02 _ Maltese Goddess, The (26 page)

“We know, thanks to Lara, that Marek got into Malta from France, disguised as a priest…”

“I keep kicking myself that I didn’t remember him sooner,” I interjected. “If I’d realized he arrived in disguise, I’d have known there was something wrong, even if I didn’t know exactly what it was.”

“Don’t do this, Lara!” Rob said sharply. “You said yourself you only saw him in profile, and you saw him when you’d been up all night on the flight over. In fact you’d been up for almost twenty-four hours straight!”

But I couldn’t let it go. “My friend Alex said we should have known, in a way, about Victor, because of the name he chose for himself. In the ancient Roman and Persian cult of Mithra, a Deva is a creature of darkness, vice, and suffering. I wonder if Victor knew mat, or if it was just a coincidence.”

“He may well have known,” Tabone said. “He is apparently a well-educated man. Choosing a name like that would suit his style. In addition to being intelligent, well-educated, and gifted with a sense of irony, he was also supremely nasty. He prided himself on thinking up innovative ways to kill people.

“As to your other questions,” he said, turning to Rob, “we definitely have the where and how down. Where? The play at Mnajdra. How? We’re told that Sidjian was noted for planning his hits down to the last detail. He would be out scouting for possible locations. He meets Anna Stanhope at the site and he gets an idea. One of the students remembers Dr. Stanhope telling Victor or Marek about the play, about all the notables who would be attending, and even about Mifsud, the caretaker who was supposed to be helping with the production. Mifsud gets taken out of action—a neat fall down a flight of stairs— and miraculously, Victor Deva appears to save the day. Old Mifsud still can’t remember anything much about the accident, but he does recall seeing Sidjian around the school the day he fell—we showed him a photograph this morning. Mifsud’s a drinker, of course, but he seems pretty definite about this one, and if it was early enough in the day, he might still have had his wits about him.”

“The play and his role in it—those large boxes of sound and lighting equipment—gave Marek the opportunity to hide the weapon,” I said. “He couldn’t carry the gun in directly; all the boxes were searched. But he, and possibly Francesco too, simply come back at night before there’s the full contingent of soldiers and police on twenty-four-hour guard duty. They have to break into the storage shed, because they don’t have the key, but they don’t need to break into their own boxes. That’s why their boxes looked untouched, but it is undoubtedly where the weapon was stashed. Then, to cover their tracks, they make it look like vandalism, the work of angry parents.

“It also gives Marek a chance to show Francesco the site in daylight,” I added. “He brought him along to help paint the shed. So he could look around for somewhere to land the helicopter,” I added.

“Don’t remind me!” Tabone said sharply. “There’ll be hell to pay for that, I expect. They stole a police helicopter right from under our noses. If it hadn’t been for the fact they radioed me about the chopper right away, those two might have got away.”

“I’m surprised they would think they could get away with it, in such a public place,” Rob said.

“Sidjian prided himself on his rather spectacular killings. I mentioned that murder of the Italian banker. Do you recall it was carried out right in front of one of those huge and expensive shopping complexes in Milano, at the height of Christmas shopping season?” We nodded. “I think he banked on the fact that there is so much chaos after one of these shootings he had time to slip away.

“Another characteristic of this fellow is that he is truly ruthless about anyone who gets in his way. Which brings us, I think, to Ellis Graham.”

Tabone reached into the bottom drawer of his desk. He extracted a large plastic bag in which rested a hat. Not just any hat. A broad-brimmed safari-style hat, one side turned up, with a leopard skin band. “I remembered that conversation we had over coffee, and lo and behold, the missing hat, I think, is found. Look familiar to you, Lara?” I nodded. It was Ellis Graham’s hat. It seemed unlikely there would be two like it on this tiny island, and I said so.

“I helped search Francesco’s room last night,” Tabone went on. “Francesco was staying in a sleazy little place near the Gut, incidentally, and Sidjian got to stay in a nice hotel in Sliema. Proof that Sidjian was in charge. Both rooms were stripped bare, of course—they had no plans to return—except for this hat. Nasty touch, wouldn’t you say? Note the bullet hole in it. I wouldn’t want to be the person to place this hat on the head of the corpse, but we’ll get someone to do it, and I’m sure we’ll find the bullet holes in the hat and the head match up. I think we must assume either Sidjian or Francesco killed Graham and left the hat to taunt us. I guess the question remains why they killed him.”

