THE PERFECT KILL (16 page)

“From the ground,” Joey answered. “During the rainy season; then they store it for the dry season.” He looked up at the clear blue sky. “And Creasy, the rainy season is over. It’s unlikely to rain now until September or October.”

“Where do rabbits get their water from, Joey?…there are rabbits on Comino. Where do rats, mice, snakes and grasshoppers get their water?”

Joey thought about that and then asked, “Where?”

“From the plants that store the water. They know very well which plants store the water best and how to get at it; besides, there are ways of drinking sea-water if you know how.”

Joey lifted up another stone and positioned it carefully on the wall. Building a drystone wall is like constructing a jigsaw puzzle. Every stone has to fit exactly. He looked over the wall at the island of Comino, two miles away.

“Can I come with you?” he asked.

Creasy glanced at him and then said, “If you’re getting engaged a week on Saturday you’re going to be damn busy. Besides, Paul needs you here.”

Joey said, “Creasy, you should know that engagement parties and weddings here are arranged one hundred per cent by the couples’ mothers. If I even tried to interfere I’d get a clout from both of them. As for the farm, I’ll get a friend in to help Dad. He’s out of work. I’ll give him the meagre pittance that Dad gives me for slaving away twelve hours a day.”

“Meagre pittance? You’ve got two horses that you race at the feasts, a Honda 250 motorbike and that Toyota which you bought a couple of months ago.” He gestured at the almost finished farmhouse. “And no doubt a few days after you get engaged, Paul will sign this place over to you. It’s worth at least thirty grand. Don’t give me that shit about a pittance.”

Joey grinned and then his face turned serious again.

“Can I come with you, Creasy?” he asked again.

Creasy realised the young man wanted to show his commitment. He chose his words carefully, put his hand on Joey’s shoulder and said, “Yes, you can come. Michael would like that…and so would I. Joey, when this business starts in earnest you can definitely be of help. When Michael and I leave, and that could be many months away, I want you to move into my house and set up a sort of operational base. There will be messages coming and going from different parts of the world. While we’re in Comino, I’ll bring you up to date on the situation and tell you all I know. Then I’ll keep you up to date as it unfolds. I’ll take you totally into my confidence.”

He moved his hand from the young man’s shoulder and gently slapped his face.

“You’ll be part of it, Joey. The Gozo part. A very important part…even a vital part. There might even be some danger. The people who put that bomb on Pan Am 103 know that I’m coming after them. They don’t know where I am or where I live. If they find out, my house will become a target. You’ll have to take precautions.”

“Who are they?” Joey asked, the anger showing in his eyes.

“I’ll brief you on Comino,” Creasy answered, “and also about the precautions you’ll take. Now this friend of yours who’s in George Zammit’s squad, what did he tell you about Michael?”

“That he’s damn good,” Joey replied. “He gets a lot of personal attention from George and the other instructors.”

“What’s your own opinion about Michael?”

The young man concentrated and then answered, “I like him. He doesn’t make friends easily, and neither do I, but I think we’re going to become good friends. He’s smart and something of a loner.” He smiled. “A bit like you. Does he know what he’s getting into?”

Creasy nodded.

“He knows exactly what he might be getting into. It’s possible he might get into nothing. It’s possible that I can do the job myself. I’m not that old yet.”

Joey smiled and asked, “Will you be my best man?”

Creasy nodded solemnly.

“I’ll be honoured and I’ll kick your ass if you don’t make me godfather to your first child.”

“It’s a deal,”Joey answered, “and I’ll ask Michael to be a witness at the wedding…you’ll have to buy him a suit…by the way, he lost his virginity.”

“I guessed that…”

The young man was looking across at Comino again.

“It’s going to be an interesting week,” he muttered.

“It is,” Creasy agreed. “And don’t get any ideas about sneaking off in the night to the hotel bar.”

Two nights later, Leonie was eating fresh lobster with her friend Geraldine in the luxury of the Coral Reef. Creasy, Michael and Joey were eating black snake on the eastern cliffs of Comino.

It was not essential that they ate snake, because during the afternoon, they had caught two dozen Rozetta fish in the bay of Santa Maria. Rozetta is a great delicacy, resembling a sole but much smaller. It is not fished commercially and so is a rarity.

