The Gilded Madonna

by Garrick Jones

  Harry laughed. “You and your army expressions.”

  “Didn’t you use that one?”

  “Nope. But I get your drift. He’s very closed, isn’t he. It must be very hard going through life holding everything inside the way he does.”

  “You probably would too if you’d had his upbringing in the orphanage … and then his grandfather.”

  “Why does a grown man put up with that? He’s hardly a shrinking violet.”

  “Who knows, Harry.”

  “It’s quite funny how envious he is of you.”

  “Envious? The man’s dismissive and rude with it. He didn’t call me anything but Smith all afternoon and would hardly meet my eyes. I nearly fell over when he thanked me before he left.”

  “It’s the sign of someone who feels they have to prove their self-worth. I saw it often with soldiers who were snarly with their more senior officers. Besides, you’ve got such a reputation and he wants to be just like you. Lots of young blokes are like that. They want to run before they can walk.”

  “Well, I wish he’d get over it. I find it very tiring trying to be pleasant in the face of such continual, offensive confrontation.”

  “I thought you did a great job, Clyde. But then again, I’m biased.”

  “Let’s not talk of Dioli, Harry. It’s our first weekend together when you don’t have to go running off. I’m happy to do whatever you want to.”

  “Running off? Clyde—”

  “No stop! I didn’t mean it like that. Let’s promise not to argue either, eh? I had enough of that with Sam. Now, tell me what’s on your mind.”

  He ran a hand around my backside. “There’s this …”

  I laughed. “And after that?”

  “Movies? Maybe that Chinese restaurant you like so much at Bondi Junction?”

  “The Sun Si Gai? Now you’ve made my tummy rumble. Hmm … prawn cutlets, combination chow mein … where’s the paper again? I’ll find out what’s on at the Coronet.”

  “There’s a double bill of Tarzan movies.”

  “You already looked it up?”

  “Maybe?”

  “You sure you just don’t want two servings of Johnny Weissmuller?”

  He laughed. “I was teasing. I’d rather go see My Sister Eileen at the Odeon. Jack Lemon and Janet Leigh.”

  “That’s a better choice, and I can write a review for the week between Christmas and New Year. Now about that other thing …”

  “Which other thing?”

  “The one you’ve got your hand on.”

  “Ah, that other thing,” he said and then led me into the bedroom.

  *****

  “Who was that?” Harry asked. We’d been lying in bed after a post-prandial snooze and lovemaking session. The telephone had rung, and I’d staggered into the study, still half-asleep, to answer it.

  “Wilbur Curtis, the editor of the local rag.”

  “It’s Saturday afternoon, Clyde! Don’t people have weekends like the rest of the world?”

  I chuckled and then snuggled my shoulder under his arm, my head on his chest.

  “He was ringing to apologise about the idiocy of his junior reporter, to tell me that the cabinets will always be locked from now on, and to hope the stolen picture hadn’t caused any problems.”

  “You seemed to be gone long enough.”

  “Well, as he was on the phone, I asked him what he knew about Marigold Leeks.”

  “And?”

  “She has a shop opposite the Odeon up in Avoca Street. You know where the statue of Captain Cook is? Just directly on the other side of the road from it. It’s that double-fronted shop with bric-a-brac in the window—sells books and trinkets too.”

  “Did he say what she’s like?”

  “He had no idea. Said he’d never met her. It’s her brother who arranges the copy for their advertising and the notices for their special offers and comes in to pay their account. Said he’s chatted with him more than once. Decent enough chap according to him—quiet, respectful, but pleasant with it.”

  “Brother?”

  “Yes. He told me his wife Noreen knew more about her business than he did, so he called her to the phone. She told me they were gypsies. I could hear the tone of disapproval in her voice—same inflection my mother used to use when talking about drunks in the street.”

  “And—?”

  “According to Mrs. Curtis, Marigold Leeks does tea leaves, cards, and makes potions. She said she’s innocuous enough, but it’s the brother who scares the living hell out of everyone.”

  “Scares everyone? How so?”

  “She told me about her friend, Mrs. Hill, who went to them to find out about what had happened to her husband who never came back from the war. The woman told Mrs. Curtis that the brother took her wedding ring in one hand and her engagement ring in the other and then lay on his back on the floor and had a fit.”

  “A fit?”

  “Well, a convulsion of some sort. Mrs. Curtis said the brother’s eyes rolled back in his head and he started mumbling. Then all of a sudden he sat up and said, as clear as day, ‘Armidale, one-third, grey nurse’.”

  “What on earth does that mean?”

  “Mrs. Hill killed herself, Harry. Put her head in the oven three weeks later.”

  “What?”

  “She knew her husband had been sent from Darwin on the H.M.A.S. Armidale to rescue civilians from Betano Bay and had gone down with the ship when the Japanese attacked it.”

  “But if she already knew that why did she kill herself? I don’t understand.”

  “I’m just reporting what Mrs. Curtis told me. She said her friend created such a hullaballoo, someone from the army came to tell her confidentially that her husband was one of the forty-nine out of one hundred and fifty who survived the sinking, but was taken by a shark in the water.”

