A Dead Man in Malta (7 page)

He was quite sure that the charges were unjustified. He hadn’t been here long himself, having been posted from Colombo only the year before, but he had been very impressed when he had arrived by the general standards of the staff and particularly the nurses. ‘A lively, competent lot,’ he said, who knew what they were doing. Which was not what he had to say about Mrs Wynne-Gurr.

How they had allowed that witch to get in here, and now with a supporting cast of harpies, he could not understand. It had not been his doing. A hospital was a busy, hardworking, complex place and the one thing you did not want was people coming in and getting in the way and putting people’s backs up. He was all in favour of the patients having visitors or of the doctors entertaining colleagues from abroad but you couldn’t have just anybody coming in. And certainly not an old busybody asking daft questions! It had all been running perfectly smoothly before she arrived, he said in aggrieved tones; as if she had somehow brought the murders with her.

The upshot had been, he said, to put the hospital on the defensive. What with the police and the press and the politicians …! Fortress Birgu, he said, that was what it felt like now. That was what she had turned the place into. No doubt he had noticed that, on coming in.

He certainly had, said Seymour. And it was a great pity when people were giving of their best in not always easy circumstances. But, look, things would get better only when they had found out who had committed the murders. All this daft talk would be stilled and the hospital could get back to normal.

So it could, agreed the Registrar, brightening.

And he, Seymour, would do his very best to bring that happy state about. In fact, could he start now? A little look round, perhaps? And he would try not to get in the way or put people’s backs up. But it was best to get on with it. The sooner it was over and done with, the better.

The Registrar concurred absolutely: so Seymour had his entrée and had been able to make a start.

He still felt, however, that he needed to clear things with the senior officer in charge and so an appointment was made for the afternoon of the day after next.

When he got to the hospital he found that he was rather early and so he dropped in on the nurses in their cubbyhole. He found Melinda talking to a little old, gnome-like man whom he realized he had seen before.

‘You should be thinking about getting home, Dr Malia,’ she was saying.

The doctor looked at his watch.

‘Good heavens! Is that the time?’ he said. ‘How time flies when you get old!’

‘Have you been here all day?’

He looked at his watch again.

‘I suppose I have been,’ he said, surprised.

‘And eaten nothing all day?’

‘I had some breakfast. I think.’

‘I’ll bet you didn’t. You’d better come in and have a cup of tea with us. And a biscuit.’

‘I don’t want to be a bother—’

‘You’re not. We’re making a pot anyway.’

‘Ah, but you’ve been on your feet all morning.’

‘So have you.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘What is it you used to tell us? Don’t go too long without getting something inside you!’

‘It’s the sugar. You need the sugar.’

‘And so do you.’

She shepherded him into the nurses’ room.

‘This is Mr Seymour. No, he’s not a new doctor. He’s a policeman.’

‘A policeman?’

Dr Malia looked puzzled. Then his face cleared.

‘Oh, I know,’ he said. ‘It must be to do with those poor people. Have you got anywhere yet?’ he asked Seymour.

‘I’ve only just started, really.’

‘Yes. And it must all be very strange to you, coming out from England.’

‘Not too strange. In fact, oddly familiar.’

‘Yes. That’s what they all say.’

A nurse put a cup of tea in his hand.

‘Hello, Dr Malia! Do you remember me? Bettina?’

‘No, I don’t think—yes, I do! I remember your
quecija
. You chose—I think I’m right—a thermometer. And that was right, wasn’t it? Because you became a nurse.’

‘Quite right! What a memory you’ve got!’

‘Or was it your mother?’

‘It was probably my mother, too,’ said Bettina laughing. ‘And is she well?’

‘Oh, very much so. Retired now, of course. But she still wants to know everything that’s going on in the hospital. I’ll tell her I met you.’

‘Oh, please! Yes, do that. A remarkable woman, your mother. An excellent nurse!’

‘Hear that?’ Bettina said to the room at large. ‘It runs in the family.’

‘There’s been a bit of a falling off lately,’ said one of the other nurses.

‘Tell me about the
quecija
,’ said Seymour.

‘It takes place on a child’s first birthday. You get together a tray of small things, a pen, rosary, thimble, or even some money, and put them in front of the child. And whatever he or she picks up is supposed to tell you what sort of future it will have. What it will do in life.’

