The Gilded Madonna

by Garrick Jones

  “But I bet you a fiver you did though,” Harry said.

  I chuckled. “Of course. I remember it mostly because of its few shallow sandstone caves. There were a couple of Indigenous paintings, but up high. Sailors’ scratchings on some of the rock ledges. Mainly lantana and a few cabbage palms. Pretty dense. Mum said a lot of people threw up humpies there during the depression, but I was a bit old in the early thirties to go clambering around those sorts of places.”

  Dioli seemed very interested. “Do you think your mate, Colonel …?”

  “Ball … Jeff Ball,” Harry said. “Would supply some more men to comb through the scrub?”

  “Well, I know it would be stretching the friendship, Harry, especially since they didn’t find anything in the cemeteries, the rifle range, or the storm water drains.”

  “I’ll give him a call, Mark. See what we can do.”

  “Harry,” I said. “Do you mind if I have a quick word with you in private?”

  “Sure, Clyde,” he said and then followed me into my office. “What’s up?”

  I kissed him. “First of all that, and thank you for looking after Dioli.”

  “He was such a mess, Clyde. Sitting on the floor pissed rotten, surrounded by half-started letters to his aunt and uncle in Holland. I didn’t know what to do, so I took him home. Mother just looked at what I had over my shoulder and said, ‘Spare bedroom, sweetheart’. I put him in the shower—Jesus, Clyde, the scars on that man’s body—and then she took over once I got him dry and into bed. He’s staying for a week until she and her pals can clean up his house.”

  “Yes, I remember. I practically had to shuffle across the living room through piles of rubbish on the floor while Terrence Dioli was looking for the papers I’d demanded from him.”

  “Do you think he’ll go back to live there?” Harry asked.

  I shrugged. “If it’s all clean and tidy and looks different, maybe he will. But he’s on a detective sergeant’s pay, so he’s hardly going to be cash-strapped, especially now he knows about the bank account in his name. Maybe he’ll 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 mind.”

  “You’re going to ask me if I’ve seen him anywhere else aren’t you?”

  “Yes, that was one of my questions,” I said.

  “Very well, but before I answer you, may I use your telephone?”

  “Of course.” I moved it across the desk. He dialled a number and then spoke rapidly, in what I assumed was Romanian. I heard a woman’s voice replying; Gălbenele for sure. Then he gestured for a pad and my pencil, which I gave to him. He scribbled for a bit and then said “Goodbye” in English.

  “What’s this?” I asked, as he showed me what he’d written.

  “The two magazines the man bought, Clyde. Second-hand dealers have to keep an account of everything they buy or sell.”

  “Australian War Digest, March and April, 1941,” I said, reading from the pad.

  “Where were you at that time, Clyde?”

  “In North Africa and then Malta,” I said. “Not long before the siege of Tobruk, and a month before I was sent to Italy and then captured.”

  “In answer to your previous question. No, I’ve only seen the man twice when he pottered around, leafing through the magazines, and then a third time, on the day he came to the shop to ‘case the joint’. Is that the expression you investigators use?”

  I smiled. “It’s the expression they use in American gangster movies, but I understand. Presumably it was him who stole your statue of the gilded Madonna.”

  “Saint Sarah? Well, now that I’m putting two and two together, I suspect it must have been him. Sometimes we leave the window open at the top of the staircase at night if it’s hot. Someone light-footed could scale the drainage pipe and climb in without waking us. When we found your business card on the plinth from which she was stolen, we originally assumed that person must have been you.”

  I nodded and began to take notes. When I realised he was waiting for me to finish so he could say something, I looked up from my writing.

  “Clyde, there’s something else I might be able to do to help you; but before I tell you what it is, may I tell you a bit about my ‘gift’?”

  “You believe it, and that’s what’s important, Luka,” I said. “I sincerely believe you when you say you see what comes to you in your visions. But to be honest, it’s not important that I believe it myself.”

  “Well, that’s where you’re wrong, Clyde. Because the way in which I can help you depends on you understanding. It won’t take long, and it’s you who said you were trying to keep an open mind, remember?”

  “Very well,” I said, putting down my pen. He was right. I’d said I’d try not to be so close-minded. Listening to what he had to say wouldn’t hurt, I supposed. “Would you like coffee first? It’s not your dense, Turkish style, but I have a mocha pot and good Italian beans.”

  “Thank you, yes please, and a cigarette while we talk. May I offer you one of mine?”

  “I’d be honoured,” I said and then buzzed Tom on the intercom. When he popped his head around the door, I introduced him to Luka and then asked if he’d mind making us some coffee.

  “The human brain is an amazing thing, Clyde,” Luka said. “Most people see and notice everything, but they quickly forget it, replace it with other, newer things. I’m sure you’re used to that. Ask someone at the scene of the crime, I’m sure they give you details, even tiny ones, and yet when you get a statement a week later, the details are fuzzy and some other particulars are overblown, out of proportion, and some observations made more important than what the witness first mentioned. Am I correct?”

  “Yes, that’s true. I’d say that except for rare occasions, it’s one of our biggest problems—witnesses coming to court and then when examined by a skilled barrister unable to corroborate precisely what they’d written in their statement, and when asked to elaborate have changed details enough for their testimony to be deemed either unreliable or inadmissible.”