  *****

  We’d called into Stones milk bar for a coffee and a sweet roll on our way back from a stroll on the headland. I thought of calling in to Craig’s but wanted time alone with Harry. We’d just started to throw ideas around about my conversation with Mrs. Curtis and the story she’d told of her friend, Mrs. Hill, while we waited for Liesl to bring the coffee and the cakes we’d ordered to our table. There was quite a crowd at the bar and we’d snagged a booth at the back of the café.

  “I thought grey nurse sharks were coastal and only found along the eastern seaboard of Australia,” I said, after Harry started to speculate on mystics and psychics. I was having none of it—I was a sceptic.

  “Forty-nine out of one hundred and fifty is a third,” he replied.

  “It could just be a combination of guess work and research,” I said. “You read Marigold Leeks’ advertisement. Appointments by phone only. It would only take a bit of leg work for the brother to check on her husband’s war records to find out he’d gone down on the Armidale and had been lost. I’ve seen these quacks in action more than once. You know they’re quite fond of fleecing families of every penny they have with promises of messages from the dead.”

  “I suppose you’re right, Clyde.”

  “Well, there’s one thing that’s becoming patently clear, mysticism or no mysticism, and that it’s not her who’s been sending the notes.”

  “Because of …?”

  “Because of the photo that was stolen from the local newspaper’s display cabinet and then sent to the editor of the Australian magazine. It had the same green ink writing on the back as the other things that were sent to me. How could she possibly know of the association between Dioli, Farrell, and me. Let’s look at the timeline.”

  I asked if Liesl had a spare pencil as she passed by our table to deliver an order to the couple behind us. She smiled and gave me the one she had perched behind her ear, promising she’d be with us in a moment to bring our order to the table.

  Starting with the Friday of the previous week, I wrote the day of the week on a paper serviette, underlining it as I explained what had happened. I was fond o
f dot-point notes; they helped me think linearly.

  Friday: the Silent Cop killer slaughters a man opposite my flat.

  Saturday: I visit Dioli at the forensic department, the reporter takes pictures of Dioli and me. Later that night Farrell rings to invite us to dinner later in the week. He’s heard I was digging into Mark Dioli when I was at central records.

  Monday: the newspaper comes out with the photo of Dioli and me.

  Tuesday: the photograph is stolen, presumably posted that day.

  Wednesday: Farrell gets a phone call from his friend the editor of the Australian magazine saying the photo’s arrived on his desk, and Howard picks it up just before we have dinner with him.

  “It’s too tight,” I said. “And how could she know that I had any association with Farrell in the first place? I spoke to him for the first time just a few days before we met …”

  “There’s the other thing too, Clyde.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The wording on the back of the photograph sent to Farrell. Your name, Dioli’s name, and the Bishops. When did Mr. and Mrs. Bishop come to see you? The day after we had dinner with Farrell, wasn’t it? They didn’t engage you until after the photo had been sent. No one but you and me and Vince knew you had any interest.”

  “No, you’re right, Harry. But I’m starting to feel that someone out there knows something about the Bishop kidnapping and thinks that I should visit Marigold Leeks.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve no idea. I suppose I’ll find out first thing on Monday morning when her shop opens for business.”

  “But Monday is Christmas Eve, what happens if she doesn’t open?”

  “Then I’ll call on my favourite lock-picker.”

  “Who me?”

  I smiled and squeezed his knee under the table.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I arrived outside the shop on Monday morning at about quarter past eight, three-quarters of an hour before it was due to open. I’d canvassed the neighbourhood, strolled past the shop, double-checked the opening hours, and then got back into my car, which I’d parked on the other side of the road.

  By quarter past nine, I was beginning to wonder whether they’d decided not to open on Christmas Eve when I saw someone throw open one of the windows of the flat above the shop. A man wearing a singlet put his head out the window and yawned. He lit a cigarette and then stared directly at me, smiled, and then gave me a casual wave.

  It wasn’t often I was marked. I was pretty good at looking noncha­lant. I turned my head for a moment and then grinned. All right, he’d seen me, so I waved back. He beckoned me over and then disappeared.

  A few minutes later he appeared at the front door of the shop, an unbuttoned shirt thrown over his singlet. He turned the closed sign around to show the side that read “open” and then tucked his shirt into his pants as he opened the door.

  “You could have knocked,” he said.

  “I thought you might be having the day off.”

  “Your car’s been parked on the other side of the street for nearly an hour. I saw you wandering around. Did the butcher tell you about the strange goings on in our shop? Our midnight orgies, our black masses, and the sacrifices of virgins and small children?”

  I laughed. “No, he said you were respectable people who asked for different cuts of meat than the rest of his customers.”

  “You could have come yesterday,” he said.

  “I thought you were closed.”

  “We were.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that and was about to speak when a woman appeared from the back of the shop. “Good morning,” she said. “We were expecting you.”

  I held up the business card that had been sent to the Bishops with my name scrawled across the back. “This came in the mail for me,” I said.

  “Clyde Smith, huh? When you find him, tell us where he is,” she said.

  “I’m Clyde Smith,” I replied.