‘I see, yes.’

‘Mostly, it’s an excuse for a party. We’re great on parties in Malta.’

‘It’s time we had one here.’

‘It is. Would you like to come, Mr Seymour? And you, of course, Dr Malia!’

‘I would very much like to.’

‘And we’ll invite Bettina’s mum so that you can meet her again.’

‘That would be very nice.’

‘Another biscuit for you, Dr Malia?’

‘I’ve already had one—’

‘Have two. That’s an order. Medical advice!’

Dr Malia laughed. ‘Probably better advice than anything a doctor could give.’

‘And I’ll get Berto to speak to Jacopo, and he will give you a lift home—’

‘I don’t like to bother—’

‘Ssh! Jacopo has got nothing to do. And you know he always likes to have a chat with you.
And
,’ said Melinda, ‘he has a new baby! He will want to tell you all about that!’

‘A new one? Another? But that’s—’

‘Five. Perhaps you’d better give him some advice.’

‘It’s no good giving advice to Jacopo,’ said Bettina. ‘You’d do better to give it to his wife.’

‘I
would
like to talk to Jacopo.’

‘More medical advice,’ said Melinda. ‘This time from me. You’re overdoing things, you know. You’re looking rather tired.’

‘I don’t sleep as well at nights,’ Dr Malia confessed.

‘No, my mother doesn’t either,’ said Bettina. ‘You don’t when you get old. But she doesn’t spend half the night wandering round, like you do.’

‘I’m not really wandering round at night. I’m just starting the next day early,’ protested Dr Malia.

‘Well, I don’t know about that,’ said Melinda. ‘I think you sometimes forget to go to bed at all. I’ve seen you wandering about in the hospital at all hours.’

‘I know my way around there,’ explained Dr Malia placatorily.

‘You certainly do. And it’s nice to see you. But I think you need to put your feet up occasionally.’

‘I’ve got such a lot to do.’

‘And your project could do with a rest, too,’ said Melinda.

Dr Malia looked surprised.

‘Could it?’ he asked. ‘Could it? You know, I’ve never thought about that. But perhaps you’re right.’

‘Both of you,’ said Melinda firmly. ‘You and the project. Take a break.’

‘Bloody newspapers!’ said the Commander.

‘Very trying,’ Seymour agreed.

‘If it hadn’t been for them—and that bloody woman, too, of course—we could have sorted things out quietly. Cot deaths!’

‘Ridiculous!’

‘So bloody ridiculous we would have brushed it aside. But the newspapers were a different matter.’

‘But they did rather blurt it out, didn’t they? The three sailors. That bit about the snoring. And the pillow.’

‘They wouldn’t have done if they hadn’t had a drink or two first. And then been primed, I wouldn’t wonder, by a few more, and not bought by them!’

‘Shouldn’t wonder,’ agreed Seymour.

‘And it’s all a load of bollocks,’ said the Commander. ‘You get used to snores if you’re in the Navy. “Put a pillow over his head,”’ he mimicked. ‘I’d put a boot up their backsides!’

‘All the same, they might have seen something,’ said Seymour.

‘They didn’t see anything! They were so slewed they wouldn’t have seen anything if the whole hospital had gone down! No, they made it up. It was the beer talking. And then the newspapers blew it up, made more of it than they should have done. And once they’d shouted it out from the hilltops everyone got in on the act. And it was all unnecessary.’

‘Unnecessary.’

‘We would have looked into it. We
were
looking into it. Only quietly. We would have taken any action that was necessary. If any action was necessary. We’d have given the police the tip-off. If it was murder, which I doubt.

‘But it all got out of hand. And then that damned woman came along and made things worse. And in no time at all we had a Force Eight gale blowing up. And all the time they were missing the point.’

‘Missing the point?’

‘Yes. The Type XK 115.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘The Type XK 115. The new destroyer. Just in from Portsmouth. First time out. That’s what they wanted to see.’

‘Sorry, who wanted to see?’

‘The Germans. That’s what was the point of it all. That’s what they were up there for. Those balloons. Getting a good shufti at our fleet. And especially the new Type XK 115.’

‘Spying?’

‘Yes.’

