the five months she had been working at the Blue Parrot she had never before failed to return.
Max knew the Blue Parrot, not intimately, and not of late. It was one of the few dance halls in the Gut reserved for officers, which meant that the establishment was slightly more spacious than most, the floor show moderately superior, and the drinks vastly more expensive. He’d been there several times soon after his arrival on the island, when the star attraction, the big draw—the very big draw—had been an act from Hungary.
Budapest Bessie hadn’t been graced with either the build or the poise of a prima ballerina, but this hadn’t prevented her from puffing her way through her version of “The Dying Swan” before the disbelieving eyes of Britain’s officer classes. For some reason, veils had been a feature of her routine, he remembered, angina the reason for her sudden retirement from the stage. Ammunition had been scarce even back then, but a couple of the shore batteries had been ordered to fire off a salute when the frigate bearing Bessie to a gentler life in Gibraltar had slipped out of Grand Harbour.
Max hadn’t been back to the Blue Parrot since that time, but he could see the flaking gilt of the mirrors in the narrow dining room, the greasy velvet upholstery, and the tired palms dotted about the place.
“Did she work anywhere before?”
“I didn’t ask. Should I have?”
“Anything else?”
“Yes. Something that doesn’t make sense. She left for work on Thursday afternoon at five o’clock—she always allowed an hour for the walk, apparently—but she wasn’t found till the Saturday morning.”
“Where exactly was she found?”
“A backstreet in Marsa. Marsa was on her route home, but she can hardly have lain out there for a whole day without anyone seeing her.”
Max weighed a range of explanations, rejecting each in turn. Only one withstood the test, and it didn’t sit happily in the head.
“She was held somewhere for twenty-four hours.”
“It looks that way.”
“Or maybe she was already dead; he just couldn’t dispose of the body for whatever reason, maybe it was too risky.”
As explanations went, it wasn’t quite as grim as the thought of her being held hostage for those missing hours, with the disturbing images that accompanied it.
“The rigor mortis suggests otherwise. It was well set in when I first saw her on Saturday around noon. It generally peaks somewhere between twelve and twenty-four hours after death, closer to twelve in this kind of heat.”
Which suggested that her life was ended some time on Friday night. And probably not in Marsa. Marsa had simply been the dumping ground. As to where she was abducted, it could have been anywhere along her route home; a quiet spot, most likely. But where did he hold her captive during Friday? And how did he transport her there? The questions were coming in a torrent now.
“Max, I’ve been thinking. We have to go to someone with this.”
“The lieutenant governor’s office shut you out last time. What makes you think they won’t do it again? We need evidence they can’t ignore.”
It was a disingenuous response, and he knew it: presenting himself as the champion of truth when all he really wanted was a bit more time to follow through on the consequences of a scandal of this scale breaking across the island.
“Freddie, I just need a day or two.”
“I’m happy to give it to you. But is he?”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I don’t want another death on my conscience.”
“You think I do?” Max paused. “I’m asking you to trust me on this. A couple of days to check some things out. I’ll get straight onto it. I promise.”
Freddie remained silent for a moment. “Okay, but you’re on your own. They’ve got me working out of Mtarfa for the foreseeable.”
It was a testimony to Freddie’s skill as a surgeon that he spent much of his time being shunted among the island’s hospitals, according to where his gifts were required. There was certainly no lack of call for them.
“When are you heading out there?”
“Ten minutes ago. A Beaufighter just pancaked at Luqa. The navigator is pretty chewed up, by all accounts.”
“I’m going to need the exact dates when the other two girls were found.”
“Then stay on the line. I’ll be right back.”
Max spent half an hour clearing his desk and briefing the members of his team. They were quite capable of holding the fort in his absence. He was on the point of leaving when the rising dirge of