THE PERFECT KILL (7 page)

“It’s like a giant jigsaw puzzle,” the Chief Technician explained after they had been introduced.

“Your people up there are doing a wonderful job.” He pointed to rows of metal shelves, laden with pieces of metal, wires, bits of seats and other items.

“In a few weeks, we’ll have it pretty well reassembled, apart from the bits that we’ll never find.”

“It’s amazing,” Fleming said. “Show me where cargo bay 14L would have been situated.”

The Chief Technician pointed and said, “There, not far behind the cockpit. It’s why the crew didn’t even have time to reach for the microphone and issue a Mayday. That plane disintegrated within seconds.”

He looked at the policeman and asked, “Are we getting close to finding out who did it?”

Peter Fleming was studying the restructured wreckage. He nodded and said in a hard voice, “Yes. We’re getting close to finding out who the bastards are.”

Leonie Creasy, nee Meckler, had never been to the Maltese Islands before and her first impressions were not good. Malta itself looked like a building site, with apartment blocks and hotels sprawling all over the coastline, and limestone dust drifting through the hot air.

But once on the ferry her mood changed. It was late afternoon, and as they passed the small island of Comino, she could see Gozo ahead. It was greener than Malta, and much smaller, with a series of undulating hills, each capped by a village, and each village capped by the spires or domes of a church. She stood at the rail watching it, and then turned to Creasy.

“It looks beautiful.”

“It is.”

He had been reticent on the flight, hardly speaking a word, and also in the taxi to the ferry. Obviously he had been deep in thought.

As the ferry turned into the entrance of Mgarr harbour, he started talking.

“Leonie, you’re a good actress. I dug up some videos of some of the TV series that you’ve been in. On the face of it the role you’re going to be playing in the next six months looks easy, but in reality it’s going to be very difficult.”

“Why?”

He gestured at the island.

“Gozitan people are among the friendliest and most hospitable in the world. They lead simple lives, are deeply religious, and have big families. The men drink a lot and love shooting at every bird or rabbit that moves. They don’t work very hard, except at their hobbies. Most of the foreigners that come here usually fall in love with the place, and come back time and again. Some come back forever. The problem for you is that you’re going to hate the place.”

“Why?”

“Because the Gozitans are going to hate you.” He sighed. “And the moment we step off this ferry, they’re going to dislike me.”

Again she asked, “Why?”

“I’ve been living here for years, I married a Gozitan girl. Most of my friends are Gozitan. I live in their style, I’ve been totally accepted…but therefore I’m expected to respect their ways. If a Gozitan loses a wife or husband they go into mourning for at least a year. Some up to five years. The same thing happens when they lose a parent, even an uncle or aunt. The women wear black and don’t go out. It’s changing slowly, but very slowly. The idea of a Gozitan marrying again five months after his wife died is unthinkable. You will be bitterly resented. When you go to the shops, when we go out to the cinema or to a restaurant or a bar, you will meet blank faces.”

He pointed to a building on the waterfront, with a long balcony jutting out.

“That’s Gleneagles bar. That and the restaurant below is run by two brothers, Tony and Salvu. They are very close friends. I spend a lot of time with them, get my mail there. In their way they both loved Nadia. We will go in there now and you will find out what I mean.”

The ferry was warped in against the quay, and the ramp dropped with a great clang. Creasy picked up her new Samsonite suitcase and his battered old canvas bag and they followed the crowd off.

“My jeep will be parked behind Gleneagles,” he said as they walked up the hill.

“When will I meet Michael?” she asked.

“He’ll be waiting at the house; I left word.”

There was a ramp leading up to the bar. The jeep was parked near the entrance. He dropped the suitcase and the bag into the back of it, then took her hand and said, “You start acting from now, and you keep it up for six months no matter what. In public you show me the normal affection of a new wife, but don’t overdo it.”

They walked into the bar. Some fishermen were playing Bixkla in the corner. There were several men bellied up against the bar. Salvu was behind it, younger than Tony and with more hair.

