, no. Didn’t I make that clear? I’m going to farm you out to members of the local branch and let you stay with them. That way you will get to know the people of the island and form an idea, from the inside, of how this branch works. That should be especially valuable to you, Miss de Lissac, for it may be that the conditions you experience will be closer to those you will encounter in Tangier than, say, the ones you would experience in West Surrey.’

Chantale’s eye caught his as she departed; disconcerted, but not, on the whole, dissatisfied.

‘It may, of course, not be quite what you are used to,’ said Mrs Wynne-Gurr, as they stopped in front of the door of the house. It was one of a row of identical small houses in a poor street not far from the harbour.

It was, in fact, exactly what Chantale was used to, for Seymour’s pay did not extend to anything better than rented rooms in the part of London’s dockland where his mother and grandparents still lived. Admittedly, coils of fog did not surround this house, as in East London they were likely to do, and at the end of the street there was a glimpse of blueness sparkling in the sun. But that, for Chantale, was an important improvement.

The door was opened by a small, homely lady full of bird-like energy, which was just as well in view of the large number of faces crowding behind her. Most of them belonged to children, small, brown-faced, dark-eyed and clearly hyperactive.

‘Mrs Ferreira?’

They were shown into the front parlour. It was already occupied by a boy and a girl, both about fourteen. There were pages of writing paper scattered all over the table and books all over the floor.

‘Rosalie,’ said Mrs Ferreira, to one of the little girls who had followed them into the room, ‘could you show the lady to her room?’

‘I’d better do it,’ said the girl already in the parlour. ‘My things are still spread about a bit.’

‘Have I taken your room?’ said Chantale.

‘That’s all right. It’s just that I’ve been working on a project and my stuff is everywhere.’

‘I’d better clear my things, too,’ said the boy apologetically. ‘I’ve got a project, too, and Sophia has been helping me with it.’

‘Isn’t this the holidays?’

‘The bastards are never off your back,’ said the girl.

‘Sophia!’ said Mrs Ferreira, shocked.

The boy was clearly a little shocked too. He hastily picked up some of the books.

‘Back in a moment,’ said the girl. She took Chantale upstairs into a tiny room most of which was filled with school books and girl’s clothes.

‘Rosalie has already moved her stuff out,’ said Sophia. ‘But that was just dresses and things.’

She opened the door of a wardrobe. ‘That end was hers and now it’s for you. I’ll clear the other end.’

‘It’s all right, I can squeeze in.’

‘Is it okay if I pile the books in a corner? There isn’t anywhere else for them to go.’

‘That’ll be fine. Just leave me some space around the edges.’

‘The bed’s the thing.’

‘It is.’

It looked as if there was just the one bed for the two girls. ‘Where will you be sleeping?’

‘Oh, around,’ said Sophia vaguely.

She quickly cleared the floor.

‘What’s your project on?’

‘The Victoria Lines. They’re a sort of defensive military fortification that goes across the island.’

She looked at Chantale. ‘Are you English? You don’t look English.’

‘I’m from Tangier. But living in England.’

‘I wouldn’t mind going to England,’ said the girl. ‘But first I’ve got to expel the British.’

‘From England?’

‘Malta. Get them out of here.’

‘Don’t you like them?’

‘Oh, I like them. But it’s the principle of the thing. Do you feel like that about the French? Being in Morocco, I mean?’

‘Torn,’ said Chantale. ‘You see, I’m half French.’

‘It must make it difficult. It’s difficult enough for us, depending on the British for what we do. Everyone here works for the British. Without them being here Malta would be nothing. Or so my grandfather says. He was in the British Navy. All my family work for the British in one way or another, in the docks, on the boats, in the hospital. But I say that’s a bad thing. It makes us too dependent.’

‘What does your grandfather say?’

‘He says that education is a bad thing, if it leads to dopey remarks like that!’

She laughed. ‘He’s all right, really. Just behind the times.’

‘I ought to go,’ said Felix, as they got back downstairs.

‘Oh, don’t go yet,’ said Mrs Ferreira. ‘I was just going to make tea.
English
tea,’ she said with emphasis.

Sophia made a face.

‘Sophia!’

‘They put milk in it. I’ll bet Miss de Lissac doesn’t put milk in her tea.’

‘Well, no,’ confessed Chantale.

‘I’ll make
two
pots. One, British-Maltese. The other, for the rest.’

‘Please don’t, just for my sake—’ began Chantale.

‘What will you have, Felix?’ asked Sophia.

‘I don’t mind, really—’

‘I’ll bet you do. Felix will have British.’

‘British-Maltese,’ said Felix, fighting back.

‘So will I,’ said Mrs Ferreira. ‘And so will Grandfather. And Sophia can join Miss de Lissac.’

‘Is there any cake?’ asked Sophia.

‘As a matter of fact, there is.
Quaghaq tal-ghasel
.’

‘You’ll like this,’ Sophia told Felix.

‘What was that name again?’ said Chantale.

‘
Quaghaq tal-ghasel
. It’s a Maltese speciality.’

‘Maltese? The name sounds—’

‘Arabic, I know. Well, lots of things here are.’

‘It’s got treacle in,’ said Sophia.

‘Delicious!’ said Felix.

