A Dead Man in Malta Read Online Free PDF

must have taken him into A and E, surely?’
    ‘We did,’ said Berto. ‘Umberto and me.’
    ‘Where is Umberto?’ asked Seymour.
    Umberto was in one of the wards.
    ‘Always on the hop, you might say.’
    This time he was hopping at the behest of one of the nurses, who wanted him to move a bedside locker.
    Did he remember the afternoon the German had been admitted?
    He did. Not only that, he remembered his descent in the balloon. Umberto had gone outside ‘for a moment’ to see the balloons and he had noticed that Mr Kiesewetter was coming down. He had watched the balloon until it had come right down into the water.
    ‘And I saw Frank get over there in his dghajsa and I thought: He’ll bring him over here. And he did, too. I thought he might be in bad shape. Well, you’d expect it, wouldn’t you, if he had come down from that height. But he seemed all right.
    ‘In fact, a bit too fresh, if you ask me. I went to help him and he says: “Take your hands off me, my man!” His man! Who the hell did he think he was talking to? I nearly gave him a cuff instead. But if I had, they would have nailed me to the front door by my bollocks, so I just said: “Hospital staff, sir. Just helping.”
    ‘“I don’t need help,” he said. “My balloon came down all right.”
    ‘“It came down into the drink,” I said, “and that might not have been all right.”
    ‘He pooh-poohed it. “It is neechts, my man,” he said, waving his hand dismissive-like. “To come down into the trees is worse. Or on to the rocks.”
    ‘“You came down in just the right place, sir,” I said. “Right in front of the hospital.”
    ‘“But I don’t need—” he starts up again. Glad to get rid of him, I was.’
    He turned to Melinda. ‘What did the nurses do with him, love? Give him a syringe up the backside?’
    ‘I was just going to,’ said Melinda, ‘when Dr Docato stopped me. I think he was sorry afterwards that he had done.’
    ‘So who took Mr Kiesewetter to the room he was put in?’ asked Seymour. ‘After Dr Docato had looked at him? You, Umberto? Or a nurse?’
    ‘Dr Docato,’ said Melinda. ‘With the nurse on duty. Who was me.’
    ‘And I was sort of in attendance,’ said Umberto. ‘In case the bugger keeled over.’
    ‘You put him in the little room,’ said Seymour, ‘and then, presumably, Umberto, you left?’
    ‘As soon as I could,’ said Umberto.
    ‘And you, Melinda?’
    ‘I waited until Dr Docato had settled him down and left. And then I went in to make sure everything was all right.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘He snapped my head off.’
    ‘At some point the door into the corridor was locked, I take it?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘When was that? After Dr Docato left? Did he lock it?’
    ‘No, I locked it. That was one of the things I was making sure was right.’
    ‘So that he wouldn’t be disturbed?’
    ‘As I explained to him.’
    ‘And then you put the key back on the board?’
    ‘That’s right.’
    ‘Was the nurses’ office left empty at any point?’
    Melinda considered.
    ‘If it was,’ she said, ‘it wouldn’t have been for very long.’
    ‘But it could have been?’
    ‘Yes, but I don’t think anyone could have counted on that. If that’s what you were thinking.’
    ‘That is what I was thinking. But I agree with you. It would have been too risky. But you see what that means, don’t you? If anyone went in, it would have been by the other door.’
    ‘Using the other key.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘If, of course, anyone went in at all. Have you thought that there might be another explanation? That he simply died of heart failure. From normal medical causes.’
    But would three men have done so? In such a short space of time? The argument kept coming back to this.
    The other two men who had died had been in general wards. There would have been other patients around them and Seymour couldn’t see how they could have been attacked in their beds without someone seeing. If they had been attacked.
    One of the