Golden Relic

by Lindy Cameron

  “And?” Bailey demanded impatiently.

  “A sudden, and unexplained, influx of cocaine has coincided with a visit of this ‘Life and Death’ show in Paris, London, Anchorage, San Francisco and now Melbourne.”

  “I knew it!” Sam exclaimed.

  “That doesn’t mean diddly,” Bailey said.

  “We’re not going to ignore this are we?” Ben argued.

  “No. But what we are going to do, is exercise a little discretion. Do you actually have a suspect Sam, or does your hunch involve everyone at the Museum?”

  Sam ignored the patronising tone. “The show’s manager, or logistical expert, apparently engages in extra-curricular business in every city they visit. According to the exhibition curator, Enrico Vasquez, Andrew Barstoc is a businessman - and his business is private.”

  “Barstoc?” Ben interjected. “He was the one the boss cocky was venting his anger at.”

  “Dr Bridger was angry with Andrew Barstoc?” Sam asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Elaborate, Muldoon.”

  “The Customs guys moved the crates into a small warehouse so we could go over them. This Dr Bridger was irate but, given the circumstances, he was reasonably cooperative. We told him it was a routine search, by the way. So he asked to oversee the unpacking, and insisted on attending to some items himself. He was afraid we’d break his precious phallic symbols. Anyway when the job was nearly done, this Barstoc bloke turns up. I honestly thought the good doctor was going to deck him. He shoved him against a wall and got right in his face about something. I couldn’t hear what it was, but he was mighty pissed off.”

  “And you think Barstoc killed the Professor?” Bailey addressed Sam.

  She shrugged. “I honestly don’t know, Boss. I had a hunch about the drugs - which may still prove correct. Because if there was cocaine in that first shipment of artefacts, and if Professor Marsden found out about it, then it stands to reason that he was murdered because of it. In that case Andrew Barstoc would be my prime suspect. Jack Rigby, on the other hand, thinks it was the workplace equivalent of a domestic argument.”

  “Ah, a voice of reason surrounded by conspiracy theories,” Bailey remarked.

  “You may be right,” Sam agreed. “But that wouldn’t explain why Marsden’s house was searched by someone who didn’t care about cleaning up afterwards.”

  “What was the cause of death?”

  “We’re waiting for the autopsy results, but Ian Baird thinks he was poisoned. He was also bashed but Baird found puncture marks and traces of a sticky blue residue on the face.”

  “That’s a bit Agatha Christie isn’t it?” Bailey shook his head. “Do not let the press get hold of that detail, Sam.”

  “What do we do now?” Ben asked.

  “Now? You can look into this cocaine coincidence Muldoon. You may have two squad members to keep Barstoc, and only Barstoc, under surveillance. There will be no more raids, in fact no contact of any kind with the alleged suspect unless you observe him red-handed with the goods. You got that?”

  “Yes Boss.”

  “And you, Sam, stay away from the drugs angle. You get any more wild hunches, you run them by me first. Understood? Your assignment is to continue the joint murder investigation with Rigby but your priority, as far as Cultural Affairs go, is to contain this incident. Damage control, okay? Keep that Museum boffin happy and off the phone to the Minister. Discourage this delusion about a conspiracy to wreck his conference, or the silly bastard will discover that publicly voicing his own paranoia will have the same effect.”

  Sam returned to her desk, consulted the business card Ellington had given her and dialled the number for James T. Hudson, of Hudson & Bolt. She was put through immediately but Mr Hudson, citing client confidentiality, asked if he could ring her back - to ensure that he was, in fact, speaking to someone from the ACB. Her phone rang a few minutes later.

  “I apologise for the runaround Detective Diamond, but please understand you could have been anybody. The press for instance.”

  “The press? Are you expecting them to call in regard to Professor Marsden?”

  “Not particularly. But you never know what prompts them to do the things they do.”

  “I guess not,” Sam said. “Robert Ellington said the Professor asked him to contact you immediately should anything ever happen to him. Obviously, unless it has a bearing on the case, you’re not required to divulge the details of his will but can you explain the urgency?”

  “No,” Hudson said.