Creasy waved at the card players. They looked up only briefly. He nodded to the men at the bar. They nodded back. Salvu was looking at Leonie. Creasy was still holding her hand. He said, “Salvu, this is Leonie, my wife.”

With a face showing no expression, Salvu held out his hand across the bar. She shook it. It was a very brief handshake. His voice was as flat as a piece of paper.

“Welcome to Gozo, Leonie.”

“Thank you,” she smiled at him. “I’m so glad to be here.”

Creasy gestured at the men at the bar and introduced them by their nicknames. “Shriek, Bajlo, Bazoot, Wistin.”

Four more brief handshakes, a few muttered words. Salvu handed some packages and envelopes across the bar. Creasy took them and said, “Thanks, can you book me a table for two tomorrow night at the restaurant?”

“Sure.”

There was a silence, and then Creasy said to Leonie, “Come on, honey, let’s go, I’ll show you the house.”

He took her hand again and they walked out.

They drove in silence towards the centre of the island, and then she said, “You were bloody right. It was like walking into a deep freeze.”

“It won’t get any easier.”

He pointed to his left, at the massive dome of a church. “That’s the village of Xewkija. That dome is the third largest in the world. The church can hold five times more people than live in the entire village.”

“Why?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Competition. The villages compete with each other. They compete in football matches, they compete in the amount of fireworks they have in their village feasts, they compete in everything. Even the priests in the different villages compete with each other. Up to a couple of decades ago it would have been a great scandal if a boy from one village married a girl from another. Even the accents between the villages are different.”

They drove through Rabat, the island’s capital, and he pointed out various shops and buildings. Five minutes later he pulled the car into the side of the road and pointed up to a high ridge. She could see the house nestling under its brow.

“That’s where you’ll be living for the next six months.”

“It’s beautiful,” she said, “but when I walk in there will I also be walking into a deep freeze?”

He shook his head. “No, that house will be your refuge. There you can relax and stop acting. Apart from the boy there will be few, if any, visitors, except a woman from the village who will come in two mornings a week to clean.”

“Did the woman know Nadia?”

“Of course.”

“Then I will do the cleaning.”

Again he shook his head. “No, the woman is a widow and needs the money.”

“I will pay her from my allowance.”

“Without doing the work she will not accept it; they are proud people. It’s only a couple of hours twice a week. While she’s there you can always go down to the beach.”

He put the jeep into gear and moved up the hill.

The boy was in the swimming pool, halfway down at a steady crawl. He did not hear the gate open. He did not see them come in. Creasy put down the bag and the suitcase, took the woman by the arm and led her towards the pool. The boy did a racing turn and moved back down the pool. They stood looking down at him. At the other end he did another racing turn, but now he was tiring. Halfway back he noticed them, but did not break his stroke.

He reached the end beneath their feet and rested his elbows on the side, his chest heaving.

“How many?” Creasy asked.

The boy looked up at him: black hair, dark eyes, dark face.

“A hundred and twenty,” he said. “And tomorrow I’ll beat you over two lengths, five lengths or a hundred lengths.”

The woman turned and looked at Creasy’s face. For the first time she saw him smile.

“Make me a bet,” he said.

The boy grinned back.

“I was looking in the cave, under your study, where all the wine is. The French and Italian wine. I made a note of all the labels. Father Manuel is an expert. I showed him the list. He said they were all good, but he said the best was the Chateau Margaux. He asked what year it was and I had to check the next day. When I told him it was seventy-one, his eyes gleamed and he licked his lips…so the bet is a bottle of Chateau Margaux seventy-one.”

“You will drink it yourself?”

The boy grinned again, “I’ll give it to Father Manuel but if he doesn’t share it with me, I’ll not talk to him again.”

Creasy nodded and gestured at the woman.

“This is Leonie…my wife.”

The boy pulled himself, dripping, out of the pool and held out his hand.

She took it and murmured, “Hello, Michael, did you really do a hundred and twenty lengths?”

He looked straight into her eyes and said, “Yes, I don’t tell lies.”

Creasy glanced at her and saw the confusion in her face. He gestured at the suitcase and bag by the gate.

