The Maltese Goddess Read online

  I cut through the room with the tapestries and headed toward the exit. I found myself in a room filled with memorabilia of the Knights of Malta. Elaborate robes were displayed in high glass cases, and on the walls were crests and other items significant to the Knights. I didn’t see him at first, because the room was ill lit, presumably to protect the exhibits.

  He was standing at the far side of the room, and watching him through one of the glass cases, I could see he was assiduously studying a suit of armor. I walked quietly up behind him, determined to frighten him as he had frightened me. But the Great White Hunter, whoever he was, had saved his worst encounter with me for last. He was dead, shot in the head, but still standing, locked in a ghastly embrace with the suit of armor, his body impaled on the Knight’s long sword.

  AHRIMAN.

  TEN

  It is come. The Ottoman fleet. Thirty thousand men strong. Beacons flare along the coast. My people scurry for shelter. In vain. The stench of death is everywhere. Ditches fill with putrifying corpses, headless bodies float on crosses in the harbor, the water red with blood. But still the Knights, stubborn, no, reckless, in their faith, hang on.

  Is it possible? That flag? The Knights’ Cross? Is the battle won? Will there be peace at last?

  *

  “Would you like to tell me about it?” the Mountie said in a studied casual tone as he handed me the chopping board, knife, and a bunch of parsley and gestured to me to start chopping.

  It was late in the day following my discovery of the body in the museum. I had gone for help, of course, and had once more found myself at police headquarters in Floriana. This time, however, it was Tabone’s day off and I was forced to endure a questioning that bordered on interrogation from another policeman who evidently felt Tabone’s belief in my innocence misplaced. In retrospect I suppose it was understandable, this being the second dead body I’d found since arriving on these shores. The more he badgered me, however, the more closemouthed I got, refusing to tell anything other than the details of how I’d found the body. I said nothing about the episode in the market, nor my other encounters with the deceased, deciding to wait until Tabone’s return even if it meant a night in jail. I did learn one thing while I waited. The police had no more clue than I did as to the identity of the body.

  It was the wee hours of the morning before Tabone could be located by telephone, and I was allowed to leave in the custody of the Mountie. Rob had brought the car and drove me home and I’d have to say he showed a tact I wouldn’t have credited him with in that after asking me if I was okay, and hearing my rather prim answer that I was, he’d not bothered me for information on the way to the house. I went straight to bed when we got there, and slept pretty well all day, not awakening until almost dinnertime.

  When I went downstairs, Rob was already starting dinner preparations: He’d put on his apron and a pair of those demi-lune reading glasses through which he was peering at a piece of paper, a recipe presumably, on the counter. It gave him a rather endearing air, I had to admit.

  “What are you making?” I asked in a feeble attempt to avoid his question.

  “Something called beef olives if I have understood the name correctly,” he replied. “Beef sliced very thin, then rolled and stuffed with ground pork, hard-boiled eggs, tomatoes, and spices. It’s cooked in a red wine, onion, and tomato sauce. I decided to try to make something local. A very nice woman in the grocery store gave me detailed instructions,” he added, gesturing toward the piece of paper on the counter.

  “You do very well with the women in the stores here.” I said, recalling the women in the bakery in Mellieha.

  “Don’t I?” he replied, grinning. “Found the same grocery store as before. The proprietor and I are old friends now. I’m starting to get the hang of finding my way around here. You ignore the signs, I take it. Just because you think your route takes you to Siggiewi, for example, doesn’t mean you follow the signs for Siggiewi. You just head in its general direction. It’s sort of like a bypass on the thruway right?”

  I nodded.

  “And the rules of the road. Technically, I know, one should yield to the right. I say technically, because as near as I can tell, no one yields to anyone or anything. But once you enter into the spirit of it all, approach driving with a kind of joie de vivre, shall we say, and as long as you don’t mind the odd dent or two, it begins to work for you.

