Riva wasn’t sure what to say or do. ‘Is there someone you can talk to?’
‘God no!’ Lottie exclaimed, looking mortified.
‘Well, let’s at least keep meeting for coffee like this, shall we?’
Lottie shook her head.
‘What?’
‘Archie wouldn’t like it.’
‘Well blow, that. Do you have to tell him? Does he tell you everything he does?’
Lottie laughed a bitter little laugh. ‘He doesn’t need to. He leaves plenty of clues.’
‘Not other women?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Oh Lottie, I’m sorry.’
Two months passed by and Riva heard nothing from Bobby. She didn’t have his address in England, just his old flat in London, which wasn’t even his any more, and no other way to contact him. It didn’t make sense, but surely Bobby would be back sooner or later? Or he’d write? Maybe he had already written but the letter had goneastray. She was sure he wouldn’t just leave her like this. There had to be a good reason, although the longer it went on the harder it was to keep believing that. She threw herself into her work as a distraction. She still wasn’t showing much, thank goodness, but worried constantly about what she was going to do. Thank heavens she had the work with Otto to occupy her when she wasn’t dancing, and she was learning more and more as time went on.
She now knew that journalists, politicians, and various organisations had been campaigning against the traffic in women and children for some time. In 1927 the League of Nations had published a report detailing the way women were lured into the sex trade tempted, unbeknown by them, by false theatrical contracts to work as music hall artists. Riva logged every case she thought she saw of girls being brought in illegally and presented it to the chief of police who, she found out later, had immediately filed it in the bin. For all the noise the campaign had generated in England, nothing had changed in Malta.
One evening she was in the ladies’ lavatory when the door flew open, and a man walked in.
‘Wrong place,’ she said, thinking he was a drunk. ‘Yours is next door.’
He gave her a cold smile and took a step towards her. ‘You listen to me,’ he said. ‘My boss wants you to stop interfering in his affairs.’
She tilted her head. ‘Your boss? Who is your boss?’
Then, before she had a chance to scream, he was onher. He covered her mouth with his hand and pinned her against a wall.
‘My boss—’ he began again, but she bit him. He removed his hand and rubbed it and then with his other hand he formed a fist and struck the side of her head. She stumbled and fell back against the wall.
‘Take that as a warning,’ he said as she straightened up.
She rubbed the side of her head.
‘Got it?’
She nodded, feeling sick to her core. And in that moment, she decided to quit Strait Street altogether.
Two days later she met Otto at the British Hotel. He sat in the same quiet corner where they usually met but when she drew closer, she saw there was something wrong. He looked tired, but it was more than that.
‘Are you all right, Otto?’ she asked. ‘You look a bit peaky.’
‘I’m a bit under the weather. No big deal, I promise you.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘You’re sure?’
He nodded. ‘More to the point, how are you?’
She rubbed her head. ‘A bit sore. Seen anything of Stanley Lucas?’
After they’d found out that Stanley Lucas had been released without further charge – despite the evidence of fraud and even more rumours of him living off immoral earnings – the man had seemed to disappear.