  “Well, you’ve got a hide, Mr. Smith. Did you get a fit of the guilts and decide to bring it back?”

  “Bring what back?”

  “My statue of Saint Sarah, I suppose it was you who stole it?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mrs …?”

  “Marigold. This is my brother Luka.”

  “Marigold is an unusual name. Actually, I think you might be the first one I’ve met.”

  “Actually it’s Gălbenele, which is the name of the flower in Romanian, and our surname is Praz, the name for a leek, the vegetable, in our language.”

  “Ah, that’s why Marigold Leek is the name you chose for your business.”

  She’d been staring at my business card. “For someone whose card says he’s a detective, that wasn’t so hard to work out now, was it?”

  Her cheeky look made me smile. “Touché,” I said.

  “We have one of these too,” she said, glancing at my business card.

  “You do?”

  She shook her head. “Follow me, Mr. Smith.”

  “Pleastameecha,” the young man said, holding out his hand, which I shook.

  “Likewise, Luka,” I replied to his casual, and distinctly Aussie, greeting.

  He placed his other hand on top of mine while carefully inspecting my face. “Green eyes,” he said. “Green eyes, Mr. Smith.”

  I had no idea what he meant. My eyes were dark brown.

  “Clyde—my name is Clyde,” I said.

  Normally, I’d never have invited someone I intended to question to use my Christian name. I’d learned, in most cases, surnames were more professional and helped keep a distance between the parties.

  There was something about the way he watched me as I followed his sister to the back of the shop. I could see his reflection in a large mirror that covered the wall behind the counter. I recognised it of course—that look of one man appraising another. The way he looked at my shoulders and then the shape of my arse in my strides. I couldn’t help but think if Sam had been there with me, it would have been me with the sister while Sam chatted up the lean, dark-complexioned man with long, as yet uncombed hair, and piercing blue eyes. He was right up Sam Telford’s street.

  The back of the shop was nothing like I’d expected—it was a bright, airy room.

  “Not what you’d supposed, Mr. Smith?” she said. “No crystal ball, dark curtains, shawls over the furniture, black cats rubbing against your legs?”

  “No, I’m afraid I’ve brought my preconceptions with me, Miss …”

  “Gal-ben-eh-leh,” she pronounced it slowly, and I mimicked it well enough that she smiled at me.

  “Speak the truth,” I said, translating an embroidered framed sampler hanging on the wall.

  “Apune adevărul,” she said. “You speak Romanian?”

  I shook my head. “A few words.”

  She waited, but I didn’t explain that I’d learned not only Italian but a smattering of German, Romanian, and a bit of Spanish and Maltese in the camp.

  “I don’t hear any accent in your English. You were born in Romania?”

  “No. Our parents were. A lot of Romany people are from there or from Hungary.”

  “I’ve never noticed this shop before, and yet I used to get my meat from the butcher across the road when I lived in Judge Street, just down the road.”

  “We moved here from Nowra in June. It was empty for years before we took the lease.”

  “You said you received a card with my name on it too?”

  “You’re the detective,” she said and then sat while I cast my eye around the room. I saw it almost instantly of course. I’d been glancing earlier, not looking. There was a small plinth on the wall, about four feet from the ground, big enough for the base of the statue that had been sent to the Bishops.

  “Here?”

  “Our statue of Saint Sarah was there, and this was in its place …” Luka said from behind me. I didn’t know how long he’d been leaning in the doorway. He held out one of my business cards,
on the reverse of which my name was written in the same elongated capitals and in green ink.

  “I thought—”

  “You thought we sent you your own business card with your name on it, Clyde? Why would we do that?”

  “Someone has been sending messages, cards and the like, with my name written on them in the same green ink. Your statue came to me marked in the same way too. I thought they were clues indicating I should visit you.”

  “Me?”

  “Well, to your business—Marigold Leek.”

  I explained the statuette and the flag and the other hints that had come in the box left at the Bishops’ front door.

  “Will you have coffee, Mr. Smith?” Gălbenele asked. “I’m sorry, it’s only Turkish, but something tells me you like strong things.”

  “Do you like strong things, Clyde?” her brother asked me after I’d accepted the offer of coffee and she’d left the room to make it.

  “Sorry, Luka, I’m just here for business, nothing else.”

  “I don’t know many people here yet. It doesn’t hurt to try to make new friends.”

  I smiled and then changed the subject.

  “Why would someone be directing me to come to you and your sister?”

  “Apart from our business, you mean?”

  “I need to tell you that I don’t believe, Luka.”

  “No one’s asking you to, Clyde, and we don’t like to get involved with police business either.”

  “Who said it was police business?”

  “I read the local paper. I saw your picture—the photograph of you and the new detective who’s taken your place.”

  “And yet your sister didn’t seem to recognise me?”

  “I didn’t say she read the local paper … I’m the one who looks after that side of the business, and I go through it every week to check our advertisement.”

  “Why did you say ‘green eyes’? Earlier, when I shook your hand?”

  He shrugged. “No use explaining. You just told me you don’t believe.”

  “If you’re going to tell me that someone with green eyes—”

  “I’m not going to tell you anything. As I just said, you made it perfectly clear you don’t believe.”