by James Lear
And there were other parallels. Ned and Joseph were both queer, both leading secret lives, perhaps prey to blackmail or worse. Someone was targeting men like us. Whose body would be found next? Henry Jessop’s? The Captain’s? Mine?
A commotion among the crowd alerted me to the arrival of the authorities. Not, as I had hoped, the police, but a priest. An elderly man weighed down with robes of purple and gold, an ornate hat on his head. He was supported by a younger man in plain black clericals and a dog collar, broad shoulders, dark hair—and with a start I recognized the priest from the ferry: the nervous, handsome face; the fine body hidden by black wool, so quickly swallowed up by his attendant nuns. A priest-in-training, perhaps, posted to Gozo for the summer, and here he was by the Xlendi shore about to administer the last rites to a beautiful, dead young man.
Joseph’s friends lifted the body from the boat and took him to the shade of Vella’s bar, where tables had been pushed together as a makeshift bed. I accompanied them as far as I could, but there was little opportunity to examine the wound. From the depth and diameter of the trauma site, as well as its ragged edges, it looked as if he had been hit repeatedly with a large, hard object, probably a rock. There was dried blood on his face, and no other sign of injury to the rest of his body. A man jumping off a high cliff probably gets struck several times, and is likely to land on his back or his side, not directly on his temple. I would expect further damage to the clothes, the limbs, possibly the rest of the face. This had all the signs of a setup, a dead body placed to suggest an accident, forcing a conclusion to which everyone would be eager to jump. So much easier to accept than murder. And when the whispers started about Joseph’s sexual activities—people must already know; it’s hard to keep secrets in small communities—then nobody would be asking questions. Another dead queer. Better off without them. Church, police, army, navy, all would agree. And nobody would rejoice more than the Black Crow, whose flapping shawl and bony hands I could see approaching down the road, attracted to the smell of death as surely as her namesake. Vile old bitch, I thought, and before I said anything that might damage my relations with the locals beyond repair, I retreated to the cool of the Continental lounge.
I was shaking, and I needed a drink. It was siesta time, so the bar was empty, just Ralph wiping glasses. I ordered a beer and took a seat by the rear window. I needed time to think.
The biggest problem was the police. From the way in which they had investigated Ned Porter’s death—the unsupported blackmail story, the suicide note that nobody saw—I assumed they were more interested in covering up the truth than bringing it to light. The military authorities on Malta were little better, besides which they had no interest in the death of a civilian. In my previous encounters with murder I’ve had to work without police help, sometimes in direct opposition to the official line of enquiry, but here, in a country whose morals, procedures and language I did not understand, I was at a disadvantage. And what business was it of mine? Yes, I’d fucked Joseph Vella, and I’m always sorry to see a piece of ass like that go to waste, but I was a transient, a tourist, not a friend, barely an acquaintance. If the cops did start asking questions things might get difficult for me, but I was pretty sure that Joseph told nobody about our clifftop liaison, and left no record. If anyone saw us climbing the cliffs that evening, I could simply tell the truth—he was showing me the local sights. He’d been seen, safe and well, for days after that. There was nothing to connect me with his death.
My intensive reading of Agatha Christie and Conan Doyle leads me to believe that if two deaths share similar features, there is bound to be a connection between them. It could be a simple one—a single killer with the same modus operandi, picking off his victims for personal gain or to conceal a secret. One death (as is often the case for Poirot and Marple) might be a deliberate distraction, establishing an apparent pattern that leads any investigator on a wild goose chase. Whenever a murder is repeated or echoed, there is a link. It is never just chance. There was one glaring connection between Ned Porter and Joseph Vella, of course—they were queer. And that was precisely why their deaths would not be examined too closely. Except by me.
But who would know about their secret lives? Perhaps the Black Crow had a network of spies, or the police had informers, but it seemed far-fetched. It’s always been my experience that you set a queer to catch a queer—isn’t that why Frank Southern invited me to Gozo in the first place? If anyone on the island knew the link between Ned and Joseph, it was likely to be one of us. And that brought someone to mind: Captain Hathaway. He fit the profile, and unlike Henry and me, or the soldiers stationed in Victoria, he was a permanent resident. He must know something.
Time for me to climb up that hill path and offer my services as a life model.
I finished my beer and went to the bar to pay. I opened my wallet, felt around for money—and it was empty.
I stood and stared like an imbecile, wondering if I’d emptied it when I went up to my room; my head was spinning, I could have done any stupid thing. But no, I remembered checking the money after I’d been attacked in Valetta—it was all there, every penny— and I had no reason for emptying it. I’d put it by the side of my bed, as I always do, and then I’d closed my eyes and gone to sleep.
Someone had stolen the money.
And only one person had been in my room. Henry Jessop.