  “I’m also getting used to the car. In fact, I’m wondering why Ford and General Motors ever felt the need for second gear! Now, after that pleasant diversion, perhaps we should get back to the subject at hand,” he said, peering at me over the top of his glasses.

  “Which is?” I tried, assiduously lining the parsley up in neat little rows and starting to chop.

  “Which is, the corpse in the safari suit, of course.”

  “Why would you think I would have anything more to add to what I’ve already told the police?” I asked, the knife frozen in mid stroke.

  He looked at me for a moment. “I’d like to say it was intuition honed by twenty-five years of dazzling detective work, but the real answer? Let’s just say you shouldn’t take up poker. You don’t have the face for it. And… how do I put this delicately? You seem to be developing the bad habit of finding murder victims, or being associated with them in some way. And not just in Malta either.”

  “I assume that in addition to Martin Galea and the guy in the safari suit, you’re referring to an incident in Mexico a couple of years ago.”

  “I am.”

  “So you’ve been checking up on me.”

  “That’s my job,” he said mildly.

  I could hear a certain tone creeping into my voice. “And your conclusion?”

  He looked across the counter at me. “I’ve just handed you the sharpest knife in this kitchen. You could, if you chose to, take that as a solid vote of confidence.”

  I really didn’t know what to think of this man, but I willed myself to relax. He smiled at me. “So what do you have to say?”

  “There’s nothing much to say, really. I first saw the man in a safari suit on the plane from Paris. He was causing a bit of a scene. Wanted to bring his own drinks on board. I saw him later at customs. I did notice one thing: He had a metal detector stuck in with his golf clubs. He does stick out in a crowd. There aren’t too many people running around this island in that getup.”

  “Not many people with golf clubs either,” the Mountie said. “I’m told there is only one golf course on this island. But go on.”

  “The next day I kept running into him, sometimes literally—I stepped on his toe—around Valletta. Anthony was taking me on a tour, and we kept ending up at the same places as this guy—the Archaeological Museum, St. John’s CoCathedral, and so on.”

  “These are all normal tourist spots, I take it?”

  “They would be, I think. Anthony was showing them to me because they were all designed and built by the architect Gerolamo Cassar, who he says is an ancestor.”

  “Is that it?”

  “No. There’s more. I was trying to drive to the University. I got lost near a place called Verdala Palace, and you know the car… I went past him very quickly, but then he tried to run me off the road.”

  “Did he now? Whatever for?”

  “I thought at the time it was my terrible driving. But really I have no idea. I didn’t see him for a few days after that, until after Galea turned up, and then, while I was looking around the crypt in the cathedral…”

  The Mountie raised his eyebrows and looked at me sceptically.

  “I don’t know why I went there. Perhaps I was a little obsessed with death, and maybe I was entitled to be, under the circumstances.” I glared at him. “In any event he was there, and we had this bizarre conversation. He looked very strange, frightened, I’d say, when he saw me, and offered me thirty percent.”

  “Thirty percent?”

  “Of what, I know you’re thinking. Whatever it is, or was, we got up to splitting it fift
y/fifty.”

  “You bargained with a stranger for something that you have no idea what it might be? You are nuts!”

  “It wasn’t like that. I was tired and a bit out of it, so I just stood there looking surprised, I should think. He took this to mean his offer wasn’t good enough, I guess, and revised it. It’s a technique, I’ve been thinking, that once perfected, could be used to real advantage on my buying trips,” I said, trying to make light of the matter.

  “I think he finally figured out that I had no idea what he was talking about, because he ended up by saying, ‘Then it isn’t you!’ or something like that,” I continued. “And then he gave me a good push out of the way and dashed out of the crypt. That’s the last time I saw him until yesterday.”

  “In the museum.”

  “Well, no. Actually in the market. He grabbed me and pulled me into a doorway, told me we had to talk, there was something wrong, danger for me and for others.”

  “And this dangerous thing was?”