“Michael, would you put the bags in my bedroom while I show Leonie around the house.”

He took her by the arm and led her away.

It was only after the boy had gone down the hill, and they were sitting under the trellis, that she spoke.

“You were right,” she said, “about two things. This house will be a refuge for six months. I love it. Your wife had wonderful taste. In a strange way I feel safe here. I don’t care what people on the island think about me. They can think what they like.”

She was drinking a gin and tonic and he had a glass of lager in front of him.

“And you’re right about Michael…he certainly won’t arouse any maternal instincts in me…or for that matter any other woman.” She smiled, but it was a sad smile, “He’s about as cold as you are.”

Creasy sipped his drink and said nothing. She went on: “Is it necessary that I sleep in that huge bed with you?”

Creasy nodded, “If you don’t, the woman who cleans will know. She’ll look for hairs on the pillow, she’ll note how your clothes are arranged in the room…She’ll have an instinct about it. If she knows, everybody will know. After the panel approves the adoption and after a few weeks have passed you can sleep in another bedroom.”

He took a sip and then went on. “As I told you before, you need have no worries…I’m many things, but I’m not a rapist.”

She had to ask the question. “Don’t you find me attractive?”

He shrugged and said, “I find you a good actress. By the way, can you cook?”

She lifted her head and laughed out loud but it was not an amusing sound.

“Yes, Creasy, I can cook. I’m told I cook well but I suppose that depends on who’s eating it. What are your favourite things?”

“I eat simply.” He gestured at a large stone barbecue, set into the garden wall. “I like steaks and chops…grilled things. I also like roasts…especially beef. I pointed out the butcher shop in the village. Tell him, if he doesn’t give you the best beef on the island I’ll go down there and cut his goolies off and barbecue them.”

“I guess he knows that already.”

On the Sunday, Creasy went as usual to the Schembri farmhouse to have lunch with Paul and Laura and Joey. He had entered the house with an unusual feeling of trepidation. The Schembris held a special place for him. It was not that they were Nadia’s family. It was not that they had twice nursed him back to health. He held them in total respect.

They spoke their minds, especially Laura, and he liked their minds. He knew that by bringing a wife back within five months, he would have hurt them deeply. Knew that their friends would have expressed sympathy to them. They were strong people and would not have liked to have answered to sympathy. But it seemed as though nothing had changed. They talked about the early tomato crop and the policies of the new government towards agriculture. No mention was made of his new wife or the pending adoption. It was as though nothing had happened.

After the late lunch, he sat on the patio with Paul and Joey. He looked on the young man as more of a son than a brother-in-law. He teased him gently about his girlfriend, whom he had been seeing for almost a year. In traditional Gozitan society, a boy will see a girl for many months. If he brings her home or goes to her home it becomes a very serious matter. Many months later they will become engaged and that is an extremely serious matter.

Engagements in Gozo are not broken. They last at least a year and then comes the monumental wedding feast.

“How’s Maria?” Creasy asked.

The young man shrugged. “She’s fine.”

“I saw her parents yesterday, in Rabat…I had a drink with her dad…good people…good family.”

Joey shrugged again, saying nothing.

“They have a damn fine house. You’ve seen the house, Joey?”

“Of course.”

“You’ve been inside?”

Joey squirmed a little on his chair.

“No.”

Paul was smiling slightly. Creasy poured more wine into his glass and into Joey’s and said reflectively: “Damn fine house…good-looking girl too. I saw her on Friday in Gleneagles, with her friends. That policeman, Mario, was trying to chat her up. You know Mario, don’t you?…The tall one, good-looking with the black moustache.”

Joey grunted, picked up the empty wine jug and went through into the kitchen.

Paul laughed softly.

“If I’d said that, he’d have gone off in a sulk for days.”

“She is a fine girl, Paul, and from a good family. The trouble with Joey is that he keeps thinking of the coming summer and dancing with the blonde tourist girls in the discos.”

The farmer nodded.

“You’re right. We hardly see him in July and August and Maria’s father won’t let her out after ten o’clock at night. Any suggestions?”