The Snowman Read Free Page B

with grey, and he wore the same faded windcheater every day. He knew his way around boats, and his papers described his profession as soldier.
    â€œCome on, Blum,” he said, having overcome his coughing fit with a Scotch. “The wop’s waiting for you.”
    â€œIs he going to buy them?”
    â€œHe wants to see a sample.”
    They took one of the green buses where the drivers’ cabs are decked out like household altars with pink-cheeked Virgins, soulful Sons of God, garlands of plastic flowers and biblical quotations in Latin. They sat wedged between farmers and schoolgirls and English married couples. These last smelled of vermouth and were chewing beans or sucking sweets. The husbands were telling each other old jokes – “Heard the one about the Sikh who wanted to emigrate to Canada?” – and their wives were casting moist-eyed glances at the young Maltese men from behind their colourful travel brochures. Blum envied them. It was a few years yet before he’d be their age, but here he was already among them, and he didn’t know any jokes, nor did he have moist eyes, only an old porn magazine in his bag. And if he wasn’t gone in a couple of days the cops would be down on him. What kept him going? The same as kept the bus going: fuel and faith, the fuel in his case being spirits. Verbum dei caro factum est , said the motto on the cab in front, which as far as he could remember meant: God’s word was made flesh.
    Well, there must be a soup pan somewhere, then, to help feed the desperados among us.
    The tourists got out in Mosta. The men already had damp patches on their polo shirts, and the women’s armpit hair was shining wetly.
    â€œPlenty of gold here,” said Blum, glancing at the church, which was showy in the Maltese neo-Baroque style.
    â€œOnly a fool would try it,” replied Larry. “Rob a church on Malta? Something like nicking Lenin’scorpse from its mausoleum in Red Square. That’s where they keep it, right?”
    Blum jumped. “Ever tangled with the police here, Larry?”
    â€œWhat would make you think that?”
    The bus rattled on, and Blum leaned back and pretended not to have heard the question. Just coincidence, he thought. Beyond Mosta the farming country began – dry soil from which the farmers conjured fruit and vegetables with the water that fell in the rainy season. Now the almond trees were in blossom, there was a scent of fruit and flowers, wind and the sea and women. Blum leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes, and for a moment abandoned himself to the illusion of something that would never really be – peace, happiness, magic . . . Then he opened his eyes again, saw the Australian coughing up the mucus from his lungs, and a squinting girl in a blue school uniform who had been watching him all this time and now blushed and looked ahead of her again. He took the Moroccan shades with the gold-rimmed lilac lenses out of his jacket pocket and put them on. These things were worth their price. Sometimes they reduced even the Med to tolerable dimensions.
    They got out at the harbour in St Paul’s Bay. The little place lay quiet in the sun. A yapping dog chased the bus. Two German tourists shouldered their gigantic backpacks outside a café with a curtain of plastic strips over its doorway. Somewhere an electric lawn-mower was stuttering, and a farmer was driving a donkey out into the fields. The windows of the houses did not look out on the street. They walked slowly along the quay. Larry pointed out a motor-boat tied up a little way from the others.
    â€œThat’s Rossi’s boat. A Bertram 32-footer with twin V8 diesel engines, all tuned up like a high-class tart. You could shake any coastguard off in that boat.”
    â€œWhy would he want to do that?”
    â€œWhy do you think, mate?”
    Larry lit his twentieth Rothman King Size of the day and spat a mouthful of mucus