A Dead Man in Malta (8 page)

As the evening moved on, though, there was another sort of excitement. Chantale had been stationed at the interface between the territory of one of the Valletta bands and that of the band from ‘the three cities’, and soon a trickle of people suffering from knife wounds began to arrive.

About slings and fainting Chantale knew very little, but about knife wounds—coming from Tangier where she had run a hotel—she knew a lot and soon was happily working away.

‘Miss de Lissac,’ said Mrs Wynne-Gurr approvingly, as they were going home, ‘was a credit to the West Surrey St John’s.’

Also at the racetrack was Felix, theoretically in the charge of his father. Dr Wynne-Gurr, however, had met an Ophthalmic colleague from the hospital and soon was far away, mentally at least. This became physically when Felix was hailed by Sophia and lured away by her. She had much to show him: the place where the pony-traps assembled and where the horses, skittish and sometimes resentful, were brought to wait and where there was always the chance of one horse biting another or kicking its owner; and the refreshment tent, which you could sneak round behind and find a gap through which to put your hand and grab a
mquaret
or a piece of
quabbajt
.

They had been doing this when they noticed a roped-off piece of ground behind the tent on which was spread out a great length of grey, rubbery material. ‘Keep off!’ said a handwritten notice; so, naturally, they went over to look.

Two men, on hands and knees, were bent over one corner of the material.

‘Bugger off!’ said one of the men, without looking up.

‘’Op it!’ said the other. ‘Bugger offski!’ As if talking to some Slav foreigner.

‘
You
bugger offski!’ retorted Sophia, flaring up.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Felix politely. At his public school voice, ridden with class authority, the technicians looked up.

‘Checking it over,’ one of them said.

‘And what have you found?’ said Seymour, coming up at that moment with the Inspector.

‘It’s a cut,’ said the technician shortly.

‘Not where your lot were looking,’ the other technician said to the Inspector. ‘That was definitely a tear.’

‘But this was definitely a cut,’ said the first technician, showing it to Seymour.

‘Why didn’t it enlarge?’ asked Seymour.

‘It’s where it is. Close to the seam. The fabric is doubled at that point and there’s a tuck-over.’

‘So it wouldn’t have been seen?’

‘It would have been seen on the first inflation. We inflate it a little and then go over it thoroughly. We actually check the seams. It wasn’t there then.’

‘So when was it cut?’

‘During or after the second inflation. When we fill it up just before launch.’

‘We do a second check then, but it’s pulling away at that point, and if it’s small we could miss it.’

‘Are there people around?’

The technicians hesitated.

‘Well, there are always people around. Working on the other balloons. We launch them at about the same time.’

‘So someone could—?’

‘They could,’ said the other technician, ‘but—’

‘We’re all in the game together,’ said the first technician. ‘We just don’t do that sort of thing.’

‘It’s sort of honour among technicians,’ said the second technician.

Chapter Five

Things had looked up at the St John Ambulance aid point. Business had tailed off and Chantale had had plenty of time to watch the racing. The point was in a conspicuous position at the edge of the racetrack and she had a good view of the pony-traps hurtling past. Like Seymour she had been surprised to see the racing take that form. She hadn’t gone to races when she was in Tangier—women didn’t—but on one or two occasions she had gone to see pig-sticking, which was, in some respects, especially among the Tangier colonial community, Tangier’s nearest thing. Horses pulling carts, though, seemed a pallid equivalent.

There was a little flurry in the crowd and a man pushed through. He was supporting another man.

‘Another stab wound for you, Miss de Lissac,’ said one of the Maltese St John’s workers.

‘The bastards!’ said the man doing the supporting. ‘They’ve stabbed a bandsman. That’s not right! We’re supposed to be neutral!’

He was a bandsman, too, dressed for the occasion and with a trumpet slung across his back.

‘They’ll look after you, Luigi,’ he said, easing the man into a chair.

He had spoken in Arabic and, without thinking, Chantale did the same.

‘Where is it?’ she said.

