When Daphne Caruana Galizia wrote that they set up off-shore companies in Panama, they denied it. When the Panama Papers came out, they denied any wrongdoing. When the Pilatus Bank whistle-blower fingered them, they denied any wrongdoing. They denied everything when the financial intelligence chief resigned. And they denied everything when the police chief resigned.

When lawyers for the passport peddler from London bullied Daphne, they denied anything was untoward. When a bomb killed her, they said whoever did it would pay the price. That was an implicit denial they had anything to do with it. When lawyers for the Pilatus banker came crushing down on the press, they denied having anything to do with it.

When witnesses said they saw a minister whispering with one of the assassins, they denied it ever happened. When reporters found they were closing an eye to fuel smuggling, they denied any wrongdoing. When the mafia was found laundering millions through gambling, they denied knowing about it.

When three public hospitals were sold to mysterious owners who had only ever been in hospital because of their abdominal complaints, they denied any wrongdoing. When the people they sold the hospitals to ran out of money and flipped the deal, they denied anything was wrong.

When witnesses lined up to say they were made to pay bribes to get a visa out of Libya, they denied any wrongdoing. When the alleged bribe collector was seen chatting with a Libyan war criminal and extortionist, they said there’s nothing wrong with a holiday in war-torn Tripoli.

When the auditor caught them buying fuel from Azerbaijan at prices higher than market rates, the papers proving it vanished, they denied any wrongdoing.

When the Azerbaijani scions laundered millions through Pilatus Bank, they closed it down but denied any wrongdoing. When a bank whistleblower testified they were getting bribes from those scions, they let the evidence fly and then they said there had been none. They denied any wrongdoing.

When they deposited kickbacks on passports sold to Russians, they denied anything was wrong. When they were caught paying the former managing director of the company that publishes this newspaper hundreds of thousands in an offshore account, they denied it was wrongdoing.

When they sold stock in a state-owned electricity company whilst bribing the vendors’ negotiator, they denied it ever happened.

When they shifted the goalposts to favour the Azerbaijan consortium for the electricity deal, they denied any wrongdoing. When the consultant who awarded Electrogas the energy contract turned out to be the auditor of one of their owners, they said nothing was wrong. When they stretched the Bank of Valletta to its limit to finance the private energy consortium, they denied that was unfair. And they denied it was mortally dangerous for the bank. When they hid the fact that they extended the ‘limited’ government guarantee on the consortium’s debt, they said it did not matter.

When they committed the country to buy energy from Electrogas no matter if others could sell it for cheaper, they said they were doing the right thing. When it turned out we were paying extra millions on re-sale margins paid to the Azerbaijani state, they said nothing. Except to deny any wrongdoing.

They’re still denying. They deny the police investigations have been held back by political recalcitrance

When a Maltese owner of Electrogas was identified as the owner of a Dubai company committed to pay the Panama companies (if you’re confused go back to the start of this article) millions of dollars, they denied that proved anything objectionable. When we found the Maltese owner of Electrogas allowed one of the men charged with Daphne’s murder to walk out of his casino with almost half a million euro in cash, they said it was all above board.

They’re still denying. They deny the police investigations have been held back by political recalcitrance. They deny abusing executive authority to prevent witness protection.

They deny the need of a properly independent inquiry. They deny the prosecutors the tools they need to secure the conviction of the mastermind or masterminds of this crime.

They deny Daphne’s legacy. They deny her husband and sons the right to protest and ask tough questions. They deny them the right for information and police support.

They deny them the independence of the criminal investigation that is required for a political crime.

They deny Daphne’s memory. They refuse to mark her killing and to honour her life and work. They mock those who remember her. They discredit those who seek justice for her. They deny the truth to those who insist on uncovering it.

The smoke clears and the rubble buried under the deafening noise of the explosion that killed her becomes more distinct. Through the morass of obfuscation, the ugliness of it all is becoming clearer.

It’s starting to make sense.

They sought to look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under it. They played most foully for their success and they feigned innocence when it did not look too good. To cover up old lies, new ones were needed. To cover up old crimes, only murder could serve.

Accomplices and conspirators were bound together at first by shared profits, then by shared fears. From aggrandisement and greed, their hierarchy of needs has now collapsed to mere survival. From getting away with the money, it is now down to getting away with murder.

No one believes themselves as they say Daphne was killed for anything other than the work she was doing. The slander of matricide is an admission of despair as no plausible alternatives to the killed-for-being-a-journalist explanation exists.

No one seriously thinks Konrad Mizzi’s New Zealand Trust and Panama company was set up for €92, or even to dodge the council tax for his London flat. No one thinks Brian Tonna borrowed money from Keith Schembri to pay for an expensive divorce and then reimbursed him in one fell swoop.

No one thinks Pilatus Bank was closed just because.

No one thinks 17 Black was randomly identified as a “target company” by Schembri and Mizzi’s Panama companies. No one thinks the rotten (and shut down) Latvian bank ABLV was a random choice for the Azerbaijani citizen who deposited an enormous sum of money into 17 Black.

No one thinks we just got unlucky paying Electrogas millions more than market rates for electricity we could be buying cheap from the undersea cable.

No one thinks two years have gone by and none of three alleged assassins have spoken of what they know about who paid them to do it.

No one thinks Daphne was killed for “the biggest lie in Maltese political history”. A lie is nowhere near as dangerous as the truth. It is nowhere near worth killing for.

All concerned deny any wrongdoing. Except that the truth has this annoying habit of coming out anyway.

But it won’t happen alone. Daphne worked night and day for years of her life to bring the truth out for us.

We owe it to her to give some of our time to bring out the truth for her. Don’t let them get away with your money. Don’t let them get away with murder.

On Wednesday, at 7pm, come out to Valletta and march. It won’t be for nothing.