  “Well, it’s my theory that there are some of us who don’t forget everything. Of course, those people don’t dwell on every tiny little thing or obsess over details otherwise they’d go mad. But they don’t forget, naturally, like the rest of the world—they store every little thing away in the dark recesses of their minds, available, under certain circumstances, for retrieval. I believe I’m one of those people and my ‘gift’ is to recall tiny details of what I’ve seen or heard, or read, and then pull the threads together, just like any detective or investigator does when solving a crime, except that the amount of energy that I need to process that information overwhelms my brain, and it closes my body down in order to get on with the task—that’s when and why I have convulsions.”

  “What? You’re saying your mind works like one of those new electronic brain machines?”

  “Yes. The object I hold in my hand or touch is merely a tool to start the internal investigation—something on which to focus and perhaps get feedback. Psychometry isn’t hocus pocus. It’s the same as when you use clues to come up with lines of enquiry, probabilities based on evidence, but we do it without direct input—we’re the victims of the process, we can’t take charge or lead where our minds take us.”

  “Has this been proved, Luka?”

  “No. How could you prove such a thing, Clyde? It’s merely my explanation by me to myself, so I can try to make sense of my gift. I’ve learned to explain it to myself that I’m simply putting clues together and coming up with leads based on what I’ve filed away in the back of my mind of things I already know.”

  At that moment, Tom knocked on the door and then brought in the tea tray.

  “Where did these biscuits come from, Tom?” I asked, picking up small round layered biscuit with a jam-filled centre hole.

  “I don’t know, Clyde. They were in the kitchen when I went out to make coffee.”

  “Guilty,” Luka said, smiling shyly.

  I savoured the biscuits, sipping coffee between long drags of the cigarette Luka had given me. It was aromatic, almost clove-like in the taste. I’d not noticed the packet, but I liked them. What he’d told me gave me food for thought. Could it be true? Could some people be human computational devices, forced to cut out the external world while they processed information, which made them lose consciousness and have a fit? It made a lot of sense, when he’d explained it the way he had, but I still found it hard to swallow.

  “You said you might be able to help?”

  “Yes, Clyde. You said you’d keep an open mind. Tell me, has anyone touched our statue of Saint Sarah with their bare hands since she was sent to you?”

  I thought carefully for a moment. We hadn’t touched the figurine here. We’d been fastidious in our examination, and when it had gone for fingerprints, the technicians would have worn gloves.

  “I think not. Why?”

  “Well, if you’d allow me to hold her, I might be able to tell you something about ‘Green Eyes’, the man who stole it. And now, as he’s your obvious choice as the murderer, what I learn might be important.”

  I think my expression must have been one of supreme astonishment combined with something like “what the hell have you been taking”, because he chuckled.

  “Clyde,” he said, leaning across the desk and taking my hand. “I think it’s time you opened the envelope I gave to Harry for you.”

  “I thought you said it’s for when I start to believe you?”

  “I think your expression just told me that you’re ready to start that journey.”

  *****

  Billy was with a client when I arrived at his office, unannounced, just before lunch.

  His secretary looked up and then startled, asked whether there was a scheduled meeting of our Legacy programme she’d overlooked. I asked whether I might wait in the visitor’s room until Billy was free, as I was feeling very shaken up.

  “Would you like a cu
p of tea, Mr. Smith?”

  I declined her kind offer and sat in an armchair in the corner, jiggling my leg while I re-read the first page of Luka’s letter to me:

  Dear Clyde

  I often don’t tell people everything I see in my visions for fear they’ll take fright and cut me out of their lives. It’s happened more times than I can tell you. People get scared, rather than spend time thinking about what I’ve seen.

  I’ve drawn images, rather than write words. There are four in all.

  I have absolutely no idea what they mean, only you will know. All I can tell you is the first one and the last one are to do with one person, and the middle two refer to the man I mentioned at the baths on Boxing Day I spoke about. The tall, dark-haired man who couldn’t stop looking at you.

  I hope you’ll still be my friend once you’ve worked out what my images mean. I genuinely think we could become mates, and I’d like it.

  Luka Praz.

  “Sorry, Clyde, I—”

  I bounded from where I was sitting when Billy came into the room. “Please, close the door, Billy,” I said.

  “What on earth’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Tell me, Billy. Please, don’t piss about, just tell me something. All right?”

  “Of course, anything. You sure you don’t want a drink? I’ve got some scotch in my office—”

  “No, no. It’s this tiepin.” I took it from my pocket and held it out to him. “You have one just like it. Where did you get them?”

  “I had them made, Clyde. You remember, I told you I had them both made after I shipped back here in August 1941, before I returned to Africa to work alongside the Brits. I knew you’d gone missing and I had the pair made. I promised myself I’d carry yours with me and give it to you when we were home safe and the war was over.”

  “Yes, yes, Billy, I know that. But where did you get them?”

  “I had them made at Angus and Coote in George Street.”

  “You said you had them made?”

  “Yes, they weren’t off the shelf. It was a bespoke job.”