‘Here.’

The man felt his ribs.

Chantale inspected the wound.

‘Lucky you!’ she said. ‘It hit the ribs and ran along them. Not between them, otherwise you’d have been a goner.’

‘I saw who did it,’ said the wounded man. ‘I’ll know who to look for.’

‘You’d do better to know where to look out,’ said Chantale.

‘That, too!’ said the man who had brought him. He looked curiously at Chantale.

‘Are you Arab?’ he said.

‘Of course she is!’ said the wounded man. ‘She’s speaking Arabic, isn’t she?’

‘I come from Tangier,’ said Chantale.

‘I’ve been to Tangier,’ said the other man. ‘Nice place.’

‘What are you doing over here?’ the wounded man asked Chantale. ‘Came over for a job? Like the rest of us?’ Chantale guessed that, despite his Italian-, or Maltese, sounding name he was an Arab of some kind but where from she could not tell. Although she could understand it, the Arabic was unfamiliar to her.

‘Came over to get a husband more like,’ said the other man.

‘I’ve got one,’ said Chantale, stretching the truth a little. ‘In England.’

‘England?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh!’

Chantale patched the man up and sent him away.

‘Get that looked at by a doctor,’ she called after him.

‘I will,’ the man promised. ‘Thanks.’

‘I didn’t know you spoke Maltese, dear,’ said Mrs Wynne-Gurr, stopping on one of her patrols.

‘I don’t,’ said Chantale. ‘At least, I think I don’t.’

The Inspector, busy, genial and relaxed, had begun to move through the crowd chatting to people. He seemed to know everybody. Then Seymour realized: he probably
did
know everybody.

The space cleared for the technicians to work on their balloon was behind some low stands raised just sufficiently to enable those at the back to get a view of the racing. On the day of the launch the course itself had been taken over by the balloons. There had been between fifty and a hundred of them, spread out through the stadium, some big, some small, some huge ones tugging at their pegs, others unable to get off the ground at all. The stadium had been full of people, most of them connected with the balloons in some way, technicians, ferryers of parts, fuel and provisions. Among the balloons were hand carts, mules and the occasional car and truck, although there were not many of these, the motor-car not having really hit Malta yet.

And there had been, of course, lots of onlookers. These had in theory been kept back by ropes which had marked the stadium off from encroachment; in theory, because in practice they had just stepped over the rope and pressed forward to satisfy their curiosity. The police had been too few, the technical staff too busy to stop them.

And, of course, they had trespassed on the workspace. And it would have been possible to tamper with the balloons. When the balloons were launched, an effort had been made to clear the space and the Inspector claimed that it had succeeded. At the moment of launch the space around the balloon had been clear. That was why he felt certain that any last-minute interference must have been carried out by somebody from the balloon crews.

Some of the people now watching the racing might well have been present on the day of launching. That was why he was going round talking to everyone. People had their favourite spots, he said. Like the bands, they were territorial. And someone might have seen something.

Seymour found a steward who had been present at the launching of the balloons and asked him to describe what had happened.

It had been on a Saturday, the man said, so that as many people as possible could see it and so that the stadium would be clear for races the following day. They would have had the whole of the Sunday morning to dismantle the balloons and pack them away. Of course, while they were doing that they would not have been able to go to church but the organizers had assured everyone that the balloonists would have been able to attend early Mass if they wished to. In any case—carried away—was not the experience of ascent itself akin to a religious experience? A moment of uplift? The Church did not think so. Seymour saw, however, how the Church was a continual point of reference in Malta, even for those who were not themselves devout.

But so, for many, was the racing at Marsa. It was a great social occasion. Many people brought picnics and towards the end of the racing spread out over the grass.

