The Sun Goes Down

by James Lear

  “Beyond that, she’s harmless.”

  “She didn’t demand money, then?”

  “I doubt it very much. Everyone knows her. If she was a black mailer, she’d have been caught and stopped by now. Probably thrown from a clifftop herself.” He sounded for a moment as if he rather relished the idea. “But that is not the case. She’s a harmless old creature. Vella lashed out in distress, that is all.”

  “Then the question remains—why did Joseph Vella kill himself?”

  “Who knows the secrets of the human heart?” he said, staring towards the sea and rocks below.

  “If he did kill himself.”

  “You think otherwise?”

  “I have reason to doubt it.”

  “Then we must leave it to the police.”

  I had nothing to say on that score. What else could I discover from Deacon Peter? What possible information could a young priest, fresh off the boat from England, tell me about life on Gozo that I had not already learned for myself?

  “So what brings you here, Peter? Is it all part of the training?”

  “Yes, partly.”

  “Only partly? You mean you’re having a holiday as well?”

  He laughed, but his eyes were sad. “Far from it, I’m afraid.” He was about to say more, but changed his mind. “And you, Mitch? Work, or pleasure?”

  “I was invited by a colleague, the brigade surgeon to the garrison at Valetta, to give a second opinion on a patient of his.”

  “I see.”

  “But I also came out here to forget an unhappy love affair.”

  Peter looked out towards the headland, shading his eyes with his hand. He said nothing.

  I forged ahead. “Through my own stupidity, I betrayed the one man I have ever really loved.”

  No response—but at least he wasn’t crossing himself and spraying me with holy water.

  “And so, to get over him, I’m taking an extended break.”

  Nothing.

  “I loved Vince very much indeed,” I said. And what about Morgan? said a voice in my head, but there was no need to complicate matters further.

  He said nothing, but I could see from the movement of his shoulders that he was breathing heavily. I waited.

  “I’ve been got out the way,” he said at last. “I’m something of an embarrassment to the diocese.”

  “Why?”

  “There have been…inappropriate friendships.”

  “Ah.” Another one of us on Gozo? Was this just coincidence? Henry Jessop, Ned Porter, Captain Hathaway, Sergeant Major Conrad, Joseph Vella, me… Even by my optimistic standards this seemed like a pretty high strike rate. And now I could add Deacon Peter Allinson to the list. Who else? Frank Southern? Martin Dear? Was every man on the island a cocksucker?

  “You’re not shocked?”

  “Me? Hardly. I don’t think I’ve ever had an appropriate friendship.”

  “Everyone else thinks I’m going straight to hell. The clergy here haven’t even acknowledged the reason I’ve been sent. The nuns feed me and mother me. They’re watching me like hawks. I’ve been given one last chance, and if I slip up again that’s the end of my career.”

  “Would that be such a bad thing?”

  “All I’ve ever wanted to do is serve God.”

  “And you think you’re doing that by making yourself unhappy?”

  “If that’s the sacrifice that is demanded of me, then…” He ran out of steam, as unconvinced by the platitudes as I was.

  “At least with me you can be honest. You mean that if you have any inappropriate friendships while you’re here you’ll be sacked.”

  “Quite.”

  “But Peter, half the priests in the catholic church are sleeping with their housekeepers, and the other half are chasing choirboys around the vestry. They tell people one thing, but they do the other. They’re hypocrites.”

  He frowned, looking utterly miserable.

  “So what makes you so different? Can’t you serve God and yourself at the same time? We don’t live in a world of absolutes. Everything is compromise.”

  “I fell in love.”

  “Love is a good thing. It’s in the Bible a lot.”

  “Not my sort. Perverted love.”

  “You seem like an intelligent guy, Peter. You can’t really believe that crap.” He obviously wasn’t used to foul-mouthed Americans, but it was time to administer a verbal slap.

  “My faith dictates certain rules.”

  “Well those rules are wrong.”

