Chapter 31
‘You’ll have to remove your mask at the entrance,’ Bobby said as they drew close to the building. The ball was being given by the Civil Service and open to all, just so long as you could afford the entrance fee.
‘You have to reveal your identity there, but nowhere else. You can wear it once you go inside. But it’s also prohibited to wear masks in the streets after sunset.’
‘Why?’
‘Long story. Who knows what the government are afraid of? Probably undesirables, I suppose, getting away with murder behind their masks. Maltese people resent unmasking though, it’s their tradition and I don’t blame them.
Once you’re inside the hall and masked, everyone is equal, not like the ghastly balls that used to be held at the Governor’s Palace. Terribly snobbish affairs.’
Riva had hired a costume and was dressed as Nefertiti, a queen of Ancient Egypt, and the wife of wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten.
She had a gold dress, a tall headdress and a black mask.
Bobby was dressed as Pharaoh in black and gold and they made an imposing couple.
A bit too imposing, Riva realised, as she saw how many eyes turned towards them when they entered the brightly lit hall.
In the months they’d been together, this was the first time they’d been out in public.
A tall man approached dressed as Sherlock Holmes and she realised it was Otto.
He drew her aside. ‘Can you come with me?’
She glanced at Bobby, who tilted his head. ‘I’ll find you,’ he said.
She followed Otto to an alcove away from the milling crowd and the band.
‘Aren’t you hot in that get-up?’ she asked him.
‘Yes. Crazy idea.’
‘You have news?’
‘I do. You remember telling me about seeing Stanley Lucas with Anya at the club.’
She nodded. ‘Yes, and about ten days ago I saw him with two other young girls. I was waiting to tell you. I’ve not seen those girls since.’
Riva had been keeping her eyes open and meeting Otto now and then to report her findings. So far nothing had seemed especially significant. New girls had come, and new girls had gone, but none had turned up dead – as far as she knew.
‘Well, Lucas has been arrested,’ Otto said.
‘For trafficking?’
‘No. For fraud, but I’m hoping it might convince the police to ferret out more about him. So far I have no proof he’s actually part of the trafficking gangs.’
‘He’s British, isn’t he? And wealthy?’
‘Yes, and that would make it unusual. Maybe others are procuring the girls for him, and he’s not actually involved in the mechanics of it, so to speak.’
‘Might he be passing the girls on elsewhere? Yesterday, Tommy-O told me he’d spotted Stanley Lucas with a girl who has not gone on to work in Strait Street.
‘He could have passed her on for a price. But thank you. You’re good at digging. Would you ever consider doing more to help the cause? You know, maybe work as my assistant? In your free time.’
She laughed. ‘I don’t think so. Maybe when I’m old and grey.’
He pulled a face.
‘Oh sorry, I didn’t mean you are old and grey. It’s just that I love dancing and I don’t have much free time.’
‘Well, if you ever change your mind … I’m going to start a campaign to rid us of white slavery and the traffic in women for prostitution.’
At that moment Bobby found them and pulled Riva away.
Forgetting Otto, she lost herself to the joy of the ball, spending the night dancing and drinking until she could barely stand.
Later, when they really couldn’t dance any more, they held on to each other, feeling overheated and sticky.
The smell, smoke, and sweating bodies became too much for Riva; her head fizzed with all the champagne, and jostled by the inebriated crowd she could barely move.
After a while Bobby took her hand and pushed them through the crowd to the garden beyond, where they sat in a courtyard beneath an indigo sky peppered with stars.
‘I’m too drunk to drive to Mdina,’ he said. ‘Can we go to yours?’
They rose to their feet and staggered along the streets, forgetting to remove their masks, laughing drunkenly about nothing, and holding each other up. Riva’s vision was blurred, and she was surprised when she finally focused on the bulky silhouettes of two policemen approaching them.
‘Leave it to me,’ Bobby muttered as he pulled off his mask.
‘Well done, sir. Silly rule if you ask me,’ one of the policemen said, instantly recognising him.
‘Sorry, Officer.’ He steered Riva away without her having to reveal her identity.
They walked to the gardens overlooking the harbour where they took their masks off and sat on a bench gazing out at the lights. ‘Let’s just stay here for a while,’ she said dreamily.
‘It’s four in the morning,’ he said, checking his watch.
‘Where’s your spirit of adventure?’
He laughed. ‘In bed with you.’
And then she had an idea. ‘Let’s go out on a dghaisa. I want to see the sun rising over the battlements of Fort St Elmo. Lottie told me it’s stunning and even after all this time I still haven’t seen it.’
‘And we can go for early morning coffee and doughnuts when we come back,’ he said, warming to the challenge.
They talked for a while, and he told her the rest of his pilot’s training would definitely be in England soon but that he’d be back after two months.
‘I don’t want you to ever feel tied to me,’ she said.
‘I want to be tied to you. There’s no one else.’
‘I wish we could go out with each other openly.’
‘It was you who said the other girls would kick up a fuss.’
‘Perhaps not now that they know me.’
He held her tight, and she rested her head against him, almost falling asleep. After a while he shook her gently. ‘Time to look for a dghaisa,’ he said.
They found one easily and as they were taken out on the water, she looked back at the town.
And then, as the fat morning sun came up, it painted everything pink and the battlements gradually turned red, scarlet even.
‘Ah,’ she whispered. ‘Just as if they are on fire. Isn’t Malta the most wonderful place on earth? ’