“Ellis Graham was a snoop and a nuisance,” I said. “I’m convinced he was looking for the lost treasure of the Knights of Malta—we have a documentary he did that would certainly point in that direction—and he was also keeping an eye on me because, I think, he thought I was after the treasure too. Once he got that feeling, he was much more than a nuisance. He was scary. He tried to run me off the road! He would have seen me with Victor, and having been unfortunate enough to sit beside Sidjian, dressed as a priest, on the flight from Paris to Malta, he probably recognized him and realized something was wrong. He even went so far as to say there was danger, so he may have known even more than that. He could have said something to Marek as well. Maybe he thought for a time that Marek was looking for treasure too. He certainly leapt to that conclusion with me, and that was on the strength of a few chance encounters.

“Marek was definitely in the market the day Graham was killed, and could easily have seen, and possibly even heard, Graham try to warn me. I think that was what led to his death. From what you’ve told me, Sidjian does not strike me as someone who would leave anything to chance.”

“I suspect we’ll never be able to prove why, but with that hat as evidence, we can be almost certain either Sidjian or Francesco killed Graham. My money is on Francesco only because the hat was in his room, but it doesn’t really matter because they’re both dead,” Rob said. “What is more important is the question of who was Sidjian’s client and who was the intended victim. Frankly the intended victim could be anyone in the front row of the VIP tent, including the foreign ministers of three European countries, but Lara, I know, thinks it was Prime Minister Abela who was the target, and Giovanni Galizia the culprit, and it’s as good a place as any to start, I suppose. Did you check Abela’s schedule, Vince?”

“I did. We’re working with European authorities on the subject of the possible target, but if the Prime Minister was the intended victim, there were not too many opportunities to do it, because Abela’s been ill. He hasn’t been doing much in the way of public appearances since his surgery; just the play and state dinner were in his official schedule. What’s interesting, however, is that it seems Galizia was the one who prevailed upon Abela to come to the play. The Prime Minister’s secretary told me that because he was convalescing, he was only planning to attend the state dinner, but he was persuaded by Galizia to do both. The Prime Minister’s attendance was critical to the success of the negotiations, Galizia apparently said.”

“But what’s the motive here?” Rob asked.

“Abela was in his way, metaphorically speaking. Minister of External Relations wasn’t good enough,” I interjected. “Galizia wanted the top job. Pathologically ambitious, I’d say.”

“Hasn’t that man heard about nice democratic processes like elections?” Rob grumped. “Anyway, this is all speculation, isn’t it?”

“On the strength of a hunch, to say nothing of the persistence, of a Canadian shopkeeper whose main tourism experience in Malta would appear to be the finding of dead bodies,” Tabone said, “I have begun an investigation of the Honorable Giovanni Galizia. I sincerely hope this shopkeeper’s hunch is correct,” he added, looking at me, “because otherwise, this investigation will undoubtedly put my illustrious career in policing at risk.”

Rob raised his eyebrows. “So what have you got? I hope it’s more than getting the PM to come to the play.”

“Not much, so far. I have moved very quickly to get phone taps on Galizia and to get Galizia’s bank accounts—it’s amazing what police powers you acquire after something as messy as an assassination attempt—and I already have a forensic accountant following the money. He’s told me there are some interesting large bank transfers, done through rather convoluted means, but he is already convinced they will lead to a numbered Swiss bank account. We’ll see where that takes us. You don’t suppose the accounts would actually be in the name of Sidjian, do you?”

We both shook our heads.

“Too bad. We haven’t much,” he sighed. “With Sidjian and Francesco dead, it’s going to be hard to prove Galizia was involved. In fact, he’s already positioning himself as the hero of the events of last night, although what he did that would earn him that title eludes me for the moment. I don’t know how we’ll get him.”

“What about that nasty little incident in the backstreets of Mdina?” Rob asked. “Are you still insisting they were coming back to say they were sorry, Vince, or do you think there might be something there we could hang on Galizia?”