Both young men were looking forward to the evening meal but on the way back to the campsite in the early evening, Creasy had spotted the black snake away to his left. He had sent Joey and Michael off in two arcs to get behind it and to drive it towards him. It had slipped down a crevice in the limestone rock. They gathered some dry pieces of wood and Creasy lit a fire, very close to the crevice. He then put some dry moss on the fire, which created a lot of smoke. He positioned himself over the crevice and had Michael fan the smoke into the crevice. Within half a minute, the snake shot out and Creasy had grabbed it just behind the head. Its three feet of length coiled itself around his arm. He brought its head to his mouth and bit it behind its eyes. The two young men watched in awed fascination. They knew the snake was not poisonous. It was the only variety found in the Maltese Islands and legend has it that when Saint Paul was shipwrecked on Malta, he was bitten by such a snake, which at that time was very poisonous. The legend goes that Saint Paul did not die, because he extracted the poison from the snake and placed it on the tongues of Maltese women. Maltese women are notorious gossips.

After the snake was dead, they moved back to the camp on the cliffs.

The camp was a simple shelter, open to the sky. Because of the season, they needed no protection from rain, but still Creasy instructed them how to build shelters for different climatic conditions.

He taught them about water run-off and prevailing winds. He taught them how to retain body heat and how little food and water a man needs to live on. He taught them how to make a fire without using matches, just the friction of heat between two pieces of dry wood.

“What if it was really cold?” Michael asked “…and there wasn’t enough wood to keep a fire going all night?”

“Do you remember a US rock group called “Three Dog Night”?” Creasy asked.

Both young men nodded.

“You know how they got their name?”

The young men shook their heads.

“Well,” Creasy said, “on a cold night in the outback, a shepherd would sleep with a sheepdog hugged close to him, to get warmth from its body. On a very cold night, he would sleep with two dogs, one on each side. On a freezing night, he would sleep with three dogs. One on each side and one on top. Hence the expression, “It’s as cold as a three dog night”.”

“But we don’t have any dogs,” Michael said.

“No, but we’d use each other,” Creasy answered. He gestured at the ground. “We would dig out a depression, about two feet deep, and then line it with leaves and moss. We would sleep in it, side by side, after having pulled the loose earth over our bodies. It would be very cold at first, but after half an hour or so, our natural body heat would create a warmth.” He smiled. “It would be a three dog night, but if it ever has to happen, I’d prefer to be stuck with a couple of good-looking girls, and not two bums like you…fact is I’d even settle for a couple of good-looking sheepdogs.”

He had showed them how to skin the snake and take out its innards. He then chopped it up and tossed the pieces into the fire. From the twigs of wood, he then devised three sets of chopsticks. He taught them how to use them and then said, “Don’t let it cook too long, or it loses its nutritional value.”

After a minute, he reached with his chopsticks into the embers of the fire, selected a piece of snake, popped it into his mouth and chewed contentedly. The two young men were looking at the fire with great distaste.

“Imagine you’re eating eel,” Creasy said, “because that’s exactly what it is. An eel that lives on land.”

First Michael then Joey reached forward and picked up a piece of snake. After munching for a few seconds Joey gagged and spat it out. Michael kept munching and then swallowed. He said, “I never tasted eel, but this tastes better than some of the stuff I’ve eaten at the orphanage.” He smiled a secret smile, “And it tastes better than spinach.”

Creasy was looking at Joey, who was looking at the two rows of Rozetta laid out by the fire. The young man sighed and shook his head and then reached for another piece of snake. This time he managed to swallow it.

Creasy relented.

“Put the Rozetta on the fire, Joey,” he said. “Tomorrow the first course will be roasted grasshoppers, followed, hopefully, by rabbit. At dawn I’ll show you how to track and then trap rabbits.”

Stella Zammit’s fortieth birthday was a watershed. Creasy was very fond of her and George, and as a present had bought her a beautiful ceramic pot which he had found in an antique shop in Rabat. Leonie had noticed that he seemed more relaxed than at any time since she had first met him.

As they drove to Sliema, he asked, “Are you having a good time?”