  “You are aware this is a murder investigation?”

  “Perfectly aware Detective. I am not being difficult, I simply cannot answer your question. This has nothing to do with Lloyd’s will, it was a separate matter. He came to see me last Thursday and entrusted me with a package that was to be delivered immediately to a certain person should anything ever happen to him. They were his words, and it seems he used the very same with Mr Ellington, but he did not explain the urgency.”

  “Do you know what was in the package?”

  “No. But I suppose I can tell you that it is currently with a colleague who is waiting to deliver it personally, as per Lloyd’s instructions, to a Dr Maggie Tremaine at Sydney University. Perhaps she will be in a position to help - if it is relevant to your investigation.”

  What’s with this Maggie Tremaine popping up all over the place, Sam wondered as she ended the call and sat back in her chair. Her phone rang again, this time it was Rigby.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” he said.

  “Jack, I think I’m ready to believe anything.”

  “The cause of death was poison, but get this, Baird thinks the stuff was injected with one of those poison ring gadgets you see in spy films.”

  “You’re right, I don’t believe it.”

  “It’s fair dinkum. The doc says the tiny punctures are too wide and too shallow to have been caused by a syringe; and there was an oval mark around each of the holes in the cheek, the jaw and the jugular vein.”

  “The Boss just said this was very Agatha Christie.”

  “That ain’t the half of it. The poison was a mean and bizarre little cocktail of curare and peyote. Weird, huh?” Rigby had a knack for understatement.

  “Peyote?”

  “Yeah, you know mescal, peyote. Indians use it for their vision quest things. “

  “I know what it is Jack. It’s an hallucinogen. You can remind me about curare though. What does it do exactly?”

  “Used medicinally, it’s a muscle relaxant. As a poison it attacks the motor nerves and causes muscular paralysis. The South American Indians use it on their arrows.”

  “Arrows, poison rings, peyote. Great,” Sam moaned. “Consider our possible suspects, Jack. We’ve got one certifiable South American, Se��or Vasquez the Colombian, plus a whole swag of archaeologists and their ilk, who have probably all traipsed round that part of the world at some time in their careers.”

  Rigby grunted. “Let’s start with Barstoc and Douglas,” he suggested. “They’re at the Exhibition Building waiting for the rest of their stuff. What happened with your cocaine theory, by the way?”

  “Don’t ask,” Sam pleaded. “I have to talk to Prescott again, if you want to join me later. And we still haven’t interviewed Haddon Gould, the other curator.”

  “We can’t talk to Gould till later this afternoon. He was rushed to hospital yesterday for an appendectomy. Rivers can sit in on your chat with Prescott. We’ll meet you at the Exhibition Building in half an hour.”

  Rigby hung up before Sam could object to being nurse-maided by ‘Constable’ Hercules Rivers. She snapped her gun and holster in place on the belt of her slacks, dropped her phone into the pocket of her black jacket and then slipped that on over her white shirt.

  When Sam exited the Anato building, into brilliant sunshine, she stared in amazement at the clear blue sky and wondered where on earth, literally, the rain clouds had gone. She hopped on a tram and relaxed while i
t trundled its way beneath the canopy of plane trees on St Kilda Road towards the city centre. It made only two stops, at the Art Gallery and the Concert Hall, before crossing the Yarra River where it got stuck in a snarl of traffic caused by motorists slowing to check out the film crew under the clocks of Flinders Street Station.

  Sam left the tram outside the State Library, strolled up LaTrobe Street, across Victoria Parade and into the comparative peace of the Carlton Gardens. Beyond the splendid domed edifice of the 118-year-old Royal Exhibition Building Sam could see the modern structure, still a work in progress, of the site’s latest addition. The last time she’d been here, over a year ago, that construction had been nothing but a huge hole in the ground, into which the bowels of the new Melbourne Museum would be buried. Now the futuristic lines of the new building rose in stark contrast to the squares, domes and arches of its historic neighbour.

