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

not deserved to suffer. I held out my hand with forked fingers and spat between them. It was a way of warding off misfortune.

“You’re even more Italian than me sometimes, Clyde.”

I smiled at him shyly. I still loved him in my own way and found it easier to forgive him than Sam, who’d hurt me to the bone.

“Johnny was an orphan, and Sonny’s mother left to live in Western Australia, am I right? He didn’t have any other family members as far as I remember.”

“He had an uncle, Clyde, his mother’s brother, but he was working in the post office in Darwin when it got hit. They only buried bits and pieces.”

“Billy …”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too. You know I’d do anything for you. But, Sam?”

He bowed his head and then crouched on the footpath, his back against the wall of the lockup. I could see he was holding back tears and it broke my heart. Despite being one of the toughest, most ruthless soldiers I’d ever met during the war, Billy Tancred wore his heart on his sleeve.

“Nothing was done on purpose, Clyde. No one set out to hurt you.”

I crouched down next to him and offered him one of my tailor-mades.

“Billy, I can forgive you. I have to forgive you. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t. I see that you and Sam seem to be working things out together, but I can’t … I just can’t.”

“He knows you’re angry with him, Clyde. And he’s ashamed, but, to be honest, what I have with him is our business. I know you’ll be respectful for my sake, and he’ll never get in the way of our friendship, I’ve made that very clear.”

I patted his knee. We’d said enough on the subject.

“Do you know how to contact Sonny’s mother?”

“Why? You want to know who sent the photo, don’t you, Clyde?”

I chuckled. “You know me well, Billy, I’m not good with unsolved mysteries.”

He sighed and then smiled at me. “I’ll put my articled clerk onto it this afternoon and I’ll let you know.”

“I could always search the widow’s pension records myself, Billy. Don’t worry about it.”

“Nah, leave it with me, Clyde. It will make me feel good to know we’re still in each other’s pockets.”

Had not Harry poked his head outside the doorway of the lockup to tell us they were about to start again, and several people passing by on the street, I might just have kissed his cheek.

CHAPTER FIVE

By Friday things were really underway. Thanks to Harry, the P.M.G. technicians had turned up the day before, the new switchboard—which turned out to be a rather large telephone with a few illuminated buttons below the dial—had been installed and Tom had done a crash course on how to patch through calls to me, to the spare handset in Harry’s new office, and how to divert either or both numbers back to Brenda Brighteyes.

Painters had turned up on Wednesday while Harry and I had been at the tribunal meeting and had given the whole of our floor a lick of white paint. It looked very clean and crisp, and now, with all of the windows opened for over twenty-four hours, the smell had gone.

Not long after the furniture we’d bought early in the week had arrived, Tom and I were sitting at my desk going through a list of jobs that needed to be done, when someone opened my door and walked in without knocking. I kept making notes, waiting until I’d finished the sentence I was writing before finding out who’d barged in.

“What’s the meaning of this?” the voice said, as an envelope skidded across the page I’d been writing on.

I looked up. I knew it was Dioli without having met the man. Tall, very slim, beautiful suit, wavy Brylcreemed hair, and a face not a little unlike my pal, Billy Tancred.

I sat back in my chair. “I don’t know who the hell you think you are, mate, but get out of my office and sit and wait on the bench until I’m ready to see you.”

Red-faced, he pulled out his wallet and flashed his I.D. far too quickly for anyone to read it—that is if, like me, they hadn’t already worked out who he was.

“You got a warrant or are you going to charge me with something? If not, then go outside and wait like I said. Close the door after you.”

I returned to the page I was writing and then noticed the envelope had smudged my ink right across the page—there was no way it could be salvaged. I’d have to do it again. “Jesus wept,” I muttered.

He closed my inner door less than carefully, causing the rippled-glass pane in the top panel to rattle in the frame.

“You break it, you pay,” I yelled out through the door.

I heard him complaining to himself as his arse hit the seat of the bench in my waiting room. Thump-grumble. He even sat down angrily it seemed.

“Did you notice the knitted silk tie?” I asked Tom under my breath after I’d heard the door slam. “Quality stuff. That’s two guineas worth of anyone’s money.”

I shushed Tom with my finger to my lips, pointed at my watch, and then twirled my forefinger over its face. Tom nodded. He understood the gesture—let Dioli stew for a while—and then we’d see if he had waited or had gone. I pulled up the venetian blinds of my picture window and then opened it, lighting two cigarettes, one of which I handed to Tom, indicating he should sit at my typewriter and clack away at something. He smiled. I leaned on the window sill and looked out over the park and the beach. It was important to establish rules and territories. When I’d been in Dioli’s position, the last thing on earth I’d have done was to have been uncivil to a fellow policeman, whether current or retired from the force, unless they’d transgressed in some serious manner, or if I’d known them personally, and