‘So if the girls can’t speak out, what’s the solution?’
‘Legalise the industry. License the prostitutes and the brothels and move them out of Valletta.’
Riva thought he might have a point.
‘I really think you need to back off now,’ he added. ‘For your own safety.’
The enquiry was soon forgotten in the furore surrounding Malta reverting to full Crown Colony status, with power resting in the hands of the governor just as it had been way back in 1813. There had been a grant of self-government in 1921 and during the decade followingthatBritish concession, Maltese politics had become more diverse and complicated. Maltese nationalism had blossomed with many of its people working towards true independence sometime in the future. Now this would put everything back by years and there was a great deal of anger.
On the day it was announced she passed Stanley Lucas in the street, and he smiled smugly.See. Girlie. There’s nothing you can do.
She knew there was nothing she could do about him, at least not at the moment. And she accepted she needed to step back and get on with her life. She might never find out what had happened to Anya and the others who had died or gone missing, but she would do what she could to help Otto improve conditions for the girls who were still there.
But then the enquiry, the Crown Colony status, and everything else slipped into the background because at the end of the decade, a different kind of trouble was brewing. The kind of trouble that nobody could believe was really going to happen again.
CHAPTER 39
Florence
Sicily, 1946
Back over on the main island of Sicily, Florence and Jack got out of the taxi into the hot white sunshine accompanied by the sound of church bells. They stood outside an ochre-walled farmhouse surrounded by open fields and wild scrubland. Florence was thrilled to have left Lipari behind. Since Jack’s admission about his feelings for her, and the kiss they had shared, an unspoken anticipation had been growing and building between them.
She pushed open the wooden door which gave onto a courtyard, the floor tiled in beautiful sand-coloured stone which the late-afternoon sun had painted with stripes of gold.
‘Limestone,’ came a voice.
Florence whirled round to see a small wiry man smiling as he came towards them arms outstretched. ‘Extracted from the area of the Iblei mountains here in Sicily. Jack, welcome.’
Jack and the man shook hands and then he turned to her. ‘This is Florence.’
Edward smiled and kissed her on both cheeks. While she glanced around the courtyard at succulents and feathery bamboos growing in giant terracotta pots and the flowering plants cascading from the windows above, Edward explained that two communal ‘salons’ or sitting rooms opened into the courtyard.
‘Just use whichever one you like. Make it your own. There’s only myself and Gloria here. And there’s a pool through there. Well, a pond really, but you can dip your toes into it. The fish don’t bite.’
Florence sighed with pleasure as he then led them inside and through a hall into one of the bedrooms. It turned out to have a vaulted ceiling, a chandelier, and was painted pale blue, with cream linen curtains framing two faded blue doors and diaphanous gauze pulled to the side of both the windows. She glanced at the view of golden hills, delighted to be away from the palace on Lipari with its forbidding atmosphere.
‘Gloria is the interior designer,’ Edward said. ‘And my niece. Come and meet her.’
A few minutes later, a tall, elegant woman wearing a pink and orange silk kaftan flowing around her as she walked, called hello. Her blonde hair fell in a sheet to her waist and her eyes were electric blue.
‘We are aiming for sustainable living,’ she said. ‘Everything happens at a slower pace here. It’s so nice to meet you.’
‘You have a kitchen garden?’ asked Florence.
‘We do. Aubergines, peppers, courgettes, melons, onions and strawberries.’
‘I used to grow all those in France.’
‘Well this is our first year. You know, the war …’
‘Did you suffer much damage?’
‘Some.’
‘You live here all year round?’
The woman sighed and, holding Florence’s elbow, steered her towards another faded blue door with glass panels that revealed a small patio shaded by palm trees. The air vibrated with the sound of bees, birdsong too. It was so different from France and England, and Florence wondered if there might be something Moorish about it. Bougainvillaea climbed the stone walls, three small ferns grew in earthenware tubs and there were two rattan armchairs, a small table, a comfy chaise longue, and a lemon tree.