  Sam decided her imagination was not up to translating the seemingly odd angles of the new Museum’s framework into a finished product that didn’t seem incongruous to the location. She cast her mind back to the scale model, complete with landscaping, that she’d seen outside Prescott’s office, and overlaid that image on the view before her. Now she could see how the old and new, the past and the future, would complement each other.

  “It’s a sight to behold; the old and the bold.”

  “Yes,” Sam acknowledged automatically, before glancing to her right to find a middle-aged man, dressed in a three-piece suit and carrying a hockey stick, nodding at her.

  “Do you like my hair?” he asked. “I’ve just had it replanted. Can you tell it’s not real?”

  “Ah, no. It looks great,” Sam lied.

  “My son says I look like a cockatoo, and that I’m too old to be so vain.”

  “Yeah? Well let’s hope the hair loss is hereditary,” Sam said.

  “Yes indeedy!” the man cackled, as he walked away. “Then he’ll know what’s what.”

  Sam shook her head and decided to take cover before anyone else accosted her. She found, or rather heard, Rigby in the main hall, where temporary walls and a false ceiling, of different levels and shapes, had been erected to enclose most of the huge exhibition space. Access to the ‘Rites of Life and Death’ was via a ramp and through the central and monstrous fibreglass jaws of Cerberus. The second and third mechanical heads of the watchdog of the infernal gates snapped and snarled every few seconds.

  A workman, inspecting an electrical panel inside, handed Sam a token and pointed to the gnarled, outstretched hand of the skeletal, cloaked Ferryman. Once the price was paid to enter the Realm of the Dead, a panel in the wall behind slid back. Sam headed into The Catacombs - a maze of ‘rock’-walled tunnels, complete with niches for skeletons, and intersected with vaults containing coffins, and alcoves with life-size dioramas of human sacrifices and bodies on funeral pyres. She had to duck her head to pass into the replica of a pharaoh’s tomb, where artificial torches flickered eerily over a stone sarcophagus and the hieroglyphs on the walls.

  Sam began to wonder if her imagination was working overtime or whether Dr Bridger and his team had managed to infuse the claustrophobic tunnels and tombs with the distinctive odour of must and decay. Whatever the cause, she was glad after passing the zombies and weird fetishes in the Voodoo exhibit to emerge into the light and fresh air of the main exhibition area. This was partitioned into areas of fertility and life, death and the afterlife, by walls of fibreglass rock, fake marble pillars or panels of thatch. Much of the space was still empty, awaiting the relics and photographic displays that would, as Prescott described, ‘explore the fertility symbols and funerary rites of cultures and societies from around the world and across time’.

  Sam felt like she’d just traversed Indiana Jones territory. The concept was fun, but she could see why Marsden and Vasquez questioned its merits as a serious exhibition.

  “You get lost in the Underworld?” Rigby asked, as he strode towards her.

  Sam curled her lip at him, but then did a double take as she realised the guy in the suit keeping pace with Rigby was the plain-clothed Hercules Rivers.

  “You scrub up well,” she said to him. The constable just grinned.

  “Miz Douglas is waiting for us over there,” Rigby said, ushering Sam ahead of him. “And Herc here tells me Mister Barstoc refused to give him a statement because he knew he’d only have to give another one to us.”

  “Really,” Sam commented wryly. “It’s been a productive morning so far then.”

  Adrienne Douglas, blonde-haired and fresh-faced, was sitting, coffee cup in hand, on a stool in front of a partly-constructed shrine. She stood when Rivers made the introductions, looked up at Rigby, as if this was the most tedious experience of her life so far, then smiled warmly at Sam and offered her hand.

  “How can I help you detectives?” Although she included Rigby and Rivers in the question it was addressed to Sam.

  “We understand you saw Professor Marsden on Wednesday, Ms Douglas,” Sam began.

  “Adrienne, please,” she interrupted. “And the answer is Professor Marsden was here, I was here, we had a few conversations. That’s about the extent of it.”

  “You’re American,” Rigby remarked. When Adrienne gave him a ‘you don’t say’ look he added, “Conversations about what?”

  Adrienne waved her right hand at the space around her. “The exhibition, what else. To be precise we were consulting each other rather than conversing.”

