Jack bent towards her. ‘Then—’
‘Yes. She wasn’t … she isn’t, Rosalie. I don’t know if they’re doing a post-mortem or not. But I know she wasn’t Rosalie, which means Rosalie may still be alive. May even still be here in Malta!’
They walked home slowly and made love for the first time in days. Until now Florence had felt too preoccupied but afterwards, while Jack slept, she lay awake trying to think of her next steps. But she was so tired of searching with no results that eventually she curled her body next to Jack, closed her eyes, and fell asleep too.
First thing the next morning she contacted Cam to say she needed to rescind her identification. Told him that the woman wasn’t Rosalie, and that they should identify the dead woman from dental records.
Back at the apartment a letter arrived from the archivist at theTimes of Malta. He hadn’t been able to find anymention of Rosalie Delacroix. She sighed, feeling her spirits plummeting after the euphoria of the evening before.
‘Jack,’ she said after he made her breakfast. ‘I’m now absolutely sure Rosalie changed her name. It’s the only explanation I can think of.’
‘Or she may have been here for such a short time that nobody remembers her.’
‘Maybe, but I need to ask the archivist at theTimesif any French women were involved in the enquiry into the white slavery issue. I’ll do the search myself if they’ll let me.’
As she sipped her coffee, he asked her what else she wanted to do.
‘I don’t know. I’m wondering if there’s anything Icando before we leave, as well as contacting the archivist again I mean.’
‘You tried the churches?’
‘Yes, we went through the records, but just the big ones. There are village churches, damaged churches where they’re likely to only speak Maltese. Cam knows where they all are and he was going to help me, but we got side-tracked by the news of the dead woman.’
‘Well, there you are. If Cam is still willing to help, that’s the one last thing you can do.’
‘You mean the woman was murdered?’ she said a little later, staring at Cam in shock.
‘Yes. Her dental records have identified her as Charlotte Lambden. She was English, married to an Archie Lambden. Because of strangulation marks on her neck and certainhistoric injuries, her husband has been arrested, although he’s not yet been charged. They have her marriage certificate and her birth certificate so it’s all above board.’
‘The poor woman. I can’t help wonder why she had Rosalie’s bracelet?’
‘Who knows? Maybe Rosalie sold it.’
‘She might have if she’d needed cash.’
They set off to look at records in some of the smaller village churches. By the time Florence and Cam had already been to three, reading through records until their eyes were stinging from heat and concentration, Cam said, ‘Shall we give up? Have some lunch. I’ve got to work this afternoon.’
‘Just one more,’ she pleaded.
In Rabat they arrived at a gorgeous little sixteenth-century church called Santa Maria Ta’ Doni and Florence instantly loved the charm of it.
‘Will there be anyone else here?’ she asked, heat bearing down on the back of her neck as she marvelled at the golden stone of the edifice.
‘No, but I have the key,’ Cam said.
He unlocked and pushed open the creaking door.
Inside it was beautifully cool and the place looked in relatively good condition. ‘So what’s wrong with it? Why is it out of use?’ she asked, glancing around at the frescoed walls. ‘It doesn’t look too bad.’
‘It wasn’t damaged during the war but soon afterwards a small unexploded Italian bomb went off through there.’ He pointed in the direction of a vestry. ‘Don’t worry, it’s safe to go through now.’
While Cam looked around Florence explored the damaged vestry, sifting through papers that must have been lying around since the bomb exploded. There were letters and ledgers, yellowing newspapers with announcements of births, deaths and marriages, prayer books splayed out on the floor, orders of service sheets and hymn sheets fluttering in the breeze, and piles of old handwritten sermons.
She heard Cam calling her and was just about to go through to him when something caught her eye. A torn piece of paper sticking out from beneath a prayer book with just four letters visible.Rosa.She almost left it but then turned back. It couldn’t hurt to look.
As she pulled the whole thing out, she skimmed the words, then read them again more slowly, her hands trembling with excitement. ‘Oh my Lord,’ she whispered. A letter. It was a letter.
Hardly able to breathe, she called Cam. ‘Look,’ she said, waving it at him as he came in. ‘It’s her.’
