Then, as soon as the man touched them, or tried to kiss them, they were to blow a sailor’s whistle, which would be sewn to the back of the lapel of their jackets, with the mouthpiece level with the top of the collar lapel, at the “v” between the lower part of the collar and the upper section. They were then to immediately immobilise the man until help arrived. The moment the police, who’d be hidden around outside, saw the murderer follow our decoy into the toilet block, they’d be outside the door with their guns ready, waiting for the whistle blast.
I’d then asked them to come to Harry’s training room on Saturday to discuss details with Vince and Dioli, who’d be overseeing the operation. As he’d already set it up ready for his training sessions, there was plenty of room. I’d assured them that none of their names would be revealed, and they could all choose their own code name or alias before arriving at the meeting.
After that, I’d returned to the gym floor and had done a bit of rope work, had sparred a bit in the ring with the gym manager, had taken a shower, and then had headed off for my appointment with Steve. When I’d asked him if he still felt rattled after what he’d been through at the park, he’d told me he’d faced worse during his time as a cop, and the encounter with the murderer hadn’t done anything except make him angry. He’d shown more than a little interest when I’d sounded him out on the prospect that if Harry and I got really busy we might need an extra man to help out, if he was prepared to work on commission, or perhaps for an agreed flat fee, depending on the job.
Before I’d left him, I’d asked him if he ever got an early mark. He’d told me he was owed a half day in lieu of overtime, so I’d suggested we meet up at Craig’s one afternoon next week for a swim, so he could meet Harry properly, and had casually mentioned at the end of our conversation that perhaps a one-legged veteran from the Malaysian campaign might just happen to be there at the same time.
Billy had rung at about a quarter to one with news that he’d had to fork out twenty quid to get a copy of Johnny’s records. If he hadn’t slipped the clerk two tenners in an envelope, he’d have had to apply for a court order. The rules regarding guardianship and institutionalised children had been changed recently. He’d been lucky, because many records had been burned to preserve the identities of not only the children sent for adoption but also their natural parents.
Johnny Edgar had indeed passed through Petersham Boys’ Home, but had only spent three months there in 1927 before being sent to a Dr. Bagshaw’s Home in Mudgee.
There were a dozen or so of them, charitable homes set up for orphans or children whose parents couldn’t keep them, all over the State. Dr. Bagshaw’s original intentions had been honourable at the end of the nineteenth century, when education through religious fervour had been all the rage, but after the Great War most of them had fallen into disrepute, with accusations of impropriety towards the wards and maltreatment of other kinds. Penny pinching had led to unsanitary conditions, near starvation of the children, ragged clothing, poor education, and hard physical labour, all generally overlooked by the State officials and board of governors because those who supervised the institutions were seen as doing the work of the Lord.
Billy had asked me whether I thought Howard Farrell had been there at the Petersham Boys’ Home at the same time as Johnny, and maybe could have remembered him—it had been something that had crossed his mind. He suggested I should perhaps check. Billy had also given me the names of the most recent supervisor and his assistant at the Dr. Bagshaw’s Home in Mudgee. I’d thanked him and had told him I’d give him the twenty quid he’d paid for the information next time I saw him. As per usual he’d given me the old “come to some agreement” line that was his trademark.
Tom and Harry still hadn’t returned from wherever they’d been after I’d got off the phone with Billy, so after checking for messages with Brenda Brighteyes and asking her to pick up calls, I’d crossed the street and had sat in a booth of the milk bar, eating an enormous hamburger and a serving of chips, all washed down with a caramel malted milkshake. I’d eaten so much, I’d barely been able to walk up the stairs to my office, but when I got there, I’d found Miss Evans from downstairs standing outside my door, glancing nervously at her watch with Baxter in his basket at her feet.
I’d just been about to ask her what was wrong when I’d heard Tom clomping hurriedly up the stairs behind me. “Sorry, Clyde,” he’d said as he’d brushed past me and had then kissed Miss Evans on the cheek. “Sorry, Sandra,” he’d said. “Mr. Jones had me picking up a few things for him and I got caught up. Have you been waiting long?”
