Simone slid across to take Macandrew’s place. He kept her steady with his arm around her waist. After ten minutes she said, ‘We’re entering a small town.’
‘Recognise it?’
‘I was only here once, on holiday,’ protested Simone.
‘Sorry,’ said Macandrew. ‘Keep trying.’
‘Of course.’ Simone sounded irritated but was secretly pleased at Macandrew’s restored positive attitude.
Macandrew could hear traffic noises outside as they started to slow. ‘Sounds like quite a big town,’ he said.
‘I don’t think it’s the capital,’ said Simone. ‘So if it’s not Valetta... it might be... Yes, it’s Mosta. I’ve just seen the cathedral.’
‘Good on you,’ said Macandrew.
‘We anchored off the north coast,’ said Simone, ‘so we must have travelled southeast to reach Mosta... That would suggest that we are probably not going to Valletta at all.’
‘And we are not stopping here by the sound of it,’ said Macandrew as they started to pick up speed again.
‘No,’ agreed Simone, taking up position at the back door again. ‘We’re leaving Mosta behind.’
Neither spoke for the next few minutes. Simone relaxed her vigil, saying that there was nothing to see. It was dark and they were on country roads.
‘The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that Ignatius must have had a good reason for coming here,’ said Macandrew.
‘Why d’you say that?’
‘It’s a long way across the Mediterranean from Israel to Malta. There were lots of other islands a whole lot nearer if he was just looking for somewhere to hide out for a while.’
‘I see what you mean,’ agreed Simone. ‘Why pick a small island in the middle of the Med when it would have been much easier to disappear in Cypress or Crete or even in the mountains of Sicily?’
The van shuddered as the engine started to labour. The gearbox protested loudly at being asked to engage a lower gear and then a lower one still.
‘A steep hill,’ said Macandrew.
‘That’s interesting,’ said Simone. ‘The island is pretty flat except for a high plateau where the old medieval capital stands.’
Simone started to keep watch again as they continued to labour uphill. ‘That must be it,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing else this high on the island. We’re going to the old capital. We’re going to Mdina!’
‘Now we just have to work out, why?’ said Macandrew.
‘Very few people actually live in Mdina,’ said Simone thoughtfully. ‘It’s maintained as a sort of tourist attraction, but I do remember one particular building that was inhabited... It was a convent, a large enclosed convent, a nunnery.’
‘Brilliant,’ said Macandrew. ‘That must be it! If Ignatius has managed to con them into helping him like he did the convent in Israel, it would be the ideal cover for him and Stroud.’
‘But wouldn’t they have been warned?’
‘Not necessarily,’ said Macandrew. ‘It’s not in the nature of the Catholic Church to circulate bad news or encourage adverse publicity,’ said Macandrew. He recalled the Abbot of Cauldstane complaining of how hard he’d found it to get information out of Rome about Ignatius.
The van stopped climbing and was now moving quite slowly. Simone peered out. ‘We’re here. We’re crossing the stone bridge over the old moat outside the city. I remember it. I think the convent is quite near here.’
The streets outside were eerily quiet as the van drew to a halt and the doors opened. Macandrew and Simone were ushered inside a large stone building with poor lighting to be led down seemingly endless steps. Macandrew noticed the smell of incense in the air and, when he was put into a small stone cell with a crucifix on the wall, a religious painting above the bed and a bible beside the lamp, he knew for sure that they were in the convent. He called out Simone’s name but there was no reply. It wasn’t surprising; the walls looked as if they had been carved out of solid rock.
Macandrew lay down on the small, hard bed and stared at the featureless wall in front of him. Things were not looking good if this was where they were to be held. Escape from here would be well nigh impossible. Even if they hadn’t been brought down to the cellars, the glimpse he’d managed of the outside of the building suggested a thick-walled Arab fortress; very few windows and all of them high up. He emptied his pockets of the supplies that Simone had thought of raiding from the Astrud g’s medical box and gave thanks for her foresight. Not for the first time, he reminded himself that if it hadn’t been for Simone, he’d be dead. Such a thought made him feel guilty about his own lack of usefulness so far. Simone had been a tower of strength while he had been little more than a passenger. He owed it to her to get her out of this.
He was awakened by the door being unlocked and the fat man bringing in a tray. He didn’t say anything; he just put down the tray and left. Macandrew got up and found a large mug of black coffee and a lump of bread. The smell of the coffee was good; at that moment it seemed to symbolise the normal everyday things that had been missing from his life and which he desperately missed, not for their own sake but for what they represented. He had been living in a nightmare world for so long that stress had been building up inside him like a cancer. A mug of steaming coffee afforded him a much-needed remission.
Fifteen minutes later the fat man returned and indicated that he should follow him. He did so at his own pace until they stopped outside a door some thirty yards along the corridor where Simone, escorted by Parvelli, was already waiting. Macandrew asked with his eyes if she was all right and she nodded.
They entered what appeared to be the convent sick bay and were then shown into a small office where they came face to face with a tall, slim man wearing the black cassock of a Roman Catholic priest. He fitted the French Police description of Ignatius. He eyed them with a cold dispassion that Macandrew found chilling.
‘I’m Dom Ignatius,’ said the man evenly. ‘This is where you will fulfil your part of the bargain.’
Macandrew exchanged glances with Simone and saw that she was afraid.
‘I have obtained the chemicals listed in the protocol for the synthesis of the protease and the laboratory has been equipped with the necessary apparatus. Let me know if you need anything else but don’t waste my time. I’m not a stupid man. I’ll know if you are stalling. I suggest you start work immediately. There are two rooms. You will work in one and sleep in the other until your work is done.’
Macandrew felt anger at the man before him, calmly issuing instructions like a schoolmaster. The religious garb only made it worse. This man was responsible for torture and murder. ‘What’s this all about?’ he asked.
The fat man tightened his grip on him.
Ignatius regarded Macandrew with a baleful stare before saying, ‘Knowledge, Doctor, that most precious of commodities. I suspect you know by now what the chemical can do. A five-minute conversation with an eye witness to human history is worth more than all the arguing and conjecturing of an institute full of posturing academics for over a decade.’
‘And the Israeli you kidnapped is your eye witness? What do you hope to discover in your five minutes with him?’
‘That needn’t concern you.’
‘The protease will kill him.’
Ignatius fixed Macandrew with a stare and Macandrew stared him out as he felt the tension rise in the room. ‘This isn’t really about knowledge, is it? There’s something else.’
Ignatius replied with icy calm. ‘They thought they would end my career. They took me away from my life’s work and destroyed my reputation. They put me to work as a clerk like some peasant priest when I had the finest brain of the lot of them. They claimed to be teaching me... humility,’ Ignatius lingered over the word, wrapping it in sarcasm, ‘while they themselves played out the traditional Vatican games of back-stabbing, manipulation and double-dealing. Well, I will show them a thing or two before I’m through. Now, I suggest you get to work.’