Chapter 50
Florence
Their passage home was still nine days away.
Florence wished she knew at least something about Rosalie’s life that she could give her mother before she died.
Before she died. The words went round and round in her head.
Florence’s sleep had been dreadfully troubled because of what was happening to Claudette, of course, but something else was playing at the edge of her mind just out of reach.
Something about Rosalie that she just couldn’t work out.
That evening she and Jack went out for a meal at the British Hotel and were seated at a table with a wonderful view of the harbour, the reflected lights from ships and boats sparkling in the water.
‘Like fairyland, isn’t it?’ Florence said and sighed. ‘But I just can’t relax.’
‘Try. It will do you good.’ He reached for her hand and gently squeezed it. Then, as she saw his green eyes shining as he smiled at her, something lit up in her mind and then exploded.
‘Oh my God!’ she gasped. ‘Oh my God.’
‘What?’
‘My mother told me Rosalie had blue eyes. How could I have forgotten? I was so shocked at seeing her, or rather seeing a dead body like that, it just didn’t sink in. All I could see was the red hair and the bracelet. But the woman in the mortuary … Jack, her eyes were brown, not blue.’
Jack bent towards her. ‘Then—’
‘Yes. She wasn’t … she isn’t, Rosalie. I don’t know if they’re doing a post-mortem or not. But I know she wasn’t Rosalie, which means Rosalie may still be alive. May even still be here in Malta!’
They walked home slowly and made love for the first time in days.
Until now Florence had felt too preoccupied but afterwards, while Jack slept, she lay awake trying to think of her next steps.
But she was so tired of searching with no results that eventually she curled her body next to Jack, closed her eyes, and fell asleep too.
First thing the next morning she contacted Cam to say she needed to rescind her identification. Told him that the woman wasn’t Rosalie, and that they should identify the dead woman from dental records.
Back at the apartment a letter arrived from the archivist at the Times of Malta. He hadn’t been able to find any mention of Rosalie Delacroix. She sighed, feeling her spirits plummeting after the euphoria of the evening before.
‘Jack,’ she said after he made her breakfast. ‘I’m now absolutely sure Rosalie changed her name. It’s the only explanation I can think of.’
‘Or she may have been here for such a short time that nobody remembers her.’
‘Maybe, but I need to ask the archivist at the Times if any French women were involved in the enquiry into the white slavery issue. I’ll do the search myself if they’ll let me.’
As she sipped her coffee, he asked her what else she wanted to do.
‘I don’t know. I’m wondering if there’s anything I can do before we leave, as well as contacting the archivist again I mean.’
‘You tried the churches?’
‘Yes, we went through the records, but just the big ones. There are village churches, damaged churches where they’re likely to only speak Maltese. Cam knows where they all are and he was going to help me, but we got side-tracked by the news of the dead woman.’
‘Well, there you are. If Cam is still willing to help, that’s the one last thing you can do.’
‘You mean the woman was murdered?’ she said a little later, staring at Cam in shock.
‘Yes. Her dental records have identified her as Charlotte Lambden. She was English, married to an Archie Lambden. Because of strangulation marks on her neck and certain historic injuries, her husband has been arrested, although he’s not yet been charged.
They have her marriage certificate and her birth certificate so it’s all above board. ’
‘The poor woman. I can’t help wonder why she had Rosalie’s bracelet?’
‘Who knows? Maybe Rosalie sold it.’
‘She might have if she’d needed cash.’
They set off to look at records in some of the smaller village churches. By the time Florence and Cam had already been to three, reading through records until their eyes were stinging from heat and concentration, Cam said, ‘Shall we give up? Have some lunch. I’ve got to work this afternoon.’
‘Just one more,’ she pleaded.
In Rabat they arrived at a gorgeous little sixteenth-century church called Santa Maria Ta’ Doni and Florence instantly loved the charm of it.
‘Will there be anyone else here?’ she asked, heat bearing down on the back of her neck as she marvelled at the golden stone of the edifice.
‘No, but I have the key,’ Cam said.
He unlocked and pushed open the creaking door.
Inside it was beautifully cool and the place looked in relatively good condition. ‘So what’s wrong with it? Why is it out of use?’ she asked, glancing around at the frescoed walls. ‘It doesn’t look too bad.’
‘It wasn’t damaged during the war but soon afterwards a small unexploded Italian bomb went off through there.’ He pointed in the direction of a vestry. ‘Don’t worry, it’s safe to go through now.’
While Cam looked around Florence explored the damaged vestry, sifting through papers that must have been lying around since the bomb exploded.
There were letters and ledgers, yellowing newspapers with announcements of births, deaths and marriages, prayer books splayed out on the floor, orders of service sheets and hymn sheets fluttering in the breeze, and piles of old handwritten sermons.
She heard Cam calling her and was just about to go through to him when something caught her eye. A torn piece of paper sticking out from beneath a prayer book with just four letters visible. Rosa. She almost left it but then turned back. It couldn’t hurt to look.
As she pulled the whole thing out, she skimmed the words, then read them again more slowly, her hands trembling with excitement. ‘Oh my Lord,’ she whispered. A letter. It was a letter.
Hardly able to breathe, she called Cam. ‘Look,’ she said, waving it at him as he came in. ‘It’s her.’