  “Did he seem preoccupied or worried about anything?” Sam queried.

  “I hardly know, knew, the man,” Adrienne corrected herself, gave Sam a long searching look and then shrugged. “I really don’t know. I met him for the first time less than a week ago. I could say, in my experience, he was no more preoccupied than usual. But it’s my guess that if you ask someone who knew him, they’d say that’s just the way he was. Whether it was a recent occurrence that made him irritable or some lifelong problem that gnawed constantly at his temperament I couldn’t say. I quite liked him, but he was a testy old gent.”

  “And you last saw him, when?” Rigby asked.

  Adrienne shrugged again. “Enrico and I were here till about six on Wednesday. The Professor left some time before that; maybe 4.30.”

  “There you are!” The owner of the interjecting voice, who now had his back to Sam, had pushed his way unceremoniously into the space between her and Adrienne. “Do you know���”

  “Marcus,” Adrienne snapped, as if she was talking to a child. “Can’t you see I am otherwise occupied?”

  “What?” The man’s tone was short but a little vague, and as he turned around it was obvious he hadn’t even noticed that Adrienne had company.

  The ‘Life and Death’ catalogue photo she’d seen, had definitely not done justice to the blue-eyed, tall, dark and ‘to-die-for’ handsome Dr Marcus Bridger. Sam suffered a complete Mills and Boon epiphany, weak knees and all, for a good three seconds before she gathered her wits and convinced herself the sensation had been unadulterated lust not love at first sight.

  She’d managed to realign her hormones by the time Rigby’s formal introductions got around to her, but then had to make a few secondary adjustments as Marcus Bridger gave her the once over, and then smiled approvingly as he onced her over again.

  Sam acknowledged the introduction with a nod, told Adrienne they were finished for now anyway, excused herself and Rigby and led him away. Rivers followed.

  “What’s up? You okay?”

  “I’m fine Jack. Just fine,” Sam declared. “Though I could do with a caffeine fix.” And a good lie down, she thought.

  “They’ve got an urn and stuff over there, I’ll get you a coffee,” Rivers offered.

  “My hero,” Sam smiled. “Black with no sugar, and the same for Jack.”

  “That bird did not like me,” Jack stated, as if he couldn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t take to him immediately.

  Sam squinted at him. “She probably knew you were th
e sort of man who’d call her a bird, Jack.” Sam looked back at Adrienne and the disarming Dr Bridger, figuring she was safe from half a room away. Wrong! She had to shake herself mentally to get rid of an adolescent desire to be standing as close to the man as Adrienne now was: their heads together as they referred to a piece of paper.

  Good grief, she thought, deciding to give Rigby her undivided attention. “On the other hand, she might just have a thing against cops.”

  “Oh I don’t know, she took quite a shine to you,” Rigby noted.

  “It takes some people a long time to process the fact that I am a cop,” Sam said. “But if she makes you uncomfortable, I’ll deal with her in future, on the condition that you take care of the equally judgemental Se��or Vasquez.”

  “I think that’s a Latin thing,” Rigby suggested. “All that macho blood in his veins, he probably thinks you should be home with the bambinos.”

  “Speak of the devil,” Sam muttered under her breath as Vasquez, who had just emerged from the Voodoo exhibit, made a beeline for them. Correction: a beeline for Rigby; he ignored Sam completely.

  “Detective Rigby,” he pronounced. “I was wondering whether you were aware that Professor Marsden was planning to fly to Peru tomorrow?”

  “Yes, we were aware of that.”

  “Ah, good,” Vasquez ducked his head. “It’s just that I recalled, last evening, overhearing the Professor tell Adrienne, on Wednesday, that he was off to Peru this weekend.”

  “Thank you Mr Vasquez,” Rigby said.

  “I am trying to be helpful, as best I can.” Vasquez gave a crisp nod and headed off to a group of workmen who were fitting in place the last metre-square section of a giant photograph of a Hindu ceremony.

  “I do not trust that man,” Sam stressed. “What do you suppose is motivating him to cast so many aspersions on his colleagues?”

  “That information wasn’t particularly aspersive,” Rigby disagreed.