‘Surely not all of them. I mean—’

‘No, no, not all of them. Just the German. And, do you know, the bugger was cheeky enough to come down right beside them. So that he could get a closer look! I’d have clapped him in irons, but, instead, they took him to the hospital. So that we couldn’t get our hands on him. Fortunately, somebody else did.’

According to Inspector Lucca the place to go in Valletta on a Sunday was the Marsa racetrack.

Not church?

‘Church, too, of course,’ said Inspector Lucca. ‘Mass in the morning, then a good lunch, and then, when it gets a bit cooler, the racetrack. I go every Sunday.’

And so, evidently, did a lot of other people. When Seymour made a rough count, he reckoned that there were over four thousand people in the stadium, many of them in their Sunday best. There was a general air of festivity. Two bands were playing simultaneously, one on each side of the stadium.

‘Where’s the third?’ said Inspector Lucca, worried. ‘Ah!’ Pushing its way through the crowd was the missing band, brass—most Maltese bands were brass—instruments gleaming in the sun.

‘This is where there’s sometimes a bit of trouble,’ said the Inspector.

Every Maltese band—and there were dozens, if not hundreds, of them—identified strongly with its own locality, and pride, and passions, ran high. This was fine when the band was playing in its home patch but not so good when it was playing in the patch of another. As, of course, it had to when it was accompanying a march (political) or procession (religious) both of which were frequent in Malta; and practically every route took it through some rival territory. Disputes, according to the Inspector, frequently broke out. Not infrequently they turned into pitched battles and the police, and sometimes the army, had to be called in.

It sounded, thought Seymour, not at all unlike the marching season in Northern Ireland—where religious processions marched at, rather than through, the local inhabitants whenever they were of an opposing faith.

The Marsa racetrack bordered on the territories of several bands and all asserted a claim to perform whenever there was a meeting. Blowing turned to blows and eventually the Governor had to intervene. After prolonged negotiation a compromise was reached whereby the bands took turns. This proved unsatisfactory since it was so long before your turn came round. To speed things up it was decided that two bands should play simultaneously but on opposite sides of the track.

This worked well for a time but then another difficulty arose. Many of the attenders at the racetrack came not from Valletta proper but from across the bay, from ‘the three cities’ of Birgu, L’Isla, and Bormla, each with its own band, and they asserted
their
right to play at Marsa. After a long period of bloody conflict a compromise was reached whereby ‘the three cities’ would take it in turns to supply a band, which would play on alternate Sundays on the third side of the racetrack, leaving, as the Inspector pointed out, just the one side for you to stand if you wanted a bit of peace.

Peace, though, and the Maltese did not necessarily go together. The later compromise was not universally accepted, as ‘the three cities’ found when they tried to assert their claim. It was not uncommon for them to have to fight their way through to the station assigned them. Not that they necessarily minded that.

Hence the Inspector’s concern.

‘But it all adds to the fun,’ he said philosophically.

Seymour knew about that sort of fun. There were no racetracks in his part of London but police were regularly drafted to other parts where there were race meetings. Some professed to relish it—the open air, escape from the city, the prospect, for those from the more sedentary parts of London, of the excitement of a ‘bundle’. But in the East End, where Seymour served, there were ‘bundles’ a-plenty. Admittedly, as a member of the CID you were more likely to avoid them. Even so, the prospect of a day at the races was not one which filled Seymour with enthusiasm. However, when the Inspector had invited him he had accepted with alacrity. He had his own purposes.

At once, though, he had a surprise. For the racing at Marsa was not the sort that he was used to, horses belting round a track. Instead, it was horses pulling a cart, or, as the Inspector put it, two horses and a trap. For the great passion of Malta turned out to be pony-trotting.

Chantale was not enthusiastic about going to the racetrack either. But Mrs Wynne-Gurr had drawn up a programme and the programme had to be adhered to. Today they were going to the racetrack to observe how the local branch of the St John Ambulance went about its work. The Valletta St John was regularly in attendance at the races and this Sunday was no exception.

The English visitors were distributed around the track at the various points which the Ambulance manned, one English visitor to two Valletta members. The two ladies Chantale was with seemed very pleasant and the duties not onerous. For the most part they seemed to consist of tending spectators who had succumbed to the heat. Once, however, said one of the ladies, ‘a wheel came off and the driver was thrown out right in front of me and I was able to practise my slings’. Today, however, there was no such excitement.