“But the house, when he gets there, is now occupied,” Tabone said.
“Exactly!” I said. “I show up at the house and spoil that part of it. So they try to scare me away with the dead cat, and maybe even try to kill me with that business with the brakes, but neither works and the house would remain off limits to them.”
“If this is true, then where the plan to use Galea’s house really ran into a glitch,” Rob said, “is when Galea turned up here dead, a fact that must surely have put a crimp in their plans. It’s ironic when you think about it. Sidjian plans this down to the last detail. But Franco stuffs Galea into a large chest to buy himself some time, not knowing that the furniture is destined to arrive here the next day.”
“But what about the yellow sticker? It was the wrong piece of furniture,” I asked, then answered my own question. “It’s probably as simple as Galea changing his mind about which piece of furniture he wanted to send. He changed the sticker himself probably, or Marilyn did.”
“We’ll probably never know the answer to that one, with Martin dead and Marilyn nowhere to be found,” Rob replied. “But given that this is what happened, which I still really can’t buy, your explanation is as good as any.”
Tabone said excitedly, “Sidjian, who is already here and has seen Lara in the house, begins working on alternate plan B, the fallback position as Lara calls it. He isn’t in contact with Franco yet, and anyway, he has no way of knowing how long Lara will be here. She might well leave before Franco arrives, and they can go back to the original plan. But then Galea turns up in the furniture, and that means plan A is as dead as Galea is. What a terrible waste, if it’s true.”
We all sat and thought about it for a while. Finally Rob spoke up, “I don’t suppose that I have to point out that if the evidence linking Galizia to the assassination plot is rather thin, the evidence linking him to Galea is virtually non-existent. It wouldn’t even qualify as circumstantial, interesting though all this may be. We’ll have to continue the investigation into Galea’s death in Canada. I’m not the officer in charge of the investigation, but I’ll tell him about Falcone and our theories about the link. It’ll be up to him and our superiors as to whether they think this does it or not.
“One thing, though, Lara. You may have to come to terms with the idea that Marilyn Galea is dead. If our theory is true, then Marilyn was probably killed by Falcone too. He just did a better job of dealing with her body. Maybe he killed her, hid the body, and waited for Galea to come home. It was the maid’s day off, you’ll recall. In any event, her credit cards have not been used, no checks have been cashed, since the day Galea died. It doesn’t look good.”
“I know,” I said. “I’d already thought of that. As much as I don’t want her to be the killer, I don’t want her to be dead even more.”
“I think,” Rob said gently, “that we would be better off concentrating on how to prove that Galizia is guilty.”
Later that day, Rob and I went over to the Farragia house in Siggiewi. Marissa had called to tell me that she and Joseph had decided to tell Anthony everything-—about his acceptance at the University of Toronto, his inheritance, and about his father. She said they’d very much appreciate having me there, and Rob too, if he’d come, as neutral parties, and in case their courage failed them.
We joined them in their tiny living room for a cup of tea. All three Farrugias were there as was Sophia. There was lots of idle chitchat for some time, but eventually, Marissa got around to the subject at hand. Joseph sat quietly, almost numb with anxiety, in a chair in a dark corner of me room.
“Anthony,” Marissa said quietly, “we have some news for you. About University, and about other things. Your father and I have done something we aren’t proud of, and we owe you an apology. Our only excuse, I guess, is that we love you and we have been afraid of losing you, so afraid that our judgment has been clouded.”
Anthony looked surprised and slightly baffled by this turn in the conversation.
“You’ve been accepted at the University of Toronto,” his mother told him, “but not, regrettably, in Rome. We opened your letters and we shouldn’t have done mat. I’m sorry. We both are. The letters are here,” she said, handing them to him.
Anthony looked at them carefully, and then said, “I know there’s no way we can afford for me to go,” he said to his parents. “I’m just happy to know I was accepted.”
“But it is possible you will be able to study,” Marissa went on. “Mr. Galea has left you some money in his will. It may be a while before you get it, but Lara has talked to Mr. Galea’s lawyers, and we think you can get a student loan until Mr. Galea’s money comes to you.”
Anthony looked absolutely stunned, then jubilant. He got up and hugged his mother, then Sophia, and then went over to Joseph. Joseph, looking close to tears, patted his son on the shoulder, but said nothing.
“That’s nice of Mr. Galea, isn’t it, Mum?” Anthony said. “Why would he do that, I wonder?”
“He did it because… I knew him before, a long time ago. But he went away. I thought he’d come back, but he didn’t, until last year. He didn’t know, then, I mean, but when he came back, he knew. He did it because he knew, because he was…”
Anthony looked at her, trying in vain, I could tell, to comprehend what she was saying. Joseph slumped in his chair and covered his eyes. Marissa looked at me, and then Rob, pleading with her eyes. She tried to speak, but couldn’t. I opened my mouth to speak, but my throat felt dry, and I couldn’t get any words out either.
“What your mother is trying to tell you, Anthony,” Rob said gently, “is that Martin Galea was your dad.”
Anthony’s eyes searched all our faces, looking intently at each of us for a few seconds. Marissa had tears running down her face, I still couldn’t speak, Joseph slumped even lower in his chair and would not look at his son.
“No!” Anthony exclaimed suddenly. “Dads help you with your schoolwork. They go and speak to the school principal so he won’t expel you when you’ve done something bad. Dads teach you to play football and tell you everything about girls. And most of all,” he said, his face flushed, “dads are nice to your mum!
“Mr. Galea may have been my father, but this,” he said, pointing to Joseph, “this is my dad!”
We all cried. Marissa and I held on to each other and sort of sobbed quietly, and even Rob looked a little misty-eyed. Joseph was completely overcome. Only Sophia remained dry-eyed, and she looked at Anthony as if seeing him in an entirely new light. And perhaps we all did. Anthony had the easy charm and rather quixotic moods of his natural father, but he obviously had something Martin Galea had lacked: a generosity of spirit and a very solid grounding in what was important in life. I had the feeling I’d watched a little boy grow up in an instant, and he went on to prove that.
“I have something more I’d like to say,” he went on when we’d all recovered slightly. “I really want to be an architect,” he said. “I know it won’t be easy, but I think I can do it. So if there really is some money, I’m going to go to Canada to study. I’ll come back when my studies are done.”
He turned to Sophia and smiled at her. “I won’t forget you, Soph, I promise.”
“Of course you won’t,” she said firmly. “I’m coming with you.”
Perhaps, I thought, history does not always repeat itself. How pleased Anna Stanhope would be.
“Don’t worry, Marissa,” I promised, as we left a little later. “I’ll keep an eye on them for you.”
“Me too,” Rob said and hugged her.
Late in the afternoon the day before I went home, I returned to Mnajdra. The area was still cordoned off, but a policeman, one of Tabone’s men, recognized me and let me in.