  “I don’t know. I ran away. But then I got mad, and followed him into the cathedral, and from there into the museum. You know the rest. Do the police know who he was?”

  “Not yet. There was no ID on him. No wallet, passport, money. You have any idea what his name is?”

  I paused. “I am trying to recall if the flight attendants referred to him by name. I think maybe they did, but I’m not sure I can remember it.”

  “Accent?”

  “American. California, maybe.”

  “So what have we got here? An American in a strange outfit flies here from Paris. He’s got a metal detector with him, so presumably he’s looking for something metal. He may, or may not, be a fan of Gerolamo Cassar, but more likely he’s a tourist, visiting historic places of interest. I say that despite the fact that he would appear to be a little, shall we say, nervous, or even possibly paranoid. And his name is...” He looked at me and the name clicked into place.

  “Graham: They called him Mr. Graham.”

  “Well done!” Rob smiled: “I’m calling Tabone. Here, stir this from time to time, will you?” he said, gesturing toward the skillet.

  He came back a few minutes later and checked on my work.

  It really smelled delicious, I had to admit, and apparently my stirring technique was acceptable, because he appeared satisfied.

  “Tabone is suitably grateful for the name. He hadn’t narrowed it down to Mr. Graham yet. As for the murder I’m here to investigate, I also told him about our visit to Mellieha. I expect he’ll be asking Joseph in for a little chat shortly. The good news is that Tabone’s been able to convince the former coroner, Dr. Caruana, in whom he places much more confidence than in his successor, to come out of retirement just this once to help us out. We should start getting some more satisfactory answers as early as tomorrow or the day after. And”—here he smiled at me—“with any luck your friend Joseph will be off the hook.”

  “And my friend Marilyn will be back on, I suppose. Has she turned up?”

  “Nope. No sign of her. I talked to my chief before you got back. We’ve had men with dogs out searching the ravine behind the house, and we’ve gone over the house and his car in the airport garage with a fine-tooth comb. No blood in the car anywhere. Only the fingerprints you’d expect in his car and his house. His, the maid’s, and lots of other prints we assume are hers. We have his prints from his visa application, and Tabone has also sent a copy of the real thing from here. There aren’t many prints on the steering wheel. He wore driving gloves most of the time, I’m told. Anyway, the short answer to your question is that there is no sign of Mrs. Galea.”

  He served up the beef with a green salad and poured a very passable Maltese Cabernet. As we ate we talked about our experiences as tourists on this charming island, and we seemed, for a brief moment or two, to be establishing rapport.

  Inevitably, however, the conversation turned to the two murders.

  “Don’t you think it’s odd that two foreign visitors turn up dead—murdered no less—on this tiny little island within a few days of each other?”

  “Tabone said much the same thing. He said the place was going to the dogs, or words to that effect. Two visitors murdered, and a couple of priests attacked someplace—Mdina, I think he said. You’d think priests would be pretty safe in a place like this, wouldn’t you? All these churches!” he mused. “But if you’re thinking there might be a connection, very unlikely, I’d say.”

  “I don’t know why, but I can’t shake the feeling that they are linked in some way, that if we followed the threads, worked our way through the two cases, we’d end up at the same place, somehow.”

  “I’m here to investigate Galea’s death and I’m going to stick to that. Investigating Graham would be a waste of time, in my opinion,” he said. “I mean if you’re looking for a link between Galea and Graham, the only obvious link is you. You knew Galea, you were on the same plane as Graham, you’re the one who kept bumping into him. I didn’t come here to investigate every crime on the island!”

  I could feel myself getting really irritated. “And why exactly are you here?” I asked in a faintly accusing tone. “Do they usually send a sergeant from the RCMP every time a Canadian gets killed abroad? What is this, a reward for good behavior or something? Got some information on your chief he’d rather you not report?”