  His eyes, wet with tears, met mine. I waited. At last he spoke again, so quietly I could barely hear him over the sea breeze. “Temptation is everywhere.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Not just the passing lure of the flesh. Real temptation. Real danger.”

  “Anyone in particular?” I asked, hoping he was going to confess that he could no longer resist me. Peter Allinson, for all his problems, was a very attractive young man. He reminded me, I realized with a pang, of Vince.

  “Yes.”

  “I see.” He didn’t pounce. Not me, then. “Someone here on the island now.”

  “Yes.”

  “Someone you’ve spoken to?”

  “Yes.”

  I racked my brains, and then remembered that strange passing moment on the ferry, when Henry Jessop and Peter Allinson faced each other across the deck, one blond and dressed in white, the other dark and dressed in black, a negative mirror, and the sudden shock in the young deacon’s eyes before he fled the boat…

  “Someone, perhaps, that you knew before?”

  “I must go back to the village. They will have missed me.”

  “And what will they do? Send out a search party of nuns?”

  He laughed, thank God. “Probably. God, how I dread those women and their kindness. They stifle me. Up here I can breathe.”

  An idea struck me. “Have you been to Gozo before?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  The truth was that I had remembered something Claire Suther land told me about the comings and goings she’d witnessed at the Continental Hotel in the old days, before the arrival of Tilly and Martin Dear. Something about a young clergyman carrying on with a mousy bluestocking—a liaison that had aroused Claire’s jealousy and spite. Was it possible that he, the errant cleric, was Peter Allinson on a previous visit? Had Claire misread the situation? “I just wondered. You seem so fond of the place.”

  “It’s very beautiful. But no, this is my first visit and, I suspect, my last. When I am sent home I will disappear into parish life, probably somewhere in the wilds of Ireland where I won’t be tempted.”

  “Irish boys are the worst. Believe me, I’m from Boston.”

  “Is there to be no peace for me?”

  “Not until you find it in yourself,” I said, my hand on my heart. Not a very convincing act, is it? I was as far from finding peace in my heart as anyone, and unlike Peter Allinson I’d left a trail of misery behind me. And how was I dealing with it? By fucking every hole that presented itself.

  “Thank you, Mitch. I appreciate your counsel. And now,” he said, standing up and brushing the grit from the seat of his pants, “I must return to reality.”

  For a moment we faced each other, the glow of the sunset behind Peter framing his broad shoulders, and I wondered what would happen if I closed the gap between us, stepped towards him over the rocks and grass and took him in my arms… And then he put his jacket on and fumbled for his collar studs, and we descended the path in silence.

  Down in the village, in the shadow of the cliffs, it was almost dark. Candles were burning here and there, and lights shone from behind shutters, but the promenade, usually so busy even at night, was deserted. Death had extended his hand over Xlendi again, and the people huddled in their homes—out of fear or respect I could not say.

  I felt sad and lonely. In the hurly-burly of Joseph Vella’s death, Captain Hathaway’s arrest and my subsequent attempts at investigation, I had forgotten
one painfully important fact: a young man had lost his life—a young man who, only two days ago, I had been intimate with. Everything I touched seemed to turn to ashes. When I get into this maudlin mood I need company. Male company, preferably, of the simple and straightforward kind.

  But Bill Conrad was back in Valetta, and the Continental Bar was deserted, the dining room empty. The Jessops, I presumed, had retreated to their rooms, and short of tapping on Henry’s door and risking the wrath of his watchful parents, I wasn’t going to get any joy there. Besides, the last thing I needed now was a confused young thief. I’d deal with him in the morning.

  I sat down heavily in an armchair, wondering if I could help myself to a drink. I’m not one of those that habitually turns to liquor, but my hands were beginning to shake as the shock of Vella’s death sank in.

  I went to the bar and surveyed the bottles, and that’s when I saw, sitting on the floor with his head in his hands, his clothes crumpled and stained, an obviously drunk Martin Dear.

  IX

  “MARTIN?”

  He looked up with red, unfocused eyes. “Oh. Mitch.”