She’d glanced shyly at me, blushing. I’d smiled back. “No, Thomas, but I do have to run. I’ll see you tomorrow after work for the Friday evening double feature at the Ritz?”
The rest of the day had mostly been spent on the telephone. I’d spoken with Howard, who’d told me he’d left a few years before Johnny had arrived, but had promised me he’d ring around other boys he’d known who might have been there at the same time. When he’d asked me why, I’d had to tell him the story of our friend Johnny Edgar. At the mention of the superintendent’s name of the Dr. Bagshaw’s Home at Mudgee, he’d stopped me.
“Let me enquire for you, Clyde. I know that man. He’s retired now, but he was my point of contact for years when he ran the place, long after your friend Johnny Edgar was an inmate. I still donate to them these days, but have had no personal contact with the new superintendent. I’ll give the man I know a call for you. I can get more information from him than you will. He owes me a lot.”
It seemed our friend Howard Farrell had contacts all over the State, especially those who’d worked in orphanages and for charities who looked after boys with no families. I was aware he and his family were major benefactors to the homeless, orphans, and to Legacy too. It was his way of trying to help those who’d been through what he had, but who hadn’t had the same opportunities as he’d enjoyed, having been adopted by a wealthy family.
Baxter had been incredibly annoyed with me, even avoiding my ear scrunches while I’d been talking with Howard on the phone. I’m sure it was punishment for my varied timetable at home and inability to stick to his required strict feeding times. When I’d picked up my hat and coat from the stand near the door, I’d leaned down and attempted to rub his head, telling him I wouldn’t be long, but he’d raised a clawed paw and hissed at me. Who’d have thought a cat could have forced Clyde Smith to promise to be a better man, when so many real men had failed in that endeavour? That wasn’t exactly true, Harry Jones had worked his magic, but it had made me realise I’d been doing too much. So, on my way to the Bishops’, to reassure them I was still working on their case, but had nothing new to report, I’d promised myself to go home early, start writing my crime report for the end of the month.
I’d decided to write about a gang of juvenile pickpockets who’d been jumping off and on trams in the Eastern Suburbs, and to make the article about child poverty and how we, as a community, should be looking after street children from poor backgrounds. I’d also needed to check the newspapers for a film to see while Harry was away over the weekend, and to call past the fishmonger on my way back to the office to buy a treat for the boss of the house.
*****
On Friday morning, when I arrived at Luka’s shop to wait with him for Vince’s phone call, Gălbenele was nowhere to be seen. Luka told me that every Friday, early in the morning, she spent time studying. Although his was slipping, she was determined not to lose their parents’ language, and she put aside a few hours once a week reading and writing in Romanian.
Harry arrived at about quarter to nine, just in time for Luka’s sister to arrive with a tray of their strong sweet coffee, accompanied by slices of what I recognised was my fruit cake. On Wednesday night, when he’d come for dinner, I’d given one to Luka to take home, in exchange for his biscuit recipe.
“You look tired, Clyde,” Harry said as he hugged me. “I thought you were going to have an early
night?”
“I did what I promised. Wrote a page or two of my article, listened to the wireless, spent some thinking time in the shower, got into bed and read for a while, but then I woke at four in the morning with a sudden thought, so jumped up and did some more work at my desk.”
“I have to chain him to the bed,” Harry said. He was not unused to my sudden leaps into action in the wee hours of the morning.
“Now, there’s an image I might find hard to dismiss from my mind,” Luka said with a wink.
Despite myself, I blushed. Gălbenele found the fact I’d coloured very amusing. She smiled at me over the top of her coffee cup.
*****
Not more than twenty minutes later, after Vince’s promised phone call, I pulled up in the driveway outside the door that led to the forensics office.
“Ready for this, Luka?” I asked.
