Sign of the Cross Read Online Free Page A

one will catch her eye, the loveliest girl in Berbera, that’s what they used to say.
    Her shoulders start to ache, so she adjusts her grip. She thinks again of the footballer she saw on the TV. His skin darker than hers, but speaking Italian like a native son. She imagines Saif taking care of her, gently correcting her language with a confident smile, moving into a big house with a family of his own.
    The boats creak in a fresh burst of breeze. A smell of faeces reaches her nose. The men’s camp is just round the corner: typical of them to create such a stench. The moon seems higher in the sky. How long has she been here? she wonders. Is she in the right place? But the instructions were clear and she rarely makes mistakes when she has time to think things through.
    She glances over her shoulder. The warehouses set into the wall behind have bars on the gates; inside, she makes out the fibreglass silhouettes of tigers’ muzzles, dragons’ snouts – models for the Carnival, the man had said. She is in the right place.
    Though there is no one else on the dock, she still holds her breath to listen for movement. She thinks again of home, of how she used to wake at night before her brothers snuck back in – before they’d even parted the curtains she would be lying there, eyes closed, pretending not to hear as they clambered into bed, reeking of maize beer. She has that same premonition now, but perhaps it is just Saif, whose feeding always starts to slow as sleep begins to –
    The woman’s neck jerks back. She feels a muscular arm loop around her shoulders, pulling her backwards. She wants to lash out, but her hands are still supporting Saif. Drawing in a breath to scream, she feels something soft pressed against her mouth and nose.
    Sweet antiseptic vapours seep through her nostrils. Her head begins to swim; as she gathers Saif closer, fatigue starts to overwhelm her. The stars turn to yellow streaks in the sky. When she breathes in again, her eyelids flicker.
    Her muscles feel tired and heavy. A voice in her head says, Keep holding on, Keep your arms up, but she is powerless to obey as her body starts to relax. Her arms droop. The sharp clamp of gums on her breast wakes her just long enough to feel Saif rolling down her front, followed by the heavy, hollow thump of his head on the concrete.

Chapter Two
    1
    Spike checked the map, then walked left into Triq ir-Repubblika. He didn’t know Valletta well – his last visit had been with his mother – but it was still hard to get lost in Europe’s smallest capital. The Knights of St John had founded their city on an uninhabited limestone promontory, laying out the streets in a grid. The height of the buildings, and their rigid geometry, sometimes put him in mind of a sixteenth-century precursor to Manhattan.
    Dusk was falling, the people streaming for the exits. A quirk of Valletta: the capital of Malta, yet few locals actually lived here, drawn by the cheaper developments of Sliema and St Julian’s. The older families still had their palazzos; otherwise, the permanent inhabitants of Valletta tended to be those who loved the baroque architecture too much to leave. Like his uncle and aunt, Spike thought grimly, a sinking feeling returning to his stomach.
    Two attractive, dark-haired women in trouser suits strode ahead, each carrying pink-ribboned legal briefs: with its tax breaks and online gaming firms, Malta had almost as high a proportion of lawyers as Gibraltar.
    At the end of the street rose the City Gate, a monumental arch signifying the outer limits of Valletta. Milling around its columns lounged half a dozen bored-looking black men. The odd Maltese waited alone, checking a watch, using the gate as an after-work meeting point. Spike searched for Maltese and Africans together but found none.
    Passing beneath the central archway, Spike saw a plaque on the wall declaring Valletta’s status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. He emerged onto the walkway which ran across