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

go into a private hotel until he sorts out what he wants to do? There’s that nice place not far from the cop shop we used to put visiting senior police in. Cheap too, and decent food.”

“So, what did you want to talk to me about?” Harry asked.

“I’ve arranged for Luka to come in this morning to look at the drawing Art did for me. I’d rather Dioli didn’t know who he is for the moment, so can you make sure he doesn’t disturb us?”

“Of course. When’s Luka due?”

I checked my watch. “About ten minutes from now.”

“Clyde …”

“Yes, Harry?”

“Last night, when he was really, really drunk, he kept clinging to me with his arms around my neck, nothing intimate, just the booze talking, and saying over and over, ‘Tell Clyde I’m sorry; tell him I’m sorry, won’t you, Harry?’. He only stopped when Mother came in with some of her miracle beef broth and made him sit up and eat it.”

“Sorry? Sorry for what?”

Harry shrugged. “No idea, Clyde. But he really sounded upset.”

“Okay, I’ll deal with it, whatever it is, when and if it ever comes up. But between you and me, I don’t think he’s as much of a dick as he lets on. Perhaps he’s sorry for being so bloody rude to me all the time.”

“Well, he’s certainly very different with us when you’re not around. As I said, I think it was just the drink talking. Anyway, Clyde, I better get back to the office. Got a lot to organise this morning for the weekend at Capertee.”

“See you soon,” I said and then began to open the mail to see what had arrived over the Christmas/New Year period.

*****

“It’s him,” Luka said.

“Him who?”

“Green Eyes.”

“What do you mean ‘green eyes’?”

He sighed and stretched back in his chair, his arms behind his back and hands clasped together.

“I told you, but you said you didn’t believe.”

“Luka, please tell me. Do you recognise this man?”

“Yes. Now, Clyde, no more information until you tell me two things.”

“All right. What are they?”

“Why do you want to know who he is, and what does he have to do with me being careful in public places at night?”

“Who said they were connected?”

He leaned forward and drummed his fingers on my desk, smiling at me. “It’s about time you swallowed your scepticism and listened with your heart and your mind, and not just your ears, Clyde Smith. I know you want to believe, but if you did, you think you’d look foolish in other men’s eyes. You used to go to church didn’t you?”

I nodded. “Yes, of course. But that stopped during the war.”

“So there was a time in your life when you believed in something for which there was no physical proof?”

“Yes …” I was aware of the upward inflection at the end of my attenuated one-word reply. It obviated the need to say “and where is this line of questioning leading?”

“So you listened to a whole lot of stuff, let’s call them ‘facts’ for the sake of understanding me, and then based your belief on what you’d heard or been told.”

“Perhaps.”

“Good old one-word Smith,” he said with a grin. I looked at him, puzzled. “It’s the way your friend Craig described you, after you left on Boxing Day with a ‘later!’ rather than a proper farewell. He said it was your trademark.”

I smiled.

“So, Clyde. What’s it going to be? I could have asked for sexual favours in return for information.”

He said it with such cheekiness, I knew it was a joke, and we both laughed.

“Very well, Luka. But this might be harrowing to hear.”

“There’s nothing you could say I haven’t seen in my dreams, Clyde. Go on, I’m listening.”

I told him about the Silent Cop killings and explained to him the reason I’d said not to go to public places at night to meet men. He winced once or twice as I explained what the murderer had done to his victims.

Eventually, he sat back in his chair, shaking his head slowly, while inspecting the photograph I’d made of the sketch of the killer.

“And this is the man you suspect?”

“Suspicion is long gone now, Luka,” I said. “I firmly believe he’s our man.”

“He has bright green eyes. I saw his face over yours the moment you came to our shop door on Christmas Eve, Clyde. Don’t ask me how I know he was somehow connected to you, I don’t understand myself. But the words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. That’s why I said ‘green eyes’. His eyes were unmistakable. Like emeralds with the sun shining through them. I remembered he’d been in a few times before, had browsed through the stacks of magazines and books we have, but had never bought anything. The last time he came in, he asked to speak with Gălbenele and then requested a tea-leaf reading, but after they went into the back of the shop, he changed his mind and bought two magazines instead before he left.”

“You think he asked for the reading so he could look around your sister’s consultation room?”

He nodded, smiling. “She’d be very happy to hear you call it a consultation room. She doesn’t think you’re as sceptical as you let on either.”

“She called me a stoic.”

He laughed. “When I see the way you look at Harry, I’d call you anything but, Clyde. You’re a pussycat around him.”

“Can you tell me anything else about this man?”

“Oddly enough, no. Some people have a ‘ward’ around them. It’s the word I use to describe something that’s like a personal shield. Your friend next door, Detective Sergeant Dioli, has one too. People who’ve suffered often have them.”

“How the hell do you know Dioli’s next door?”

He didn’t answer, but looked at me from under his eyebrows. “Acceptance is the start of belief, Clyde.”

Something niggled inside me. I had a choice to make. “All right, Luka. Let’s just suppose I do start to just accept some things you say without questioning. I’ll try to keep an open