“Just as ready as you are when you walk into work every morning, Clyde. It’s my job. My body might pay for it, but I have no fear of what I might find out. Who knows? Perhaps there’ll be nothing?”
I introduced Luka to Jack and then to Vince, who seemed genuinely pleased to meet him. They were of an age and had the same dark, broody looks.
Jack had placed the statuette near the edge of his stainless-steel examination table in front of the large paned window that covered almost one wall of his workroom. He’d covered it with a mortuary sheet.
“She hasn’t touched the ground or been placed on the ground, has she?” Luka asked Jack, who shook his head.
“Some of the gilding is coming off her face and her hands and feet,” Jack explained. “It’s nothing we’ve done, it’s just that the gilt wasn’t expertly applied.”
“She’s trying to show her true face,” Luka replied and then kneeled in front of the veiled statue, clasping his hands, his head bowed, murmuring softly.
Vince, Harry, and I leaned against the surgical cabinet, while Jack sat at his desk and lit his pipe.
“She was stolen by Christianity,” Luka said. “The black-faced Saint Sarah started out being called Ishtari, in the Rhone area of France. She was originally Astarte, the mother goddess of the Canaanites, crossed over in legend with Isis, the Egyptian goddess of all women and mother of Horus. She was stolen by the priests and turned into a saint of their own. It’s strange how the church has absorbed the old religions and made them their own, isn’t it? We Romany people venerate her with all three facets of who she is: the goddess from the ancient Middle East, the winged goddess of pharaonic Egypt, and her modern-day incarnation, that of the holy Saint Sarah. To my people, she’s associated with water and miracles concerning the sea, but most importantly the giving of alms and unexpected gifts.”
He picked up a corner of the cloth covering the statue and pressed it first to the centre of his forehead, then to his lips, and finally rubbed it over the top of his head.
“You probably wonder why I’m telling you this now,” he said over his shoulder.
“Well, I’m certainly interested,” Harry said.
“Because the Roman Catholic church believed she was the African maid of Mary Jacobe, one of the Three Marys who fled the Holy Land after the crucifixion. They travelled across the Mediterranean in a boat, but when they reached the shores of France, the seas were too rough to disembark. Sarah guided the boat close to shore and then walked across the water to land. In the eyes of the Church, it was her miracle. It’s what I’ll have to do when the visions take me, that’s why I’m telling you her history. Saint Sarah is always there to hold my hand while I walk across the water that divides the present time and my memories, catching wisps of information on the way for which I have no explanation. These inexplicable bits and pieces—visions, objects, places, faces—are what I consider her gifts to me. Her name is the last thing I remember before the world goes blank, and the first thing I remember when I wake up.”
I waited a short while before I spoke. “Is there anything we should do before you …?”
He chuckled and turned to smile at me. “No, Clyde, just be prepared to catch me if I fall, and someone must make sure Saint Sarah doesn’t touch the ground if I do so. And don’t be alarmed, I don’t feel anything while it’s happening.”
“Let us know when you’re ready then. Do you want the camp bed, or do you want to sit in the armchair Jack brought in for you?”
“No, I’m ready. As I said, nothing may happen. Maybe nothing will come to me. I never know. But, please come close, just in case.”
I signalled Harry to come with me, and we kneeled just behind him on either side.
“Thank you,” he said, lowering his head again and mumbling indistinctly.
Just as he carefully withdrew the sheet from the statue, a beam of sunlight flooded through the window of the forensics lab, illuminating the statue—it gleamed in the sunlight. I knew it was simply that the sun had risen high enough in the sky that it had cleared the roof of the old lockup next door, but despite knowing that, a cold shiver still ran up my spine.
It was curious to see the gentle reverence, the hesitation in his hands as he reached to pick up the gilded Madonna. He seemed to fondle the air around it for a moment or two before carefully picking it up, still on his knees, and slowly pulling it to his chest.