She read Rosalie’s name out loud. ‘Surely it must be her? Rosalie Delacroix.’
The letter was from someone called Group Captain Robert Beresford, written in 1942 asking the priest to read the bans for a wedding to take place in late May between himself and Rosalie Delacroix.
He glanced at it and grinned. ‘Good grief. That is a find.’
‘Let’s see if we can find out when the wedding took place.’
They searched the vestry, but the register of weddings appeared to be missing. Destroyed or moved elsewhere? They didn’t know.
‘Did they get married?’ she muttered over and over. ‘Did they? Oh, I feel so tantalisingly close. To get this far and draw a blank would be so disappointing. I need to check the registry of marriages in the town hall, again. There has to be something. Doesn’t there?’
‘Agreed.’
‘Come on then,’ she said, tugging at his elbow. ‘Let’s go. I want to find Jack.’
Half an hour later Cam had gone back to his office, and Florence and Jack arrived at the registry but there they ran out of luck.
The officious pimply clerk shook his head and told them they only had records from 1944 onwards, as all the rest had been destroyed during the war.
‘Can you just check the names please?’ Florence said. ‘We think the marriage would have been in May 1942, but it might have been delayed.’
He nodded reluctantly and took them through to a gloomy room where everything was recorded in date order. ‘You can look for yourselves,’ he said.
But even though they searched every entry, they found nothing.
‘They may have gone back to England,’ Florence said. ‘Left Malta and married in England after the war. Or France I suppose.’
She felt deflated. To come this far but be left no closer.
‘When we go back to England,’ Jack suggested, ‘we can check the records there.’
She thought about it and shook her head. ‘First,’ she said, ‘I want to find out more about this Group Captain Robert Beresford. If the War Office here is still open. They’ll know.’
In the morning the girl who greeted them at the reception desk of the War Rooms frowned when they enquired about Beresford.
‘I’m so sorry. I’m new. Most of us working here are civilians brought in just to wind things up. The military have gone, taking their confidential records with them.’
They thanked her and were about to leave when an older woman walked in carrying some files.
‘Could you update these?’ she said and briskly turned to go back to wherever she had come from.
‘Oh Linda, hold on a minute,’ the younger woman piped up. ‘These people are asking about a Group Captain Beresford. I wondered if you knew him. You were here during the war, weren’t you?’
Linda nodded. ‘I was a plotter and yes, I did know him.’ She turned to Florence and Jack. ‘Why are you asking?’
‘I’m looking for someone,’ Florence said. ‘I think he may have been going to marry my aunt.’
‘What was her name?’
‘Rosalie Delacroix.’
Linda shook her head. ‘No. I don’t think he ever married someone of that name.
Not that I heard anyway. It was all rather tragic.
He was involved with a woman here though.
Riva, a fine woman with whom I worked. But he was killed outright.
An unexpected bomb you know, just when things were really going our way.
So dreadfully upsetting. Now if you’ll excuse me. ’ She took a step away.
‘I’m sorry to hear that but do you happen to know where Riva is now?’
‘No. I’m afraid I haven’t seen or heard from her since 1943. That’s when Robert Beresford died.’
‘Did she marry him?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t say.’
Florence felt sorry for Rosalie. She must have been devastated if he had married someone else.
‘Come on,’ Jack said. ‘We’d better be off.’
But then Florence felt a bolt of energy run through her and suddenly she knew. ‘This Riva. What did she look like?’
Linda looked surprised to be asked. ‘Stunning actually. Red hair and French originally, but with perfect English.’
‘Do you know anything else? Her surname maybe.’
‘Ah yes. Janvier, that was it. She enjoyed quite a colourful life. A dancer and then an editor. Did quite a bit for the girls who worked in Strait Street too.’
Florence bit her lip in excitement.
‘Still exists,’ the woman continued. ‘Cabaret, music hall and girls. Not as bad as it used to be though. Her work got the place cleaned up a bit. Now I’m sorry I really must go.’
‘Where did you last see her?’
‘Here. But you might try the land registry. I think Beresford had a place near the RAF Officer’s Mess at the Xara Palace. She used to go there with him. Good luck with your search. I’m sorry, I have a meeting now.’
Florence gripped Jack’s hand and whispered. ‘I’m sure this Riva woman is Rosalie. Remember that my mother always said she was a brilliant dancer and had secretly worked in cabaret in Paris.’
At the land registry they found a helpful studious young man who allowed them to search first for Riva Janvier. ‘She might have carried on living there after Beresford died,’ Florence said.
But they could find nothing about a woman called Riva Janvier.
‘Linda hadn’t seen or heard from her in over three years. Strikes me she must have left the island,’ Jack said. ‘Shall we go?’
‘Hang on a minute.’
She carried on searching and after a few more moments grinned with excitement. ‘Oh my God! I knew it. Look.’ Her heart was racing as she tapped the line she’d spotted. It was an address in Mdina that had belonged to one Rosalie Beresford since 1943.
Jack gazed at it and continued to read. ‘And before that it was owned by someone called Addison Darnell and Sir Robert Beresford, Baronet. Bloody hell!’
‘Rosalie,’ Florence whispered. ‘Oh, Rosalie, are you still there? And if you aren’t, where are you now?’