The Gilded Madonna Garrick Jones (ebook reader online .txt) 📖

get the painter back again to clean it off with turps and then repaint it. He was noticeable mainly because he was so … odd. Popular in the steam room though.”

“Odd?”

“Odd because he’d wander around the edge of the pool for ages before getting into the water. He had an odd way of walking, with one arm up over his shoulder, his hand scratching his spine, staring at the sky and then stopping every few minutes and doing a three-sixty.”

“A full circle? Like a pivot?”

“Yes, it was very disconcerting. Everyone thought he had a screw loose, but then, as I said, he was popular in the steam room.”

“Okay, I’ll bite.”

“He didn’t.”

“What?”

“Young bloke, Clyde … false teeth. Upper and lower plates. He’d take them out, and they’d line up for gobbies.”

That surprised me. The murderer was queer? It didn’t fit with the profile of a violent sex offender that killed his victims, but the false teeth did explain the perfect teeth indentations in the shoulders of the men he’d killed—something that had perplexed Jack Lyme and me when we’d first been obsessing over that particular detail of the murderer’s signature.

“Did you ever … I mean, with him?”

“Twice, Clyde, and I won’t put that on record if this is part of your investigation. But he was very talented, and for me to say that, you know I’m not exaggerating. I can’t remember ever knowing someone so greedy for it—not even you!”

“Arsehole,” I said with a laugh.

“No, my cock, you dag.” He threw his arm around my shoulder and squeezed it. It had been far too long since we’d allowed ourselves to be so coarse with each other. I was fine with it, but I sensed he felt awkward about “stealing” Harley from me.

“You said they lined up?”

“In those days, when the private room at the Cricketer’s Arms was going full swing, a lot of married men were too shy to go somewhere like that, which had a reputation among the queer crowd as a pickup place, in case the joint ever got raided. So, just after my dad died and when I took over the baths, I turned a blind eye to goings on in the steam room. The books were in the red and I needed customers. Wednesday afternoons were known as the time to come here, and as it’s always been the only night we stay open until late, it used to get very busy right up until nearly midnight when I had to scrape them out of the room and then turf them out.”

I laughed.

“The amount of blokes came through actually saved the business if I’m to be honest,” he added. “I used to charge double for entry after half past six when I normally shut up shop.”

“You never told me about any of that, Craig.”

“I didn’t need to, Clyde. I’d always assumed you knew.”

Did I by chance see the murderer hanging around back then? I didn’t recall the face or the physical description—I think I might have remembered the birth mark above his knee. I tended to notice things like that.

“You said he only came for three months?”

“He got so out of hand, I had to tell him to stop coming. It’s not often I have to ban someone, and I wasn’t happy about it either.”

“There must have been a reason for it though …?”

“Well, actually there were two reasons. You know sex by the pool, unless it’s at night when the lights are off, has never been acceptable. People on the beach or on the headland opposite with high-powered binoculars or a telescope … I’d be closed down like that!” He snapped his fingers.

“And the bloke in the photo broke that rule?”

“Yes, only the once, and that was the final straw. I’d already warned him.”

“Over?”

“Seems that not only did he take his teeth out for the punters but he also held out his hand.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, if I ever got raided, I could have always said I had no idea what was going on in the steam room, but a charge of keeping a common bawdy house would have slapped me a fine I couldn’t afford, or have me thrown in the slammer.”

“I’d have looked after you, Craig, you know that.”

“Yes, but it would have been bad for business in the aftermath. Anyway, when I heard he expected to be paid for his lip work, I spoke to him and told him what went on elsewhere was his own business, but I didn’t expect it to happen here, and if he did it again I’d have no choice but to refuse him entry.”

“And how did he take that?”

“Those green eyes, Clyde,” Craig said. “They bored right through me. He stared and stared and then all of a sudden, as if someone had flicked a switch, he just said, ‘all right, I won’t do it again’ and then walked away.”

“But …?”

“But two weeks later, what should I find when I walk out of the office, but one of my older gentlemen lying on his towel at the side of the pool with your green-eyed friend—”

“Performing oral sex out in the open?”

“This time, when I told him I didn’t want him back, he really lost it. Not violently, but he acted like a crazy person in a movie, hopping from foot to foot and whining, turning around continuously, his arm over his shoulder, scratching his back. It lasted for no more than thirty seconds and then the same thing happened. The switch was flicked and he returned to normal. He shook my hand and apologised, told me he was sorry, and said he couldn’t control his urges and wouldn’t be back.”

“Wow!”

“Well, I put his two-bob entry fee back in his hand and then asked if he was skint.”

“Why did you do that, Craig?”

“Not only had he been asking for money for sex but he also looked malnourished—what else was I to think, Clyde? He had that look about him of guys on their uppers who live in cheap boarding houses, and