“Oh dulcea mea mama,” he moaned and then cried out, as if in pain. He thrust his head back, staring towards the ceiling, tears pouring from the sides of his eyes. I watched fascinated as his pupils rolled back in his head and his eyelids began to flutter. He grunted loudly and then began to slump backwards. Harry and I both caught him in our arms and then carefully laid him on his back, where he twitched, clutching the statue to his breast, speaking words I couldn’t make sense of, low in his voice. I wasn’t sure what to do and looked to Harry, who seemed as confused as I was. Without warning, Luka sat up so quickly he almost knocked me over, staring blankly at me, and then he thrust the statuette into my hands before beginning to convulse.
“Jack!” I called out. This was nothing like the seizure he’d had that I’d seen on that day in his shop. He became quite violent, crying out, his arms flailing and legs kicking wildly. Jack Lyme grabbed something from his benchtop and gave it to Harry.
“Sit on his legs, Harry, and then put this in his mouth,” Jack said. “Vince, please restrain his arms. Not yet, Harry! Wait until I can get his jaws opened.”
What Harry held was the length of thick wooden dowel Jack used to put in the centre of the spine of opened books that he occasionally referred to while performing procedures. My pal was having a hard time controlling Luka’s legs, kneeling astride them and clamping them together with his knees, his bottom pressing Luka’s shins firmly against the ground.
The seizure lasted for perhaps a minute or two, gradually fading in intensity until he at last became still. Jack checked his vitals and then suggested we lift him onto the camp stretcher in the corner of the room.
He’d peed himself again, quite spectacularly this time, so while Harry and Jack got him out of his pants and underwear and towelled him off, I carefully returned the statue to the box in which it had arrived in my office and placed it in one of the empty drawers of the forensic department’s filing cabinets.
“Cup of tea, anyone?” Vince asked. He’d been punched in the chest and in the jaw while trying to restrain Luka’s thrashing arms. He rubbed at his chin while helping Jack tuck a blanket over Luka.
Vince picked up the phone and spoke to one of his juniors, asking him to bring down tea for us all. Before hanging up, he clicked his fingers to get my attention. “There’s someone to see you, Clyde,” he said, covering the mouthpiece. “Upstairs. Bit of a celebrity too.”
I cocked my head, puzzled. “A celebrity?”
Vince spoke into the phone once more. “My, oh, my,” he said. “Who’s the lucky boy … or should I say lucky boys?”
“Who is it?”
“An Olympic swimmer, that’s who it is.”
“Dai?” I said to Harry. “What on earth�
�s he doing here?”
“Well there’s only one way you’re going to find out. Shall I get someone to bring him down?”
Dai’s unexpected appearance could only mean Howard had sent me a message about his conversation with the retired supervisor of the Dr. Bagshaw’s Home in Mudgee. “Get one of the constables to show him down to the entrance at the side of the building please, Vince.”
The moment he hung up, I asked if I could use the phone and then called Tom while Harry went outside to fetch the change of clothing Luka had brought with him, in case he’d needed it, and which he’d left in my car.
Tom told me that when he’d arrived this morning Dai had been waiting outside the office door with a pad full of shorthand notes from Howard. The young Welshman had driven down from Bowral to attend a lunchtime swim meet and had offered to bring the notepad to save Howard the trip. Tom said he’d read the first two pages and had decided the information couldn’t wait and had asked Dai to bring it up to me at the cop shop—he had to stay in the office as Boyd had left a message saying he’d found the razor and would drop it in.
Tom had just got off the phone from the taxi company—as “Max” had given Boyd a message to tell Clyde it had been a Legion taxi. The operator had said she’d sent out a call over the radio and the driver had responded, saying he remembered the fare he’d dropped outside the cricket oval, but the passenger had flagged him down outside the hospital. It was a popular place and I knew we’d get no leads from it, but asked Tom to contact the driver and get a statement from him, only to be told by the radio controller at the taxi company that the driver had since taken time off work and had gone away with his family. Early January was the time most families took holidays if they could.
The Gilded Madonna Page 37
