The Information Officer by Mark Mills Page B

desk. Maria, his long-suffering secretary, would be fielding the calls and making excuses for his absence. Both the papers and the calls would have to wait. There was something else he needed to do first.
    His motorcycle was propped against the wall of his apartment building, the kickstand having rusted away during the hard, wet winter. She was in a temperamental mood this morning, but after much cajoling, the engine finally fired. Some of the sweat from his exertions dried off in the wind during the short ride up the hill into Valetta.
    Lilian wasn’t at the office. Or rather, she had come in early, and then she had gone out again, chasing up some story or other. Rita couldn’t be more specific, or didn’t wish to be.
    Rita manned the front desk at the newspaper offices. She didn’t like Max. This wasn’t paranoia on his part. Lilian, with characteristic candor, had told him that Rita didn’t like him.
    “Well, if you could tell her I dropped by …”
    Rita leaned forward, placing her meaty forearms onto the desk. “Of course,” she said.
    But she didn’t have to.
    “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
    It was Lilian, entering from the street. Her long black hair was pinned up in an unruly mess, and she was rummaging for something in her shoulder bag.
    “I just wanted to check that you got the film.”
    “She got the film,” said Rita flatly.
    Max had dropped the film off with Rita the previous evening, Lilian having already left for the day.
    “How did the photos turn out?”
    “Good,” said Lilian. “You want to see them?”
    “Have you got time?”
    “Of course. Come.”
    When Lilian made for the staircase, Max followed, glancing at Rita as he went. She peered back at him over the top of her spectacles with an impassive expression.
    Max trailed Lilian up the narrow stone staircase to the newsroom. She was wearing a short linen skirt, fraying at the hem, which revealed the full glory of her legs. They had an aesthetic dimension, long and slender, tapering to ankles so narrow they looked as though they might break at any moment.
    A sudden urge made him reach out a hand and run his fingertips down her left calf.
    She gave a small yelp and spun round, glaring down at him.
    “What do you expect if you insist on leading the way?”
    “Then you go first,” she said.
    He squeezed past her. “You’ve changed your tune since last weekend.”
    “I was drunk last weekend.”
    “Oh, that’s why you slurred your words when you said, ‘Don’t stop’?”
    It had been their first kiss, and it had taken place under an orange tree in the garden of her aunt’s palace in Mdina.
    “Well, I hope you enjoyed it, because it was the last time.”
    As deputy editor of Il-Berqa , Lilian was entitled to her own office. It was a small box of a room, and it had somehow acquired a view of Grand Harbour since Max’s last visit. It took him a moment to realize why. He wandered to the window and peered down at what remained of the church. The dome and the roof had collapsed into the nave, the pillars and arches of which were still standing, as was the greater part of the apse. Despite the destruction, the altar had been cleared of rubble and a priest was dressing it for Mass.
    “Close,” said Max.
    “No one was killed.”
    “That’s good to hear.”
    He turned back in time to see her unpin her hair and shake it out. It fell like silk around her shoulders.
    “Better?” she asked.
    “You could shave it all off and you’d still be beautiful.”
    She cocked her head at him, deciding whether to accept the compliment.
    “It’s true,” he said.
    It was. She could get away with it, with her large almond eyes, the sharp high-bridged nose, and full lips. She was of mixed parentage—half-Maltese, half-British—although her temperament owed considerably more to her Mediterranean blood. He still smarted when he remembered some of the words she’d directed at him, but he’d also shared many a full and proper belly laugh with