The Gilded Madonna by Garrick Jones (ebook reader for comics TXT) 📕

energy trying to. I think I need to speak with D.S. Dioli about giving you access to your gilded Madonna, even if it is still being held as evidence.”

“He won’t take much convincing, Clyde.”

“What do you know that I don’t? He seems very regimented, almost closed-minded.”

“Fear of failure, Clyde. I heard it in your voice when you were talking about him.”

“I barely said four words!”

“I can’t discuss this right now, Clyde. There’s a customer in the shop. Can we meet later?”

“I’m going to be busy for a while this afternoon, but I’ll be heading off to Craig’s pool at around four thirty if you want to have a swim. I must warn you though, I’m going there to meet up with the usher from the Boomerang you seemed to like, so I’ll have my business hat on.”

“Gălbenele is away for the day, so I’m by myself. I close at five, so perhaps I’ll see you closer to half past?”

“That sounds good. Would you like to have dinner with me? I’m not sure what Harry’s up to, but I have the makings of a three-course meal in the fridge.”

“Three courses is normally far too much for me, but I’d be delighted, Harry or no Harry.”

“See you at the swimming pool, then.”

Tom was leaning on the doorjamb when I hung up the receiver. “Lost cat,” he said, followed by a deep sigh and then, after my chuckle, “I’ll be back shortly. A fiver is a fiver, and that fifteen bob will help me buy some second-hand furniture for my new flat.”

“Hang on, before you go, can we run through a list of things I need to have done over the next few days?”

“Sure, Clyde. But this woman is a repeat customer, and I know where her cat is … I’ll be back before you know it.”

“She is, and you do?”

“I don’t bother you with details, unless it’s important, but she’s one of the clients I worked for during my first week. Remember? I gave you a tenner just before Christmas.”

“And the cat?”

“It was next door last time, curled up on the windowsill of her neighbour. They don’t get on.”

“But charging five quid, Tom? That’s a lot of money.”

“Not to her it isn’t, Clyde. What’s the most important thing to her in her life? Her cat. You need to see it in perspective. Not every trivial thing to you is unimportant to other people.”

For some reason his words resonated in my mind. Trivial, that was the word that kept going around and around. I’d missed something; something small, something apparently insignificant, but which in itself was an important clue. Perhaps it wasn’t small or insignificant, perhaps it was just trivial to me. What was there about Johnny Edgar that someone who didn’t know him might think was important but which I glossed over as being not worthy of investigation?

Harry had gone home to see his parents and to find out whether Mary had been able to gather her friends to start on Dioli’s house. I phoned.

“Hello, Mary,” I said.

“If you’re after Harold, he’s nose down in what he calls his ‘crampon chest’. It’s a large green wooden box he keeps in the old coal cellar. And sorry, hello, Clyde. Would you like me to fetch him?”

“Not if it’s a problem, Mary.”

“It’s no problem at all.”

A few minutes later, Harry picked up the phone, slightly out of breath. “What did you forget?”

“Lots of small things it seems. Tell me if this is a bad time or not, but Tom said something that has me wondering.”

“Uh huh.”

I took that as a “go ahead”. “Is there anything, no matter how small, about anything I’ve mentioned about Johnny Edgar that you thought odd or interesting and I seemed not to?”

“You mean apart from him being an orphan, something you mentioned a lot, but not which boys’ home he was in, do you mean?”

“What?” I nearly shouted it down the phone.

“Clyde Smith, if you haven’t investigated the possibility that Howard Farrell and Mark Dioli weren’t somehow connected to your mate Johnny Edgar by way of the Petersham Boys’ Home, I might have to trade you in for a new model. Clyde? Clyde … are you there, you big lug?”

My voice came out in a squeak. “I’m an idiot.”

“You mean …?”

“It didn’t cross my mind, Harry.”

“Oh …”

There was a moment of silence, I could hear him waiting for me to speak.

“Harry?”

“Yes, my love?”

He didn’t say that to me too often at all, endearments were not part of his general vocabulary. He saved them up for special occasions.

“Please tell me I’m a fool?” I said.

He laughed and then I heard he’d moved somewhere out of hearing of his mother.

“No, I won’t say that, because I don’t believe it for one instant. But, if you want me to make-believe, then perhaps tonight I can …?”

“You need an excuse?”

He burst out laughing. “No, but Mother’s hovering. I’ll be back in the office at four thirty to get everything ready for my induction meeting with the new group. Will you be there?”

“No, sorry. I’m going to catch up with Craig and then meet the usher from the Boomerang to see if he recognises the sketch of our killer, and then I’ve arranged to meet with Luka there, at the baths. What time will you finish?”

“Seven, I suppose?”

“I’ve invited him to dinner. Will you join us?”

“One sec, Clyde,” he said and then covered the receiver. “Mother? What are your arrangements for dinner this evening?”

Her reply was muffled.

“There seems to be something planned,” he said a minute or two later. “Mark has invited everyone out for dinner at that Chinese restaurant you like so much at Bondi Junction.”

“The Sun Si Gai?”

“That’s the one.”

My heart fell a little. I loved the place and we hadn’t been for ages.

“I can tell him I’ve already made other arrangements if it’s important?”

“Well, seeing I’ve invited Luka, I thought I’d cook up something special.”

“I’m sure Mark will be just as happy without me. I’ll tell him I’d already made arrangements.