  “What are you doing down there?”

  “Looking for my keys.” He sounded confused, half dazed.

  “Come on, man. Get up. You won’t find anything like that.” I extended a hand across the bar and pulled him to his feet. His pants were filthy, his shirt untucked, and he stank of scotch. He leaned against the bar, nearly knocking over a tray of glasses. “Better get you outside before the guests see you. Come on.”

  I managed to escort him unseen from the premises. It was cooling off outside, and we were no more than halfway along the harbor when the fresh air hit Martin and he doubled over and puked into the sea. The fish, I guessed, would make short work of that, and by the time holidaymakers were taking their morning swim it would all be cleared up.

  Vomiting sobered him up a bit, and he was able to walk unassisted in a more-or-less straight line. We made it as far as the inlet where I’d encountered the Captain sketching the bathers in happier times, and we sat on the rocks.

  “What’s your problem, Martin?”

  He hesitated for a while, rubbing his face vigorously with his hands, before saying, “Money. What else?”

  “I thought you’d sorted all that out when you went over to Valetta?”

  Martin sighed. “Fact of the matter, old man, we’re broke. Flat broke.”

  “How come?”

  “Do you have any idea how much it costs to run a business like the Continental?”

  “A lot.”

  “You said it. It’s like a bucket with a fucking great hole in the bottom. Cash runs through it like water. I can’t hold onto a penny.”

  “You spent a lot doing the place up.”

  “Tilly wanted everything to be perfect. The plumbing, the decoration, even put electricity in, a telephone. We don’t employ many people, but they all cost money. Not much I can say—it’s the wife’s money, after all. Up to her how she spends it.”

  “You seem to have plenty of guests, though.”

  “That’s the trouble. We’re not charging enough. Tilly refuses to put the prices up, because she doesn’t want to alienate our loyal customers. Why do you think people like the Jessops and Claire Sutherland keep coming back? They pay peanuts, that’s why.”

  “And you don’t think it’s worth it?”

  “All I can see is an empty bank account and an ever-increasing pile of debt. I can’t keep the creditors off our backs much longer. We might just about survive the season, but after that…” His stomach heaved again. “Oh God. I feel foul. I drank half a bottle of whiskey.”

  “As a doctor, I have to say that’s not a good idea.”

  “It’s either that, or join the queue to jump off the cliffs.” He spat onto the rocks at his feet. “Sorry. That was a rotten thing to say. Poor Joseph. Poor bastard.”

  “Did you know him?”

  “Just in the way you get to know the locals. Good morning, good evening, lovely weather and so forth. He did a bit of work around the hotel on occasion, although ‘work’ might not be quite the right word. Lazy sod. Oh, damn it, there I go again. But he was. Thought he was rather too good for it.”

  “That’s exactly what his father said.”

  “And now the poor feller would give anything to have his lazy good-for-nothing son back again, wouldn’t he? Funny old world.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  He flinched slightly. “About what?”

  “The financial situation.”

  “God alone knows. Borrow more, probably. If we could just touch five hundred quid or so, we’d be out of the woods. I don’t suppose you…”

  “I’m afraid not, Martin.”

  “Sorry. Wrong of me to ask. But I don’t know where else to turn.”

  “Perhaps Miss Sutherland could sell some of her jewelry.”

  “It wouldn’t raise a tenner. Paste, most of it. Costume stuff. She’s all show, that one. No substance.”

  “And the famous inheritance has run out?”

  “’Fraid so, old man.”

  “Bad planning on your part.”

  “We had a few unforeseen expenses.”

  “You mean the building works?”

  “I’ve made a few blunders.”

  “Gambling?”

  “Yes. I know I’m a fool, so you don’t need to tell me. I thought I was onto a dead cert, but I got fleeced. Expensive lesson. Won’t do it again.”

  “And is that all?”

  Martin was silent for a while, then said, “Do you remember what I said about certain letters that had arrived at the hotel?”

