Ħagret il-Qalb ... Fit-Telfa tat-Teżor

Author: Salv Sammut 
Publisher: Horizons Publications / 2025
Pages: 255

On one level there is a feud, a long-standing battle between two gangs of criminals, led by (only nicknames are used here) Capo on one hand and l-Iskorpjun on the other. Capo's right-hand man, Kajfa, is not the Biblical person but rather the doer, especially if it's a dirty task to be done.

Capo thinks he is on to a good thing: hundreds of years ago a Turkish vessel, laden with treasure,  foundered and sank near Filfla.

But when Capo and Kajfa, commissioned by a foreign organisation, organise a salvage operation and bring up the treasure they are attacked and the treasure taken away from them.

Kajfa's ex-wife meets a man in Taormina who takes care of her when she falls and twists her ankle. Next they bump into each other in Hamrun and take to a nearby confectionery where they become more acquainted with each other. Then they become lovers and move in together.

When Kajfa learned she was pregnant he threw her out of the house and refused to divorce or pay alimony. The woman and her lover then moved to a house in Fomm ir-Rih.

She has ADHD and got into a fight with her supervisor at work and so had to leave work.

Her new lover worked with the Ministry but as a sideline worked for Capo. Kajfa always suspected he was involved in the heist that went wrong, especially when he found out he was living with his ex-wife. 

The woman had a very bad background and one day she decided to tell everything to her man.

From a very young age she had psychological problems (ADHD) and feared she was going to be put in a mental hospital. So she ran away and then was taken in by Kajfa who taught her the tricks of being a prostitute in a brothel. She got pregnant when she came of age and he married her.

When she had the baby he took her to Sannat in Gozo and the baby was taken from her and given to foster parents. She wasn't even told what was the baby's gender.

She left Kajfa, as said, and set up home with the marine biologist and had a baby, her second child.

But she never forgot her first child and, with the support of the marine biologist, succeeded in tracking the midwife. Through her, though old now, she managed to find her daughter, now grown up and studying at the university.

Though still unaware they were mother and daughter.

It was only when the two strands of the story got entangled and at a high risk to themselves that all was revealed.