‘Another?’ said Mrs Ferreira some time later.

‘I ought to go,’ said Felix regretfully.

‘One more. Your mother won’t mind if she knows who you’re with.’

‘Well …’

When Felix did decide to go, Mrs Ferreira got up with him.

‘I have to go, too,’ she said. ‘I work at the hospital,’ she explained to Chantale. ‘In the dispensary. It always has to be manned, so we work a sort of shift system.’

‘Are you going to tell your mum that you’ve changed the title of your project, Felix?’ asked Sophia.

‘Well, um …’ Felix fidgeted awkwardly. ‘Perhaps not immediately. When the time is ripe.’

‘Don’t let Sophia talk you into anything, Felix,’ advised Mrs Ferreira.

‘Oh, no—’

‘Nobody listens to me, anyway,’ said Sophia.

‘What is your project going to be about?’ asked Chantale. ‘Well, it was going to be on the Hospitaller Knights’ weaponry. But the Armouries are closed. And, anyway, Sophia says that the Knights were a bunch of thugs. She says I ought to do it on anti-weaponry of the time.’

‘Anti-weaponry?’ said Mrs Ferreira, puzzled.

‘Medicines,’ said Sophia. ‘The drugs they used to heal. Herbs and that sort of thing.’

‘Do we know about them?’ said Mrs Ferreira doubtfully. ‘There are lists,’ said Sophia. ‘Bound to be. Anyway, looking for them would be the point of the project.’

‘I thought, actually, of making it a bit wider than that,’ said Felix. ‘Anything they used to fight wounds and illness. Including things like hospitals. I was think of taking the Sacra Infermeria as an example.’

‘Well, that would be a very worthy thing to do, Felix,’ said Mrs Ferreira.

‘I hope they think that back at school,’ said Felix. ‘This will be the third time I’ve changed my project.’

When Seymour had landed in Malta the first thing he had done was, as was usual when you were seconded out, to report to his local superior. But who, in this case, was his superior? The Governor? Or the Navy? The hospital was,

after all, a ship. Seymour consulted his bosses at Scotland Yard, who, after going all round the houses, advised him that since the request for his secondment had come from the Colonial Department, it was to them, in theory, that he should report. In practice this meant the Governor and it was to the Governor that Seymour went on that first morning.

The Governor was a jolly chap who shook his hand affably and made it plain that he wanted to know as little about the matter as possible. Seymour could see advantages in this. From the point of view of the Governor, he could safely be disowned if things went wrong. From Seymour’s point of view it gave him a free hand.

But what about the island’s police, he asked? What was to be his relationship to them? Presumably they were investigating the case already?

Indeed they were, said the Governor, and should be left to get on with it. The island was very sensitive about such things. Ought he not, then, to be liaising closely with them? Indeed he ought, but—not too closely. Keep them informed by all means but not in such a way as to make it seem that he was reporting to them. The Navy was very sensitive about things like that.

And the Navy, should they be kept informed, too? Heavens, yes, said the Governor.

It was all, really, he said, a question of relationships. To foster these he had arranged for Pickering, the island’s Chief of Police, British, to drop in for a drink before lunch. Pickering dropped in and shook Seymour’s hand and said he was sure they would be able to work together. These murders, though, were a bit of a hot potato and had to be handled with deftness. Showing some of that deftness, he had, in fact, passed the matter on to an Inspector, with whom Seymour should liaise.

The Inspector was Lucca, the man he had been handed over to after lunch and who had taken him over to the hospital that first day. From him Seymour had obtained a real picture. The Navy was holding fast to the argument that the hospital was a ship and therefore not under the jurisdiction of the local police. They had, in fact, refused to allow the police into the hospital.

But, how, then—began Seymour.

How, indeed. The Inspector had been unable to interview anyone in the hospital.

‘But that’s—’ The Inspector nodded.

‘Ridiculous,’ he said. All he had been able to do, he said, was focus on Herr Kiesewetter and what had happened to him and possibly to the balloon.

‘If the Navy will not lower its defences,’ he said theatrically, ‘perhaps we can fly over them.’

Perhaps; all the same, more traditional methods of investigation were likely to prove more fruitful and he was glad that Seymour had come.

Seymour was relieved. One of the things he had not wanted to do was antagonize the local police. He had assured Lucca that there would be genuine cooperation between them and that it was his intention that ‘keeping informed’ meant what it said. Everything he learned inside the hospital would be shared with Lucca.

He had hoped to thrash out some of these difficulties with the Commander in charge of the hospital on his first visit but the Commander had been away. His duties included oversight of the medical side of those ships currently in harbour and he was away in pursuit of those. In his absence Seymour had talked to the hospital’s Registrar, Ormskirk.

Ormskirk was friendly enough. Yes, he agreed, things had reached an impasse, and he hoped that Seymour’s arrival would help to unblock it. It was plainly unacceptable that no progress should be made on solving the murders and he could quite see that the Prime Minister had had to fire a few rockets up people’s backsides. But there was another issue, too, which affected him as Registrar, responsible for the general running of the hospital, particularly. Charges had been made against the staff of the hospital, serious charges, which had badly affected morale, and until they were answered the work in the hospital generally would suffer.