  “Of course. Poisonous stuff.”

  “Well there was a bit more to it than that.”

  “Ah.” I knew what he was going to say before he said it. The word that had echoed around the island ever since my arrival.

  “The fact is, old chap, we’re being blackmailed.”

  “Who by?”

  “I told you. That bloody old woman.”

  “Seriously? Why don’t you just tell the police?”

  “You don’t know the police around here. They’re not exactly friendly to newcomers.”

  “Then the British garrison. They look after their own. Malta is part of the Empire, for Christ’s sake.”

  “I don’t want to get them involved. I can sort it out for myself.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “it certainly looks that way.”

  “All right, all right.” Martin was getting angry; he was still drunk, and I didn’t particularly want to fight him. “You can be as sarcastic as you fucking well like but you don’t understand a thing.”

  “Try me.”

  “The fact is,” he said, his voice sounding lachrymose again, “I love my wife very, very much indeed.”

  I’ve heard this a thousand times, usually from men who are about to suck your cock. “Of course you do.”

  “And I would do anything to protect her.”

  “From what?”

  “Tilly has problems.”

  “Is she a gambler too?”

  “Good lord no. Far too sensible for that.”

  “Then what? A drug addict?”

  “Are you trying to be funny?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact. I can see it’s wasted on you, though.” I got up and turned back towards the village.

  “Don’t go, old man. I’m sorry. I’m such a bloody rude oaf, that’s what Tilly’s always telling me, and she’s right. I don’t know how to behave. I should never have come here. I’m not up to the job.”

  I sat down again. “Pull yourself together, Martin. Nobody wants to see you cry, least of all me. Now be a man, and tell me what’s what.”

  He took a deep breath. “Thank you, Mitch. You’re absolutely right. Stiff upper lip and all that. Well, the truth is that Tilly isn’t what she seems.”

  “You mean she has a double life?”

  “What I’m trying to say is that whe
n I met Tilly I thought she was the most wonderful, vivacious, sexy girl in the whole wide world. And she is. Absolutely ripping.”

  “Indeed.”

  “None of those inhibition whatsits. Up for anything. I thought I’d landed in clover. Couldn’t believe my luck. And she wanted to marry me! Me! I’ve never been good for much. Just one thing. And it happened to be the thing that Tilly loves more than anything.”

  “Fucking.”

  “If you must put it so crudely. I started when I was twelve with a friend of my sister’s, and I’ve never looked back. Women like me, Mitch. I can’t help it.”

  “I’m sure they do. And Tilly?”

  “Tilly liked me very much. Couldn’t get enough. Used to wear me out, to be honest. I never thought I’d say this, but sometimes it was too much of a good thing. She was never satisfied. And then…”

  “You weren’t enough for her any more.”

  “How did you guess?”

  “I know people like that,” I said. “They’re never satisfied with one partner, no matter how much they love them.”

  “Tilly to a T. She can’t help it, anymore than I can help drinking or gambling. We’re a pretty pair.”

  “And someone found out.”

  “She was never careful. Married men, young men, some of them very young indeed. Policemen. Soldiers. She’s even had a go at the priests.”

  “And guests?”

  “Who knows? I can’t watch her all the time.”

  “And now she’s threatened with exposure.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Forgive me, Martin, but this all sounds a bit farfetched. Who would go to the trouble of blackmailing Tilly? Why?”

  “For money.”

  “Then pay up and tell her to fuck off.”

  “If I do that, she will expose us.”

  “So what? You think anyone cares?’

  “You don’t understand the people out here, Mitch. They’d be coming up the steps of the hotel with pitchforks and burning torches if they knew Tilly was screwing their husbands and sons. They don’t care if a man goes out and sows his wild oats, but a woman?” He shook his head. “That’s a different matter.”

  “And what does Tilly say?”

  “She’s made it quite clear that if I try to stop her from doing what she wants to do, she’ll leave me. But if I have to keep paying up, we go bust. Oh God, Mitch, what am I going to do?”