She smiled, “Geraldine’s great fun…she makes me laugh. Last night we even went to a disco.”

“Did you meet anyone interesting?”

“Not really. But it was fun. Geraldine met a very nice Maltese chap. She’s having dinner with him tonight. I think he’s a bit of a playboy, but she’s a bit of a playgirl.”

“What’s his name?”

“Joe Borg,” she answered. “I was slightly worried because he has business interests in Gozo…but I’ve never met him and he doesn’t know of my connection with you.”

“I know him,” Creasy answered. “He’s a good guy.”

They drove in silence for a while and then she asked, “And how was your week?”

“It was good,” he answered. He glanced at her and then went on, “We went to Comino. Me, Michael and Joey.”

“To the hotel?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No, to the other side of the island. We roughed it for a few days. Just took some fishing lines and a knife each. Lived off the land and the sea. They took it well. I was surprised how quickly they adapted. Hell, at the end they didn’t even want to come back to Gozo.” His voice took on a musing tone. “It does you good, you know, to go back to that kind of situation. It did me good to show a couple of young men how to live off their own land.”

“Has it been a long time?” she asked softly.

“Since what?” he asked.

“Since you lived off the land?”

He thought about that and said, “Yes and no. I guess in a way I always lived off the land.”

She digested that and asked, “Will I know anyone at the party?”

“Yes. Paul and Laura and Joey will be there and they’re bringing Michael. You’ll like George and Stella. It’s her birthday. There’ll be mountains of food and rivers of drink.”

She did enjoy the party, a very family affair. At one point she found herself at a makeshift bar next to Michael.

“I hear you’ve been roughing it on Comino,” she said.

His eyes lit up. “It was fantastic. We even ate snake.”

“Snake!”

“Yes, and grasshoppers. We trapped rabbits and caught lots of fish.” He grinned. “I caught the most.”

She smiled back at him and said, “It sounds better than my cooking.”

He shook his head earnestly.

“No, Leonie, your cooking is great…but it was different.”

He seemed somehow to be older and younger at the same time.

She was slightly drunk by the time Creasy drove her, with Michael, back to the hotel. As she got out of the car, Creasy told her that he would be leaving the next day for about ten days.

“What about Michael?” she asked. “I wasn’t due back until Friday. Do you want me to return tomorrow?”

Michael had climbed out of the back seat. He kissed her on the cheek and said, “Don’t worry, I can look after myself for a day and night. I’ll cook you a rabbit on Friday night. But it has to be a wild one. I’ll try to trap it tomorrow. I’ll cook it on the barbecue.”

She kissed him on the cheek and said, “I’ll be on the five o’clock ferry.”

She waved at Creasy and went into the hotel.

At reception, she noted that Geraldine’s key was still in the slot. She decided to go to the bar for a nightcap.

It was almost deserted, with only one elderly couple sitting at the end of the bar. She slid onto a barstool and ordered a champagne cocktail. Something had happened, she decided. At the party, she had covertly watched Creasy. She had never seen him so relaxed, smile so easily. Perhaps, she decided, she had seen a tiny piece of the man inside the shell.

Corkscrew Two walked into the bar just before midnight. Unlike his father, he drank occasionally. He ordered a Cognac and carried it over to the corner table and sat opposite Creasy. However, like his father he was all business.

“I’ve acquired all the machinery,” he said, “except for the Uzis. They should be arriving early next week.”

“Cancel the hole in Algiers,” Creasy answered. “I’m satisfied the target area is Damascus.”

“You’re lucky,” Corkscrew Two answered. “I was going to Algiers on Wednesday to sign a contract and arrange to stash the machinery…you’ve saved some expenses.”

“What about Damascus?”

“I was going on there from Algiers. I’ve located a one bedroom apartment just off Jamhuriya Avenue, near the souk.”

“Good. Now since I have the target area, I want a back-up hole nearby. Lattakia, on the coast, would be ideal. It’s a busy port and a good bolt-hole, with lots of strangers coming and going. The machinery that you were going to send to Algiers should be sent there.”

Corkscrew Two”s smile was like the edge of a razorblade. “It’s convenient,” he said. “The machinery for Damascus was going in through Lattakia anyway.”