Was that what drew him—burglary? Common theft? Was the rest an act to cover his tracks? If so, it was the most thorough and elaborate act I’ve ever witnessed. He took my cock long and hard, shot a huge load and seemed to enjoy it to the point of ecstasy. Did he think I’d be so fuck-struck that I wouldn’t report him to the police, or at least the hotel management? I was intrigued by the mixture of brazenness, stupidity and lust—and I wanted to know what would happen next. A few bucks was a small price to pay for an adventure; the bulk of my money was securely stashed in the hotel safe. I certainly didn’t intend to distract the police with petty theft—they had a murder on their hands, if they bothered to investigate it. For all I knew, they might already know who killed Joseph Vella, or at least have suspects in the frame. I could handle a light-fingered boy like Henry Jessop. If he was a sneak-thief, that gave me power over him—the power to reveal his guilt to the Dears and to his parents. That might give me the leverage I needed for extra fucks.
I could imagine his blue eyes wide with shock as I gave him my ultimatum. I was hard again. Pocketing my empty wallet, I left the hotel and walked slowly down the steps to the harbor, laughing to myself.
I rounded the corner just in time to see a police car pulling away up the Victoria Road. Two uniformed officers were in the front, and in the back, his flabby face putty-colored with fear, was Captain Hathaway. His eyes met mine for a moment, and he was gone.
I know enough about how cops treat queers in America and England to fear for the Captain’s safety in a police cell on a small Mediterranean island where, perhaps, standards were not even as high as at home. There were two unexplained deaths, and here was a convenient patsy on whom to pin them—a man who, by his own admission, had created a mountain of evidence of sexual misconduct. I could hear him now, trying to explain to some cigar-chomping cop that his paintings and photographs of naked men were “art,” that there were publications and collectors in Europe and America who thought very highly of him. They wouldn’t listen. Ned Porter and Joseph Vella were both known to be sexually active with other men. They were dead, and the community, under the leadership of the Black Crow and her vengeful ilk, demanded a scapegoat. One elderly Englishman more or less wasn’t going to make much difference to anyone on the island, apart, perhaps, from a handful of young men who benefited from the Captain’s generosity. It would be so easy to concoct a case against Captain Hathaway. Such minor details as motivation or opportunity could be overlooked. A man like him, whose very nature was an unspeakable crime, was capable of any offence. Guilty before he was even charged. If I didn’t do something, the Captain would spend
the rest of his life in police custody. Perhaps they’d offer him the chance to kill himself. Perhaps they’d do it for him and make it look like an accident.
The evidence against the Captain was circumstantial but damning enough. He probably knew Ned Porter—a good-looking young soldier like that would not have escaped his attention. Had Ned modeled for the Captain? And what of Joseph? Had he dipped into the Captain’s wallet as he tried to dip into mine? There had been much talk of blackmail—perhaps Joseph had found out about both the Captain and Ned Porter, and had been squeezing every penny he could out of them until Ned killed himself and then, two years later, the Captain turned on his persecutor in a fit of rage, bashing his brains out and dumping him at the bottom of a cliff. That made sense—one murder that looked like a suicide, one suicide that looked like a murder, linked by the same man, the apparently innocuous English Captain, one crime covering and complicating another, a distorting mirror…
What was I doing? Using my reading of detective stories to incriminate Captain Hathaway, the man I was supposed to be helping? There are times when even Agatha Christie doesn’t provide all the answers. You have to look at facts, not fiction.
I couldn’t let go of the idea of blackmail. A convenient smokescreen, especially if there were queers involved, but there was every chance that it really had been happening. It was possible that the Captain himself was the blackmailer, sniffing out the vulnerable, flattering them into modeling for him, getting embarrassing photographs and using the evidence to generate an income. How else could he afford that nice clifftop villa? By selling his paintings? I doubted it—and navy pensions aren’t that generous, even for retired Captains. Ned Porter, Joseph Vella, God knows who else. There had been talk of poison-pen letters arriving at the hotel; maybe the Captain had something on the proprietors of the Continental. Was Tilly screwing island boys? Or was Martin? They told me the Black Crow was writing those letters, but it’s easy to blame a crazy old woman. Maybe she was working with the Captain. Maybe, between them, they’d driven Ned and Joseph to their deaths.
But blackmail, however despicable, isn’t the same as murder. You hang for murder.
Evening strollers were beginning to appear on the promenade, and the last thing I wanted was some stupid conversation with Claire Sutherland. I needed to gather information while it was hot and fresh, so I made my way to Vella’s bar. It was here that the grieving father had retreated, accompanied by the priests and one or two friends. The shutters were up, but the wailing from within was perfectly audible—streams of hysterical Maltese, in which I could occasionally make out the word “Allah,” and occasional bursts of English. “That old bitch,” I heard, or maybe “witch,” and “the evil eye” over and over again. From this I assumed that Vella in some way blamed the Black Crow for his son’s death, whether for rational or superstitious reasons it was hard to say. I know that old women like the Black Crow, once they get a bad name, are blamed for everything from failed crops to miscarriages; maybe that was Vella’s immediate assumption, in the senseless maelstrom of grief. But perhaps there was more to her than met the eye; perhaps her crazy shawls and swiveling eyes were part of an act, disguising criminal intent.
The bar door opened and slammed shut, and a black-clad figure issued forth. The young priest I’d seen on the ferry, his face pale and tense as he stumbled away from the house, a hand over his mouth. I guess he wasn’t used to death and grief, something that barely affects me after years in the medical profession. He leaned against the wall, mopping his forehead with a handkerchief.