“Maybe. If Galizia is the guilty party, then I think our friend Lara would have been getting to him,” Tabone replied. “If he really was working with Sidjian, then he’d know who she was. He’d know that she’d found the body of Martin Galea, that she was staying at the house, that she was involved with the performance at Mnajdra. She turns up at his office with some story about being a journalist and asks about his friendship with Martin Galea, then is really foolhardy, stealing an invitation and crashing the party. Now, whether it was Sidjian and Francesco in the car or just a couple of goons who are employed by Galizia, I don’t know yet, but I fully intend to find out, I can assure you. We’re going door to door right now to see if anyone heard or saw anything that might help.”

“Still, pretty sketchy evidence,” Rob said.

We all sat for a while, brooding over that one.

“What bothers me about this is, Rob’s right. Short of a miracle, Galizia will get away with this,” Tabone said. “He’ll get to be PM someday, not as fast as he’d like, maybe, but he’ll get there. And then what? If that isn’t good enough for him, what will he aim for next? Head of the European Union?

Director General of the United Nations. Head of NATO? It boggles the mind!“

“It seems to me you’re doing everything you can,” Rob said soothingly. “And I’m happy to help as long as I’m here. But I was sent over here to help out with the investigation of the murder of a Canadian citizen, Martin Galea, and now that the autopsy has determined he was murdered in Canada, there won’t be much more I can do here. I don’t suppose anyone can think of any link between Galea’s death and these other incidents? I can’t believe I said that, actually. I sincerely hope Lara’s harebrained ideas aren’t contagious.”

I glared at him. “I think there is a link. Galea’s house. I know it’s a long shot, but I think we should at least talk about it. You said yourself, Vince, that there were very few opportunities to get the Prime Minister these days. What about the party at Galea’s house? What if Sidjian had a plan A and a plan B? You’ve said he planned every detail; surely a fallback would be included. Maybe plan A was the party at Galea’s. According to Marilyn Galea, her husband renewed acquaintances with an old boyhood friend. Galizia, perhaps? Do we know if either Galizia or the Prime Minister were included in the guest list? That should be easy enough to find out. It was supposed to be important people. Surely they would qualify.”

Tabone shrugged and with some reluctance, I could tell, picked up the phone. After waiting for a few moments, Tabone spoke to someone in Maltese, and then, with a look of some surprise, jotted something on his notepad.

“Well, well,” he said as he hung up. “That was Abela’s secretary. She told me she was holding an evening a few nights ago for a private party. It didn’t show up on the official schedule because the Prime Minister apparently considered it personal, and because it was just penciled in as tentative. It was a small get-together, just five or six guests, at the home of Martin Galea. It was to be confirmed by Galea when he arrived, and of course, when he turned up dead, it was simply deleted from the diary.

“And guess who issued the invitation on behalf of Galea? Our friend Giovanni Galizia, of course.”

“Forgive me, but so what?” Rob said. “We have nothing linking the house with Sidjian.”

“Oh, I think we may,” I said slowly. “The first night I was here, I thought I saw someone, a man wearing a hood over his head, at the back of the yard. I was pretty frightened at the time, and I never saw him there again. But there was something about him, his stance, perhaps, and although I can’t prove it, I think it was Sidjian. When he was standing for that second or two on the edge of the cliff last night, before he went over… I don’t know… something just clicked.

“And there was the incident with the dead cat and the car. Strange, these kinds of incidents only happened after I arrived. The Farrugias have told me they’d never known anything like this.”

“It does sound as if someone wanted you to leave the house,” Tabone agreed. “But you, being exceedingly stubborn, didn’t budge.”

“I didn’t. I think that right from the start, the idea of using the house as the site of the assassination just didn’t work out. They would need to have access to the house at some point, to move the weapon in and look the place over, but the workmen were there all day, and I was there at night. So they tried to scare me off, but that didn’t work. That’s when Sidjian started to develop plan B, the play at Mnajdra.”

“And Galea? Are you saying they killed him so they could use his house? Rather drastic, wouldn’t you say? And surely that wouldn’t work. The party wouldn’t go on if he didn’t show up.”

“You’re right,” I agreed. “Unless, of course, they were going to pretend he was there. When I first saw Sidjian, at Mnajdra that first day, I thought to myself that he looked a Utile like Galea. Do you think he might have been planning to impersonate him?”