LITMIR.BIZ

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Europe, or so they had assumed—and the impressive fortifications thrown up by the Knights had never been put to the test. Not till now. Now they were useless. What good were soaring battlements against an enemy who assaulted you from the air with bombs? All you could do was cower and pray. The cowering had helped a little, saved a few lives, but the prayers had fallen on deaf ears.

      In the past month, German bombs had laid waste to much of what mattered in Valletta, obliging the Governor to flee his palace for his summer residence at Verdala, and causing extensive damage to the Auberge de Castile, the military and administrative hub of the island. The various departments had scattered like chaff before a stiff wind, seeking shelter wherever they could. Max no longer walked to work in Valletta. The Information Office had been relocated twice, from the Museum in the Auberge d’Italie to the old audit offices at the top of the General Post Office building, and then to St Joseph’s, an orphanage for boys in Fleur-de-Lys, up on the hill beyond Hamrun. It was ten minutes inland by motorcycle on a good day, considerably more when the carburettor was clogged with rust from the old petrol tank he’d been forced to scavenge from another machine.

      He missed the bustle and activity of Valletta, the snatched lunches with friends at the Union Club or Monico’s, but there were far worse places to work than St Joseph’s. An ancient palace where, according to local lore, Napoleon had stayed during his brief dominion over the island, it had a spacious courtyard at its heart, planted with cypresses, which lent it the calm air of a convent or monastery. The rooms were large and light, the residents welcoming and unobtrusive. To ease their passage into the world, the orphan boys were taught a variety of skills and professions, one of which was printing, and a modern printing press filled a room on the ground floor of the south wing. This was the real reason the Information Office had been assigned to St Joseph’s; it allowed them to run off their daily and weekly bulletins for distribution around the island. The close proximity of the Lieutenant-Governor’s office, which had taken up residence in the Vincenzo Bugeja Conservatory right next door, was an undeniable irritant—snooping and meddling came naturally to the penguins of the LGO—however it was a small price to pay for personal safety. The Luftwaffe might have developed an uncanny knack of divining the exact whereabouts of key military departments, but for now at least St Joseph’s was anything but a first-strike target.

      Max glanced at his watch. He should have been at his desk an hour ago, and he could see the papers already piling up in the wire basket on the desk. Maria, his long-suffering secretary, would be fielding the calls and making excuses for his absence. Both would have to wait. There was something else he needed to do first.

      His motorcycle was propped against the wall of his apartment building, the foot-stand having rusted away during the hard, wet winter. She was in a temperamental mood this morning, but after much cajoling the engine finally fired. Some of the sweat from his exertions dried off in the wind during the short ride up the hill into Valletta.

      Lilian wasn’t in work. Or rather, she had come in early then she had gone out again, chasing up some story or other. Rita couldn’t be more specific, or didn’t wish to be.

      Rita manned the front desk at the newspaper offices. She didn’t like Max. This wasn’t paranoia on his part. Lilian, with characteristic candour, had told him that Rita didn’t like him.

      ‘Well, if you could tell her I dropped by…’

      Rita leaned forward, placing her meaty forearms on the desk. ‘Of course,’ she said.

      But she didn’t have to.

      ‘Shouldn’t you be at work?’

      It was Lilian, entering from the street. Her long black hair was pinned up in an unruly mess and she was rummaging for something in her shoulder bag.

      ‘I just wanted to check you got the film.’

      ‘She got the film,’ said Rita flatly.

      Max had dropped the film off with Rita the previous evening, Lilian having already left for the day.

      ‘How did the photos turn out?’

      ‘Good. You want to see them?’

      ‘Have you got time?’

      ‘Of course. Come.’

      When Lilian made for the staircase, Max followed, glancing at Rita as he went. She peered back at him over the top of her spectacles with an impassive expression.

      Max trailed Lilian up the narrow stone staircase to the newsroom. She was wearing a short linen skirt, fraying at the hem, which revealed the full glory of her legs. They had an aesthetic dimension, long and slender, tapering to ankles so narrow they looked as though they might break at any moment.

      A sudden urge made him reach out a hand and run his fingertips down her left calf.

      She gave a small yelp and spun round, glaring down at him.

      ‘What do you expect if you insist on leading the way?’

      ‘Then you go first,’ she said.

      He squeezed past her. ‘You’ve changed your tune since last weekend.’

      ‘I was drunk last weekend.’

      ‘Oh, that’s why you slurred your words when you said, “Don’t stop.”’

      It had been their first kiss, and it had taken place under an orange tree in the garden of her aunt’s palace in Mdina.

      ‘Well, I hope you enjoyed it, because it was the last time.’

      As deputy editor of Il-Berqa, Lilian was entitled to her own office. It was a small box of a room, and it had somehow acquired a view of Grand Harbour since Max’s last visit. It took him a moment to realize why. He wandered to the window and peered down at what remained of the church. The dome and the roof had collapsed into the nave, the pillars and arches of which were still standing, as was the greater part of the apse. Despite the destruction, the altar had been cleared of rubble and a priest was dressing it for Mass.

      ‘Close,’ said Max.

      ‘No one was killed.’

      ‘That’s good to hear.’

      He turned back in time to see her unpin her hair and shake it out. It fell like silk around her shoulders.

      ‘Better?’ she asked.

      ‘You could shave it all off and you’d still be beautiful.’ She cocked her head at him, deciding whether to accept the compliment.

      ‘It’s true.’

      It was. She could get away with it, with her large almond eyes, the sharp, high-bridged nose and full lips. She was of mixed parentage—half Maltese, half British—although her temperament owed considerably more to her Mediterranean blood. He still smarted when he remembered some of the words she’d directed at him, but he’d also shared many a full and proper belly-laugh with her. He suspected that when it came to pure intellect there were few to match her on the island. He knew for a fact that he struggled to keep up.

      ‘We don’t have long,’ she said. ‘I have to be in Sliema at twelve o’clock and there are no buses.’

      ‘Sliema?’

      ‘To talk to Vitorin Zammit.’

      ‘You’re going to run the story?’ he said hopefully.

      ‘Felix isn’t sure.’

      Felix was the editor, a plump and ponderous little character who didn’t seem to do a whole lot about the place. It was common knowledge that Lilian effectively ran the show.

      ‘What the old man did is not legal,’ Lilian went on. ‘We don’t want half the island shooting at planes.’

      ‘I don’t know. The artillery could do with all the help it can get right now.’

      She smiled. ‘True. But they’ll shoot at everything, even our own planes.’

      ‘They’ll

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