Sign of the Cross Read Online Free

gave Spike his usual wave; Spike nodded back, then turned up the steps to the Old Town.
    The familiar maze of ramps and alleyways unwound before him. As he came into Chicardo’s Passage, he took out his keys, seeing the same cracked azulejos around the lintel, the same window boxes of dying oleanders – a horticultural hospice surviving purely on his father’s palliative applications of Baby Bio.
    Inside, General Ironside raised his head from his basket. His grey muzzle bobbed, as though he couldn’t quite fathom why his joints wouldn’t spring him to his feet. Spike crouched down, stroking the wiry hair behind his ears. The General’s stumpy Jack Russell tail managed a wag before his head began to droop again.
    In the kitchen, Rufus’s watercolour set still lay on the table, alongside the foil remnants of another M&S steak-and-kidney pudding. Spike swept the latter into the bin, then pushed through the bead curtain and up the creaking staircase.
    He stooped his six-foot-three frame down to stare into the bathroom mirror, a constant since his schooldays, unlike the reflection within it. Two faint bracket lines were visible now between Spike’s nose and mouth, like a warning that some time soon smiling would exist only in parentheses. He pushed back his dark hair. At least his eyes were unchanged: bright blue irises in a tanned, angular face. Such kind eyes, people always said. Blue eyes in a Scandinavian were chilly; worn by a dark-skinned Gibraltarian and a warm heart was the assumption.
    Stretching out on his childhood bed, his mind drifted back to the events of last year. Once again, he’d ignored the basic lesson. Trust no one. However innocent, however needy. No one.
    His phone was vibrating. He picked it up from the bedside table, anticipating Jessica’s name on the screen. Number withheld. ‘Yes?’
    ‘Spike?’
    The familiar, husky tones made Spike sit up.
    ‘I wasn’t sure if I should call,’ said Zahra.
    ‘Are you OK?’
    ‘As well as can be expected. How are you ?’
    ‘You know. Another day in paradise. Why do you ask?’
    ‘I just wanted to say . . . I’m sorry.’
    ‘Sorry for what?’
    Zahra paused. ‘You mean you haven’t heard?’
    ‘Heard what?’
    ‘ Naik ,’ Zahra cursed in Arabic, and it was then that Spike knew something had happened to his uncle and aunt.
     

     
    The woman stands on the concrete dock, staring out at the marina. Boats creak in the breeze; in the starlight, she makes out the strange eyes painted on their flanks, winking as they dip in and out of the oily water.
    She wonders which boat will be hers. Moored on the furthest jetty is a trawler, more stable than the wooden skiff which brought her here to Malta, which they had to bail out using plastic tubs. Yes . . . she hopes it will be that one.
    She checks the pocket of her robes for the rolled-up notes. She feels guilty about not telling her friends, but there was only one place left on the boat, and she needs to get away from the Idiot, from the one who was too selfish to put Saif before himself. The woman smiles at the thought of him still stuck here in the camp. She will text her friends soon enough. Maybe she will find a way for them to follow her over the water.
    The movement wakes Saif. The woman eases out her left breast and feels the familiar tingle as he latches firmly on.
    Above her the stars pulse in the sky. She remembers how bright they looked in the desert, each one a sun, the Idiot had told her as they lay together.
    Saif gives a whimper. She knows him by now; loosening her sarong, she transfers him to her other breast, clasping his chubby backside with both hands. The rhythmic sucking resumes.
    ‘My little boy,’ she whispers, peering down. ‘Bright star of my life.’
    How quickly he grows – stealing the weight from her, her friends say. No matter, she will need to be lean for the work. Restaurants the size of marketplaces. She will have to fetch and carry, look after the customers, maybe