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.He was slim,tall by Maltese standards, with greying hair, an arresting, shall we say,moustache, and an air of fatigue about him, not so much from the lateness ofthe hour, I thought, as the chronic weariness of seeing too much of theseamier side of life. We don t get a lot of this kind of thing, you know.Oh, there s no questionpeople kill each other from time to time.Domestic situations, usually.Findthe culprit right away.And people like to throw bombs in doorways every nowand then.Blood feuds of some kind, politics at the heart of it most of thetime.But people don t normally get killed by the blast that often.We havemore trouble with fireworks factories blowing up as a matter of fact.Thatseems to happen pretty regularly. He tossed his pen and notebook onto the desk. I expect it s the wife, hesaid. It usually is.Cherchez la femme, you know. Marilyn Galea? I find that hard to believe.Too quiet, timid even. Ah, but it s often the quiet ones& We both thought that one over for aminute or two, before he continued, And you know what they say about women inMalta.That when St.Paul was shipwrecked here, he rid the island of poisonoussnakes by transferring the venom to women s tongues! No, I didn t know that, I said, in what I hoped were suitably acid tones.Perhaps, I thought, I should introduce this man to Anna Stanhope and watch herhave a go at him.Then, thinking how more than anything, I just wanted to go home, I said, Isshe coming over? To claim the body and make arrangements for& you know? I expect she might, if we could find her to tell her.Gone missing, it seems.Hasn t been seen since sometime yesterday.Cherchez la femme, as I said.Anyway, why don t we call it a day? It s nearlymidnight, and there isn t much more we can do until we get the coroner sreport.If we get the coroner s report, that is. He sighed loudly again.I wondered what that meant.I didn t want to ask. You wouldn t be thinking of leaving Malta in the next day or two, would you?No? Then I ll get someone to drive you back to the house.I think it ll begood to have you staying there.Who knows, maybe the mystery guests will showup, one of them with a sign saying I m the murderer. Or someone whoconfesses to killing Galea because he wasn t considered important enough to beinvited to the party.You never know! As he spoke, he watched my face, andevidently thought better of his attempts at humor. I ll get someone to watchthe house at night, if it would make you feel better, he offered.I told himit would.After checking every door and window in the place, and peering intently intothe backyard to see if the hooded creature was there, I sat in the dark in theliving room of Martin Galea s nearly perfect house, and thought about the day.Had it not been for the fact that this was all the result of a murder, itwould have seemed rather funny, in a Monty Python kind of way.Page 36 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlAfter my initial screaming fit, my northern temperament reasserted itself, andI got a grip, admittedly tenuous, on myself.This could not be said for theothers.I have never heard such a din.Everyone was screaming and yelling.Marissa took it all particularly badly, overcome by a really serious attack ofhysteria, which ended only when she fainted dead away.The cousins, the truckdriver, everyone was crying and waving their arms around.I headed for the telephone.I had no idea how to reach the police, of course,so I tried to get an operator.I got a recording of some sort, which in my shaken state I tried to engage inconversation.I assumed it was telling me in Maltese that all the lines werebusy, that my call was important to them, and that I should stay on the line.Then there came extremely loud and raucous music, disco style, seeminglyeveryone s favorite in Malta.On this occasion it was disconcerting, to saythe least
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