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

“I don’t know what to believe,” Harry said, “and it’s psychometry, not necromancy; that’s raising the dead.”

“I know, my little joke.”

“Look, Clyde, Luka seems as honest as they come. He believes in what you call nonsense, that’s for sure. Are you sure he didn’t know Billy?”

I shook my head. “No. He told me he didn’t and it seemed genuine. Besides, Billy reaffirmed it on the phone when he rang just after we got in before dinner. He wanted to know who the tall thin man was with the ‘magnificent’ scar.”

“Well, Smith, there’s only one way of dealing with your uncertainty and that’s—”

“Yes, I know, read what’s in the bloody envelope.”

“I didn’t know Billy rang?”

“You went down to the car to pick up your notebook. Said you wanted to read through the notes you took this afternoon during Greyson’s interview.”

“I hope you said hello from me.”

“Of course. He invited us to lunch on New Year’s Day, but I told him we’d be away. That’s when he asked about Luka, said every time he went to introduce himself to him, he seemed to be talking with someone else.”

“Introduce?”

“Yeah, more like check out the newest fish in the talent pool.”

Harry chuckled and then began to kiss the side of my neck with an intensity that I recognised.

“Harry, I’m still sweaty.”

“Quick shower then?”

I laughed and then picked up my watch from beside the bed. Half past two in the morning. We’d only been asleep for a few hours and I was exhausted. Sleep deprivation, they called it in the army. We’d shut our eyes for perhaps six hours over the past forty-eight.

“You can sleep in my arms if you like, but I need to think, and maybe talk through a few things with you. I could do it by myself, but seeing you’re here, and you have a gift …”

“Luka’s the one with the gift, Clyde.”

“But he doesn’t have the gift of seeing how my mind works and steering me to the right conclusions.”

“Aha! So, I’m the Watson to your Holmes?”

“No, Harry. If you’re anything, you’re the Alexander to my Hephaestion, the Hadrian to my Antinous, the Achilles to my Patroclus, the—”

Harry laughed and then kissed me deeply. “Okay, I give in. Shower it is. Lay on, Macduff.”

*****

Fifteen minutes later, he lay in my arms, my back resting against the gentle curve of the bathtub, a folded towel behind my neck.

“The new D.I. who’s coming to take charge of your old nick sounded like he’s okay. I don’t know who he is, but at least you were smiling while you were talking to him on the phone earlier this evening,” Harry said.

“Who, Brendan? I’ve known him for years. I had no idea he was stationed at Kensington. He’ll be an invaluable addition to the team at Randwick. Just the sort of man to get things squared away. Dioli is going to have to watch his arse …”

“Watch his arse? Is the new guy … you know?”

“No,” I replied with a chuckle. “Egyptian parents, migrated here in the twenties. He was born here. They changed their surname to Fox from whatever the word is in Arabic. He’s a great bloke and has more girlfriends than anyone I know. He has an art of juggling them so they all think they’re the special vixen in his life, while he remains a solitary fox.”

“And?”

“Well, that explosion in the gas works? Seems like it was a diversion. Three banks broken into while nearly every cop available was recovering bodies from the wreckage.”

“Holy cow, Clyde.”

“Yes, and because of that, he can’t drop everything and come over to help out or take charge. Seems like Vince is going to have to carry the Silent Cop murders by himself until Dioli’s back on deck. They might send a few hands from Bondi to help out, but being the holiday period and all, spare cops are as rare as hens’ teeth.”

“What’s really troubling you, Clyde?”

“It’s my business card.”

“The one they found yesterday?”

“Yes.”

I’d asked Jack Lyme why my card had taken so long to find. He’d told me the victim’s pants had been crumpled down around his ankles and soaked in blood and urine. Picking over the man’s strides hadn’t been high on the list of important tasks, and as it was, they were deep pockets, and the card had been right down at the bottom. That’s why it hadn’t been found earlier during the preliminary examination.

“I’ve been thinking about that too, Clyde. Did the murderer slip the card into the man’s back pocket before he killed him or after, when the man was already dead?”

“Steve said he heard the scream, hesitated for a while, thinking it might have been a bit of rough play, but then decided he’d go have a look-see. He said he lit a cigarette first and then strolled down in time to see the murderer run out of the toilet block. Let’s say that’s two or three minutes … plenty of time to incise the cross into the man’s belly, place the marble in the cut, and to put my card into his back pocket.”

“But he could have also put it in sometime beforehand, while they were fooling around?”

“Yes, of course, Harry, but I know some little bunny who loves to run his hands around my backside while we’re kissing. It wouldn’t be that hard to slip a thin piece of card into a pocket while you’re ostensibly having a quick feel of someone’s bum.”

“And you haven’t ruled out the idea that the victim may have been given your card earlier and had just stashed it in his back pocket?”

“Honestly? That’s way too much of a coincidence. Of course, we’d have to check who the man spoke to at the R.S.L. Maybe the victim had been socialising with his murderer over a beer … but that doesn’t make sense, unless the killer knew the bloke always went off to the park after a few drinks.”

“Didn’t Jack say he went home and gave himself a shot of morphine,