I  am writing this column on the day the news broke all over social media that Prego, that iconic café in Valletta, closed its doors after 70 years of feeding hungry patrons on their legendary egg and mayo sandwiches. I felt devastated that another Valletta landmark has been taken over by shiny and soulless gentrification.

On reading the news, I was also transported to the day when my mother and I bumped into Daphne Caruana Galizia sitting at a table under the window at the far end of the coffee shop. I looked on incredulously as my mother, who knew her, strode over to her table and after a few pleasantries, we joined Daphne for a coffee.

I was star-struck, because although I had known her for some time through my mother and we communicated on e-mail after she launched her blog in 2008, I was tongued-tied because she had become a legend by then and so I hoped to blend in the background.

But then Daphne, the consummate conversationalist, turned to me with a twinkle in her eye and told me not to be silly and behave normally. Of course, my nose went deeper into the cappuccino.  

What’s the point of this personal anecdote you ask? Because when we met Daphne on that day, Attorney General Peter Grech had already written the infamous memo warning the Economic Crimes Unit that seizing evidence from accountants Nexia BT, who helped set up secret offshore companies for senior government figures, would be a “drastic” move and would be “highly” intrusive.

The meeting with Caruana Galizia that I described above took place in the summer of 2016. The ‘murder memo’, as described by Matthew Caruana Galizia, was written in May 2016.

So when we sat for a convivial coffee with Daphne on that sunny day, her days were numbered. We all know that now. But we didn’t know it then. Neither did she. How do I know this? Because she wrote it herself in reply to one of her readers when he advised caution under the cryptic blog post published on February 22, 2016, when she broke the Panama Papers story. She had written: “What do you imagine will happen? An assassination attempt? Please. No, the story can’t be made to disappear.”

Public officials who either ignore or find excuses not to do their duty are fundamentally fatal to a democracy

Like every law-abiding citizen, Daphne had hoped that the attorney general would have ordered the police to start investigations and not collude and conspire with them to protect the Castille gang. But the attorney general chose to write the ‘murder memo’ instead and the head of the Economic Crimes Unit, assistant commissioner Ian Abdilla, instead of telling him to stuff it, jumped through hoops and asked ‘How high?’

And just like that Daphne’s days were numbered.

Let me put it this way. We wouldn’t have needed Lawrence Cutajar and Silvio Valletta to meddle in the Caruana Galizia murder investigation had Abdilla ignored the attorney general, honoured the promise he made to serve and protect, and investigated the Panama Papers, 17 Black and Electrogas.

Misappropriating funds is serious, but public officials who either ignore or find excuses not to do their duty are fundamentally fatal to a democracy.

Abdilla now tells us that he wishes he had done things differently. Coulda, woulda, shoulda.

We are not impressed with your admission even because by cravingly pinning it on the attorney general, you hope to divest yourself of some responsibility. The Nuremberg defence “I was only following orders” doesn’t work here or anywhere. 

Daphne herself said that on that fateful day in February 2016 the stories she uncovered “can’t be made to disappear”. With every passing day, we realise how right she was even in this assessment.

But the culprits are still free. The disgraced former prime minister advises Prime Minister Robert Abela from a location grandly called The Office of Joseph Muscat, at the time of writing the attorney general is still in office, Abdilla has been promoted sideways and Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi have yet to be hauled in for questioning.

Police Commissioner Angelo Gafà, is there another memo lurking anywhere?

Alessandra Dee Crespo, Repubblika executive committee