at a nearby table were making no such pretence. They watched and whispered among themselves.
The man at the counter was a British serviceman. He sat slumped on his stool, head bowed, sobbing quietly. His companion, a Maltese girl with bleached blond hair, had an arm around his shoulder. She was whispering to him, sweet words of comfort, but every so often she rolled her eyes with boredom for the amusement of her colleagues gathered at the table. They, in turn, struggled to stifle their giggles.
Josef’s instinct was to take the soldier by the arm and lead him out of this den of harpies, but that didn’t fit with his mission. The table of girls eyed him with undisguised indifference as he wandered over to them. Even the lowliest British serviceman had twenty or so shillings a week to spend, which was far more than the average Maltese could muster.
They perked up a little when he asked, “Thirsty?”
He knew better than to order the drinks himself; their commission was what mattered to them. The youngest was dispatched to bring the refreshments, and Josef found a chair pulled up for him. He immediately turned his attention to the oldest, a baggy-eyed specimen in a grubby white frock. Win over the mother hen, and the others would follow.
“What’s the story?” he asked her, nodding at the sobbing man.
“He misses his wife.”
It was a voice coarsened by drink and cigarettes.
“You don’t say? Me too.”
“So why aren’t you crying?”
“You haven’t seen my wife.”
He knew he had them when they laughed.
“Where’s your wedding band?” asked mother hen, more practiced at such matters.
“Sold, so that the poor orphan boys of Saint Joseph’s might eat.”
This set them off again, although they sobered up fast when he raised the subject of Mary Farrugia. A few of them crossed themselves at the mention of their dead colleague. Josef made his play. He said he was Mary’s uncle, and he was there on a sensitive matter. It involved a pair of silver earrings, a gift to Mary from one of her customers just before her death. The family felt that the earrings should be returned to the British serviceman in question, the only trouble being that they had no idea who he was.
This triggered a flurry of speculation around the table. Judging from the number of names bandied about, Mary Farrugia had been a popular girl with the clientele of the John Bull.
“I think he might have been a submariner,” offered Josef, which was met with shrugs and blank faces. “Possibly an officer, unless she was lying.”
“Well, they’re not supposed to come here, but they do.”
“They dress down on purpose.”
“They know where to come for a good time.”
“A much better time.”
“We can show you, if you like,” said one of the younger girls, a frail-looking creature who must once have been pretty.
They were teasing him now, losing interest in his quest. He made one last effort to draw a name from them. When this failed, he made his excuses and left them to their drinks.
Mother hen caught up with him near the entrance.
“Tell me something—if you’re Mary’s uncle, then why weren’t you at her funeral?”
She had him cold.
“Are you a cop?”
“Yes.”
“What’s this about?”
“Nothing that concerns you.”
“It might.”
“You know something?”
“I know I have a nephew in prison.”
Oh, so that was it.
“What’s he in for?”
“Looting.”
Josef despised looters.
“Some would say prison’s the right place for a looter to be.”
“Some would say it’s no place for an eighteen-year-old boy who fell in with the wrong crowd and who’s learned his lesson.”
Josef let the silence linger awhile. “It depends on what you’ve got.”
“Will a name do?”
“Maybe,” he said, trying to contain himself.
She gave a quick glance over her shoulder. “There was a man. I never met him. That lot don’t even know. Mary asked me not to tell. Her ‘special friend,’ that’s what she called him. She also said he was an officer with the submarines.”
Josef could feel his pulse quickening. “Go on.”
“That’s it.”
“His name?”
“Ken.”
“Ken?”
“That’s what she said.”
“No surname?”
“Just Ken.”
It was possible she was lying. At the table he had asked for the name of a submarine officer, and now she had just given him one. He stared into her bloodshot eyes. He prided himself on his ability to ferret out a fiction from a person’s eyes. Bombarding the person with rapid-fire questions also helped.