  He looked at me for a second or two. “Consolation prize, more likely,” he said finally. “I’ve been on disability leave for a while. Had a bit of an accident. I thought I was closing in on some big-time drug dealers. It turns out they were closing in on me.” I just looked at him, and after a pause he continued.

  “We had a bit of a confrontation, of the automotive sort. The trouble was, I was driving a squad car, they were driving a truck. I don’t remember much except the headlights coming at me broadside. I woke up a few days later in hospital. I was a bit of a mess. I’d like to say ‘you should see the other guy,’ but the other guy got away. I had a lot of time to contemplate the state of the universe, whether to stay on—on the force, I mean—and I guess I will. I’m due back soon, but I guess I’m in for a desk job. I hope I’ll get used to it,” he said tersely.

  “But to answer your question more directly: The Maltese authorities asked for some help with this one. There really wasn’t anyone available, but I guess they thought I was well enough to muddle my way around an island sixteen miles long.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, feeling like a jerk. I’d noticed he was limping a couple of times, and I’d just never thought about it. I wondered why this was the way it was between him and me. I always assumed the worst about him, and then found out that quite the opposite was true. “I was being a bit of a pig.”

  “Forget it,” he said. “I was being a bit of a pig myself. To give your musings the attention they deserve, let’s assume there is a link somehow between the two. What would Graham be doing here that would get him killed?”

  “I kept wondering if all the places where I saw him have something in common, other than Gerolamo Cassar, I mean,” I replied. “I did a little research and found they do. Although what it all means, I’m not sure.”

  “Go on,” he said.

  “Well,” I said, drawing a deep breath. “Anthony emphasized the architecture of Valletta, overemphasized it, I’d have to say, because of his enthusiasm for his subject. He took me to see many of the buildings designed by Gerolamo Cassar, but other than mentioning briefly that Cassar had studied with some other architect—Laparelli, I think he said—who was the Pope’s architect, he didn’t say much about him. But Cassar was the architect to the Knights of Malta, or more formally, the Sovereign Military and Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Rhodes, and Malta, the so-called Knights of St. John. Malta was their home for about 250 years.

  “The Knights were organized into what were called langues, languages or tongues. There were eight originally, named for the countries the Knights originally came from. Langues were headed by piliers or prior
s and were accommodated in their own inns or auberges. The Head of the Order was called the Grand Master.”

  “And so?” Rob said.

  “So, all the buildings Anthony took me to were originally buildings belonging to the Order. The Prime Minister’s office: originally the Auberge of Castille et Leon; the Post Office, the Auberge d’Italie; the Museum of Archaeology, the Auberge de Provence. The House of Representatives was the Palace of the Grand Master. Verdala Palace—it was near there that I had the little incident on the road—was once the summer house of the Grand Master.

  “And the clincher,” I said, “is St. John’s Cathedral. That was the Knights’ own church, and the crypt is where many of the Grand-Masters are buried!”

  “And your point is… ?” the Mountie said.

  I glared at him. “I’m not really sure. But every place I saw Graham was related in a very direct way to the Knights. There are lots of stories about the Knights, both the Knights of St. John and the Knights Templar, those whose job it was to guard the temple in Jerusalem. There are all kinds of rumors of great treasure of incomparable worth hidden by the Knights, like the Chalice, for example, and more than that, lots of conspiracy theories: that some of the Knights went underground, so to speak, and are now in very powerful positions, except that we don’t know who they are.” I knew as soon as the words came out of my mouth that they would not sit well with this particular law enforcement officer.

  He looked at me rather disdainfully. “I’ve read about those. What’s that Italian semiotics professor—Eco? He wrote a book about that.”

  “Foucault’s Pendulum?”

  “Right. That’s the one. Great book, or should I say, great work of fiction. Surely you are not talking about secret societies that rule the world unbeknownst to us! Are you saying that Graham, if that’s his name, was killed to protect the conspiracy, or something? That he was stuck on a Knight’s sword as a sign, no better still, a warning?”