He had joined up with Chantale and was about to leave when Sophia came running up. Surely they were not going to leave without joining in the family picnic? This, too, was a considerable occasion. About twenty or thirty people had gathered and were laying tablecloths on the grass, and in the middle of them Mrs Ferreira was beckoning vigorously. Not to be refused. Especially when the dishes started to be distributed on the cloths. ‘
Fenek
,’ said Sophia, ‘and
torta tal lampuki
.’
Lampuki
were fish and the
torta
was when they were made into a pie covered with spinach and cauliflower and olives. But the rest, she assured him, was
fenek
in its various forms, fried, casseroled or roasted with chips.
Fenek
was rabbit, very popular in Malta. He hadn’t seen many wild rabbits, and perhaps that was why.

‘A regular
fenkata
,’ said one of the relatives, grinning, seeing him looking at the dishes.

A
fenkata
was, apparently, a rabbit occasion, when rabbit, in various forms, was the chief dish. It was a popular evening out.

And also, of course, there were the usual piles of sweet cakes and biscuits, some of which he had already met: the aniseed-flavoured
mquaret
, the ricotta-filled
kannoli
, like huge cigars, the treacly
quaghaq
, the
kwarezimal
, honey-and-almonds, and various almondy cakes. As he had previously spotted, the Maltese were very keen on almonds.

The names, which interested him, he did not know at all. On the other hand, the names of the beers—Hopleaf Pole, Farson’s Shandy, and Blue Label—were always comprehensible although not always familiar.

For the most part the group was talking in English although here and there he could hear Malti. Chantale picked out the Malti, too, mostly because she was conscious of the Arabic in it. It wasn’t just a question of incidental words. Some of the most basic were Arabic:
la
for instance, no, although the Maltese pronounced it ‘le’,
iva
, yes, pronounced ‘eeva’,
inta
, you, usually, though, without the ‘a’ on the end, ‘int’.

Mrs Ferreira brought them into a circle which included her parents. Both had worked at the hospital, her father briefly before joining the Navy and going to sea, as a porter, her mother as an assistant in the dispensary. It seemed that most of the family had worked at the hospital at some time. Quite a few others had worked for the Navy in some capacity or other, as stewards, as nursing assistants, or as seamen, often down below in the engine room. There was quite a naval confraternity, apparent in the frequent casual references to ships and conditions on board.

At some point a little group of musicians turned up, bandsmen with their instruments. They put their instruments down in the grass and joined the groups around the tablecloths. Apparently they were members of the family, too, and had been playing until the bands dispersed.

One of them came and sat next to Chantale. He was introduced as Uncle Paolo.

‘But we’ve already met!’ said Chantale.

It was the man who had brought the knife victim.

‘Luigi,’ explained Paolo, as if they all knew him.

‘How is he?’ asked Chantale.

‘All right; but I sent him home. I told Marta to see that he lay down for a bit,’ he said to the others around him.

‘Not badly hurt, I hope?’ said Mrs Ferreira.

‘Badly enough,’ said Paolo. ‘It’s come to something when bandsmen get knifed.’

‘They’re an easy target,’ said someone.

‘Yes, but that’s why they shouldn’t be attacked,’ said Paolo. ‘They’re playing for everybody. They’re sort of neutral.’

‘I don’t know what things are coming to,’ said Mrs Ferreira’s mother, shaking her head.

‘But Madame, here, patched him up,’ said Paolo, turning to Chantale. ‘For which we are very grateful.’

There was a little murmur of acknowledgement around the tablecloth.

‘But what a thing!’ said Mrs Ferreira. ‘She comes to Malta to see how the St John does its work, and what do we show her? Someone being stabbed! What must she think?’

‘It happens, Madame,’ said Chantale. ‘I know from Tangier.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Paolo, ‘you come from Tangier.’

‘Tangier is one thing,’ said Mrs Ferreira’s father, ‘Valletta is another.’ He raised a glass to Seymour. ‘Valletta is like the beer: English.’

‘Even in London there are stabbings,’ said Seymour.

‘I have never been to London,’ said Paolo.

‘But you have been everywhere else,’ said Mrs Ferreira. ‘Only in the Mediterranean,’ said Paolo. ‘I work the liners,’ he explained to Seymour.

‘Now,’ said Mrs Ferreira’s father.

