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

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