At times like this any source of information is useful, particularly one as attractive as the young priest, ill at ease in his heavy black suit, the tight dog collar pressing into his neck. For want of other avenues, I’d interrogate him.
“Father. Are you all right?”
He jumped when he saw me, scowling towards the shadows.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” I stepped forwards, hand extended. “Dr. Mitchell. We came over on the same boat. I’m staying at the Continental.” We shook; his palm was sweaty. “How’s he doing in there? Must be a terrible shock.”
“Yes. To lose a son…” His voice was deep and quiet, the accent English, educated. “Father Edward is praying with him now.”
“If he needs any medical assistance, I can look in on him. A sedative, perhaps.”
“Thank you. His friends will take care of him.”
The young priest looked around, uncertain of what to do with himself. Crowds were forming on the promenade, small gossiping huddles, fingers pointing towards the cliff, the bar.
“Why don’t we take a walk, father? Looks like you need to clear your head.” He seemed uncertain, so I led the way. “Come on. We can get to the cliffs up here. Nice and peaceful.” That did the trick, and he followed me up the steep path, taking the steps with ease. His legs were long and powerful; underneath that ghastly black suit he had an athletic build. By the time we reached the top, I was considerably more out of breath than he was.
Rather than taking him straight to Joseph Vella’s little hut and fucking his holy brains out, which I might have done had it not been disrespectful to the dead, I decided to practice my other favorite vice: detection. He may have heard things in Vella’s bar or from the island gossips that eluded me.
“What was poor old Vella saying about the evil eye?”
“These local superstitions. They are persistent.”
“And who does he blame?”
“An unfortunate old woman who haunts the island. She is well known to the priests.”
“Does he have any special reason for blaming her for his son’s death?”
“None that I can see.”
“Have you spoken to her?”
“Not in person. I am, at present, only a deacon.” He paused, and then said, in a lighter tone of voice than I had yet heard him use, “I’m sorry. I’ve just realized that I haven’t even had the courtesy to introduce myself. Peter Allinson. Deacon Peter Allinson.”
We shook again; his hand was warmer now. “Edward Mitchell. And how does one address a deacon? Father? Brother?”
“Deacon, if you must, but I’d prefer you to call me Peter.”
“In that case, I would prefer you to call me Mitch.”
Up here on the cliffs, with the wind in his black hair, he seemed to walk taller and more freely. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” he said, shading his eyes against the setting sun as it dipped towards the headland. “I’ve had no time to appreciate the wonders of the island. Down there one does little but pray and shake hands and fill in forms.”
“Yes, up here you’re free. You could take off that jacket, for instance. I won’t tell the Bishop.”
“Please don’t,” he said, smiling.
“It’s many, many years since my last confession,” I said, “and I don’t intend to start bothering priests now.”
“Well, here goes.” The jacket came off, and after some fiddling with studs at the back of his shirt, so did the collar. “That thing must have been responsible for more failed vocations than anything else.”
“Don’t you have to wear a hair shirt anymore? Or one of those spiked belts underneath your pants?”
“It’s no longer obligatory,” he said, “although I believe some of the older priests take the mortification of the flesh very seriously indeed.”
“Not you, though.”
“I am painfully aware of my failings. I don’t need a reminder.”
That sounded promising, and I made a mental note to undermine any vows of chastity he may have taken. “That’s the difference between the doctor and priest,” I said. “I don’t see physical things as failings. There is nothing finer in this world than the human body realizing its full potential.”
“Man is created in the image of God,” said Peter, then laughed at his own piety. “Oh, it’s been so long since I just walked in the sun.”
“Come on then. Let’s run.” He didn’t need to be asked twice
, and, even encumbered by heavy clothes, he outpaced. He reached a sandstone outcrop that afforded a good view back to the village and waited for me to catch up.
“I’ve spent too long indoors.”
We sat on the rock. His guard was down; I could ask more questions. “Is she crazy then? The old lady? I call her the Black Crow.”
“That’s not very kind. She’s a widow, and she lost both her sons. They went out fishing and never came back.”
I stifled a laugh, and disguised it as a cough. “The manager of the hotel I’m staying at says she sends unpleasant letters to people.”
“I believe so. Very unfortunate.”
“Very upsetting for the people who get them.”
“Of course, of course.” He stared at his feet, seemingly dismayed by the mystery of evil. “But we must have compassion.”
“For her, or for her victims?”
“For all, of course.”
“Even if she’s destroying lives?”
“Oh come now, Mitch, you don’t really believe an old woman like that would drive people to suicide, do you? She’s a vindictive old woman who deals with her own grief by inflicting it on others. She believes she’s doing God’s work, like Jonah when he was sent to Nineveh. Every parish has someone like her. The breed thrives in England, believe it or not, but they don’t go flapping around in black shawls. They arrange flowers in churches and organize bazaars, and they’re every bit as unpleasant as her. As a deacon one of my jobs is to keep people like that away from the priests, which means listening to their incessant, malicious chatter. It’s a penance.”
“You can say that again. Who needs hair shirts?”
