“May I smoke?”
“But of course.”
I felt my hands trembling slightly as I lit my cigarette. I’d offered one to her, but she’d declined.
“Clyde, the first words are always the hardest for everyone. I’m not here to change you, I’m not here to re–order you mind. I’m a speaking mirror. I listen to what you have to say and I may ask questions to help you see your own reflection. It’s all up to you. Even if you want to sit here for an hour and not speak, that’s fine with me too. It’s your time to use as you wish.”
I laughed softly.
“What were you thinking when you just laughed like that?”
“I was wondering what I might have thought back in 1944, my last year as a prisoner in a German prisoner of war camp in occupied Italy, of sitting back here at home, thirteen years later on, with a successful business, living a comfortable life, and being in love for the first time in my life.”
“They were dark days, Clyde. You can tell me anything about them or nothing. Just know I lived through them myself. Despite the horror and the constant fear, like me, you must have had days, or even moments, when the sun shone and life was worth living.”
I closed my eyes, but as hard as I tried, I couldn’t actually place myself back in that dark hole. I could only imagine it, seeing myself as a third person. It was at that moment I realised that something had changed. I used to be almost overwhelmed with the same feelings I’d had while a prisoner. It had made me afraid to revisit that place in my mind because of the sudden unwelcome immersion. But now, instead of reliving any of it, I could only see myself through my mind’s eye, flying over the camp and through the squalor, untouched by it.
“I’ve changed, Doctor,” I said. “Those times seem like someone else’s life right now, when I tried to find one of those moments you just described.”
“You’ve already talked about four things that have changed you, Clyde.”
“I have?”
“Yes, you mentioned being back home, having a successful business, living a comfortable life, and being in love for the first time in your life.”
“Oh …”
“Yes, ‘oh’. This is what our process will be while we work together. The secret to fixing whatever you think is wrong with you does not lie in my hands, it’s something you already have the key to, Clyde. Now, let’s start off by talking about any one of those four things. It doesn’t matter which. You choose.”
Of course it mattered which. I knew it the moment she’d said it didn’t matter. But, before I could stop them, the words were out of my mouth.
“On the twenty–fourth of January last year, there was a knock at my front door. When I opened it a man was standing with his back to me with his hands in his pockets. He took off his straw Stetson and held out his hand. You must be Clyde Smith, he said. Sorry, was daydreaming. And, Doctor, I’m not making this up, but I promise you, my heart stopped in my chest …”
“Ah!” she said. “I think this is the very best place to start, Clyde. Don’t you?”
I think she was right.
AUTHOR BIO
From the outback to the opera.
After a thirty year career as a professional opera singer, performing as a soloist in opera houses and in concert halls all over the world, I took up a position as lecturer in music in Australia in 1999, at the Central Queensland Conservatorium of Music, which is now part of CQUniversity.
Brought up in Australia, between the bush and the beaches of the Eastern suburbs, I retired in 2015 and now live in the tropics, writing, gardening, and finally finding time to enjoy life and to re–establish a connection with who I am after a very busy career on the stage and as an academic.
I write mostly historical gay fiction. The stories are always about relationships and the inner workings of men; sometimes my fellas get down to the nitty–gritty, sometimes it’s up to you, the reader, to fill in the blanks.
Every book is story driven; spies, detectives, murders, epic dramas, there’s something for everyone. I also love to write about my country and the things that make us Aussies and our history different from the rest of the world.
I’m research driven. I always try to do my best to give the reader a sense of what life was like for my main characters in the world they live in.
Website – https://garrickjones.com.au
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/GarrickJonesAuthor
ALSO BY GARRICK JONES
The Boys of Bullaroo: Tales of War, Aussie Mateship and More (Nov 2018), MoshPit Publishing, Australia
Six tales of men and war, spanning sixty years, and linked by a fictional outback town called Bullaroo. From the deserts of Egypt in 1919 to the American R&R in 1966, the stories follow the loves, losses and sexual awakenings of Australians both on the battlefield and in the bush.
The Cricketer’s Arms (July 2019) MoshPit Publishing, Australia
Clyde Smith is brought into the investigation of the ritualised death of pin-up boy cricketer, Daley Morrison, by his former colleague, Sam Telford, after a note is found in the evidence bags with Clyde’s initials on it. Someone wants ex-Detective Sergeant Smith to investigate the crime from outside the police force. It can only mean one thing—corruption at the highest levels.
The Cricketer’s Arms is an old-fashioned, pulp fiction detective novel, set in beachside Sydney in 1956. It follows the intricacies of a complex murder case, involving a tight-knit group of queer men, sports match-fixing, and a criminal drug cartel.
Was Daley Morrison killed because of his sexual proclivities, or was his death a signal to others to tread carefully? Has Clyde Smith been fingered as the man for the case, or will the case be the end of the road for the war veteran detective?