‘I’ve changed around a bit.’

‘He was in the Navy,’ said Mrs Ferreira proudly.

‘Once,’ said her father.

‘And now I work the liners,’ said Paolo easily. ‘More pay.’

‘Seasonal,’ said Mrs Ferreira’s father dismissively.

‘Sometimes I am between ships.’

‘As now.’

‘Fortunately,’ said Mrs Ferreira. ‘For then he comes to see us.’

Her father snorted. Evidently he did not altogether approve of Paolo.

There was an awkward pause.

‘You speak Arabic excellently,’ said Chantale. ‘May I ask how that comes about? Not by touching in briefly at Tangier, surely!’

‘Ah, well—’

‘It came about like this—’ began Mrs Ferreira.

‘Oh, no!’ cried Sophia. ‘She’s going to give us the family history now!’

‘My sister—’ continued Mrs Ferreira determinedly.

‘This could take a long time,’ muttered Sophia.

‘—Debra,’ said Mrs Ferreira’s mother.

‘Debra,’ continued Mrs Ferreira,’ married a Libyan—’

‘—and went to Tripoli,’ said her mother.

‘A big mistake,’ said her father.

‘—which she soon realized,’ said Mrs Ferreira, ‘and came back home.’

‘—with her son—’

‘Me,’ said Paolo.

‘—and then she married Uncle Piero.’

‘Me,’ said a man at the next tablecloth.

‘Don’t think you’re going to get off lightly,’ said Sophia. ‘You’re just at the beginning. Our family’s a big one.’

‘Sadly,’ said Uncle Piero, ‘Debra died, having her second baby—’

‘—third,’ said Mrs Ferreira’s mother.

‘Don’t forget me!’ said Paolo.

‘We didn’t know what to do,’ said Piero.

‘Well,
you
didn’t—’ said Mrs Ferreira.

‘Well, Christ, a newborn baby—’

‘Me!’ called a voice from another tablecloth.

‘So I took her over,’ said Mrs Ferreira.

‘—but you already had Nico and Carlo and Rosalie and—’

‘—me,’ said Sophia.

‘—so we were a bit stretched.’

‘It took me all my time to look after Roberto,’ said Uncle Piero, ‘and, of course, I couldn’t spend all my time looking after him because I had to work. So—’

‘So he called in Liza.’

‘Are you still with us?’ asked Sophia.

‘His sister. But she already had three children of her own. Roberto, she could manage. But Paolo—’

‘Too much, as always,’ said Paolo.

‘—went to a cousin—’

‘Keep hanging in!’ advised Sophia.

‘—who lived at Medina. Medina is an Arab town. At least, we call it the Arab town.’

‘It
is
an Arab town,’ insisted Mrs Ferreira’s father.

‘—because it belonged to the Arabs a thousand years ago. We don’t forget these things in Malta.’

‘Could you hurry it along, Mum?’ pleaded Sophia.

‘She had many friends—’

‘Look, let’s keep it to relations,
please
,’ said Sophia.

‘—who had family—’

‘Oh, no, please!’ said Sophia.

‘I’m sorry, I haven’t quite got this bit—’ said Felix, who had been listening earnestly.

‘—in Tripoli. Which was where Paolo’s father had come from. And they happened to know him, and told him about Paolo. And he said he would take Paolo back.’

‘Got it?’ Sophia asked Felix.

‘I think I’ll have to write it down,’ said Felix.

‘You could draw a chart. Look. I’ll show you,’ said Sophia.

‘It’s quite easy, really,’ said Paolo. ‘I was born in Tripoli, came to Malta, then went back to Tripoli—’

‘We could put arrows on the lines,’ said Felix.

‘—and then sort of drifted around,’ said Paolo. ‘But I grew up in Tripoli.’

‘And so you speak Arabic,’ said Chantale.

‘Phew!’ said Sophia. ‘Got there at last!’

The Inspector went round the tablecloths shaking hands with everybody. He kissed Mrs Ferreira.