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

“You seemed to be gone long enough.”

“Well, as he was on the phone, I asked him what he knew about Marigold Leeks.”

“And?”

“She has a shop opposite the Odeon up in Avoca Street. You know where the statue of Captain Cook is? Just directly on the other side of the road from it. It’s that double-fronted shop with bric-a-brac in the window—sells books and trinkets too.”

“Did he say what she’s like?”

“He had no idea. Said he’d never met her. It’s her brother who arranges the copy for their advertising and the notices for their special offers and comes in to pay their account. Said he’s chatted with him more than once. Decent enough chap according to him—quiet, respectful, but pleasant with it.”

“Brother?”

“Yes. He told me his wife Noreen knew more about her business than he did, so he called her to the phone. She told me they were gypsies. I could hear the tone of disapproval in her voice—same inflection my mother used to use when talking about drunks in the street.”

“And—?”

“According to Mrs. Curtis, Marigold Leeks does tea leaves, cards, and makes potions. She said she’s innocuous enough, but it’s the brother who scares the living hell out of everyone.”

“Scares everyone? How so?”

“She told me about her friend, Mrs. Hill, who went to them to find out about what had happened to her husband who never came back from the war. The woman told Mrs. Curtis that the brother took her wedding ring in one hand and her engagement ring in the other and then lay on his back on the floor and had a fit.”

“A fit?”

“Well, a convulsion of some sort. Mrs. Curtis said the brother’s eyes rolled back in his head and he started mumbling. Then all of a sudden he sat up and said, as clear as day, ‘Armidale, one-third, grey nurse’.”

“What on earth does that mean?”

“Mrs. Hill killed herself, Harry. Put her head in the oven three weeks later.”

“What?”

“She knew her husband had been sent from Darwin on the H.M.A.S. Armidale to rescue civilians from Betano Bay and had gone down with the ship when the Japanese attacked it.”

“But if she already knew that why did she kill herself? I don’t understand.”

“I’m just reporting what Mrs. Curtis told me. She said her friend created such a hullaballoo, someone from the army came to tell her confidentially that her husband was one of the forty-nine out of one hundred and fifty who survived the sinking, but was taken by a shark in the water.”

*****

We’d called into Stones milk bar for a coffee and a sweet roll on our way back from a stroll on the headland. I thought of calling in to Craig’s but wanted time alone with Harry. We’d just started to throw ideas around about my conversation with Mrs. Curtis and the story she’d told of her friend, Mrs. Hill, while we waited for Liesl to bring the coffee and the cakes we’d ordered to our table. There was quite a crowd at the bar and we’d snagged a booth at the back of the café.

“I thought grey nurse sharks were coastal and only found along the eastern seaboard of Australia,” I said, after Harry started to speculate on mystics and psychics. I was having none of it—I was a sceptic.

“Forty-nine out of one hundred and fifty is a third,” he replied.

“It could just be a combination of guess work and research,” I said. “You read Marigold Leeks’ advertisement. Appointments by phone only. It would only take a bit of leg work for the brother to check on her husband’s war records to find out he’d gone down on the Armidale and had been lost. I’ve seen these quacks in action more than once. You know they’re quite fond of fleecing families of every penny they have with promises of messages from the dead.”

“I suppose you’re right, Clyde.”

“Well, there’s one thing that’s becoming patently clear, mysticism or no mysticism, and that it’s not her who’s been sending the notes.”

“Because of …?”

“Because of the photo that was stolen from the local newspaper’s display cabinet and then sent to the editor of the Australian magazine. It had the same green ink writing on the back as the other things that were sent to me. How could she possibly know of the association between Dioli, Farrell, and me. Let’s look at the timeline.”

I asked if Liesl had a spare pencil as she passed by our table to deliver an order to the couple behind us. She smiled and gave me the one she had perched behind her ear, promising she’d be with us in a moment to bring our order to the table.

Starting with the Friday of the previous week, I wrote the day of the week on a paper serviette, underlining it as I explained what had happened. I was fond of dot-point notes; they helped me think linearly.

Friday: the Silent Cop killer slaughters a man opposite my flat.

Saturday: I visit Dioli at the forensic department, the reporter takes pictures of Dioli and me. Later that night Farrell rings to invite us to dinner later in the week. He’s heard I was digging into Mark Dioli when I was at central records.

Monday: the newspaper comes out with the photo of Dioli and me.

Tuesday: the photograph is stolen, presumably posted that day.

Wednesday: Farrell gets a phone call from his friend the editor of the Australian magazine saying the photo’s arrived on his desk, and Howard picks it up just before we have dinner with him.

“It’s too tight,” I said. “And how could she know that I had any association with Farrell in the first place? I spoke to him for the first time just a few days before we met …”

“There’s the other thing too, Clyde.”

“What’s that?”

“The wording on the back of the photograph sent to Farrell. Your name, Dioli’s name, and the Bishops. When did Mr. and Mrs. Bishop come to see you? The day after we had dinner with Farrell, wasn’t it?