Australia’s Son (Nov 2019) MoshPit Publishing, Australia
A wrongly delivered letter sparks a chain of events that threaten the life of Edward Murray, “Australia’s Son”, the most renowned operatic baritone of his day.
It is 1902, and Edward has just returned to the Metropole Hotel after a performance of La Bohème at the Theatre Royal in Sydney, when the manager phones his apartment to tell him the police have arrived with bad news.
Edward, and his vaudeville performer brother, Theodore, are shocked to hear that Edward’s dresser, the brothers’ oldest friend from childhood, has been found dead, stabbed in the back, in Edward’s recently vacated dressing room. Following a sequence of gruesome killings, Edward and the detective assigned to protect him, Chief Constable Andrew Bolton, are lured into a trap by a man whose agenda is not only personal, but driven by a deranged mind.
Set around the theatre world of early Edwardian Sydney, the story is steeped in the world of class divides, of music and the theatre. Its themes of murder, treachery and foul play, are ofttimes confronting, but the story is linked throughout by Edward Murray, the man with the golden voice, whose overarching belief is that even in the darkest of times, a sliver of light can mean that hope is at hand.
The House of a Thousand Stairs (March 2020) MoshPit Publishing, Australia
Warrambool
In Gamilaraay, the language of the Kamilaroi peoples of north-western New South Wales, it's the word for The Milky Way. It's also the name of Peter Dixon's homestead and sheep station, situated in the lee of the Liverpool Ranges.
In 1947, Peter returns from war, his parents and younger brother dead, the property de-stocked and his older brother, Ron, having emptied out the family bank account and nowhere to be found.
The House With a Thousand Stairs is the story of a young man, scarred both on the inside and the outside, trying to re-establish what once was a prosperous and thriving sheep station with the help of his neighbours and his childhood friend, Frank Hunter, the local Indigenous policeman.
Enveloped by the world of Indigenous spirituality, the Kamilaroi system of animal guides and totems, Peter and Frank discover the true nature of their predestined friendship, one defined by the stars, the ancestral spirits, and Baiame
, the Creator God and Sky Father of The Dreaming.
Maliyan bandaarr, maliyan biliirr.
Wheelchair: Antarctica. Snow and Ice (Sept 2020) MoshPit Publishing, Australia
You can never judge an academic book by its cover. Simon Dyson, a quiet assistant professor, is a man of hidden depths. To the world he presents as a harmless, innocuous, shy and retiring intellectual. However, the man who lurks behind that public persona is far more interesting … and dangerous … and driven.
Wheelchair is a slow-burn contemporary psychological crime thriller about a man who suffers from both OCD and PTSD, a man who is unwittingly caught up in a cross-border war between rival crime gangs—a conflict that almost leads to his death, and more than once.
It's a study of compulsion and of disability, and of the many faces of emotional dependence and sexual compulsion. It’s about how some men cannot just love or make love because their hearts or their bodies lead them to it, but who can only connect emotionally and physically through self-imposed rituals which involve struggle or self-abasement.
The Seventh of December: The Czarina's Necklace (December 2020) MoshPit Publishing, Australia
As bombs rain down over London during the Blitz, Major Tommy Haupner negotiates the rubble-filled streets of Bloomsbury on his way to perform at a socialite party. The explosive event of the evening is not his virtuosic violin playing, but the 'almost-blond' American who not only insults him, but then steals his heart.
The Seventh of December follows a few months in the lives of two Intelligence agents in the early part of World War Two. Set against the backdrop of war-torn occupied Europe, Tommy and his American lover, Henry Reiter, forge a committed relationship that is intertwined with intrigues that threaten the integrity of the British Royal Family and the stability of a Nation at war.
Neither bombs nor bullets manage to break the bond that these men form in their struggle against Nazism and the powers of evil.
All available from your favourite on-line retailer
COPYRIGHT STATEMENT
This is an IndieMosh book
brought to you by MoshPit Publishing
an imprint of Mosher’s Business Support Pty Ltd
PO Box 4363
Penrith NSW 2750
indiemosh.com.au
Copyright © Garrick Jones 2021
The moral right of the author has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (for example, fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review) no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
https://www.nla.gov.au/collections
Title:
The Gilded Madonna
Subtitle:
A Clyde Smith Mystery
Series:
A Clyde Smith Mystery Book 2
Author:
Jones, Garrick (1948–)
ISBNs:
978-1-922542-60-1 (paperback)
978-1-922542-61-8 (ebook – epub)
978-1-922542-62-5 (ebook – mobi)
Subjects:
FICTION: LGBTQ+ / Gay; Mystery & Detective / Historical; Mystery & Detective / Private Investigators; Thrillers / Crime
This book is entirely a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The author, their agents and publishers cannot be held responsible for any claim otherwise and take no responsibility for any such coincidence.
Cover design by Garrick Jones
Cover images from Pixabay and Unsplash, public domain.
Editing by Victoria Milne Professional Editing
The Gilded Madonna Page 45
