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

The way your voice sounded was enough. You practically spat out the word. Shall I escort him to the crematorium if he turns up?”

I chuckled. “I’d be surprised if he shows his face, to be honest.”

“Coffee?”

“Do you still have the mocha pot I donated to the nurses’ day room?”

“You think we’re crazy, Clyde? Of course we do.”

“I’d love one.”

“Coming right up. I’ll bring an extra cup, just in case you’re able to soothe the savage beast.”

“Thank you, Shirley. You always know the right thing to say.”

“Phht, tell that to the ‘person’ I’m seeing. You won’t get that same reaction from … them.”

The person she was referring to was the owner of the florist shop in the entrance to the hospital. A neat, carefully dressed young woman, who seemed more nervous than was necessary for someone who sold flowers. I’d bought a mixed bunch for Dioli. Perhaps he’d throw them in the bin after I left, but I found it impossible to visit anyone in hospital, no matter the reason, without bringing some sort of gesture.

*****

The room was familiar. It was an exact copy, and in the same corridor, of the room in which I’d spent my first two weeks after being shot and stabbed while I recovered from my injuries and after having had my gall bladder removed.

Dioli had turned his head to face the wall after I’d knocked and then come into the room. His head was bandaged and his normally painstakingly groomed hair stuck up between the bandages, like some five-year-old before his mum had licked it down with spit and her comb. There were bandages across his torso, crossing from his left shoulder and disappearing underneath the sheet, which covered his lower body at the top of his pelvis.

“Well?”

“You’re a lot hairier than I thought you’d be,” I said, sitting on the end of the bed. I couldn’t help notice the pink trails across his chest through the hair. Signs of scars, long since healed, but where the hair hadn’t grown back.

He snorted. “Come to visit many people who’ve fallen down the stairs?”

“None with your level of injuries, Detective Sergeant.”

“I fell down the stairs, Smith.” I supposed by the way he said it, he was sick of people raising their eyebrows at his assertion.

“You should be more careful,” I said as drily as I could. “People like you, who don’t drink alcohol, don’t usually lose their footing on the steps.”

“It was the back stairs if you really want to know.”

“All two of them,” I snapped, but then, before he could protest, added, “I’m not here just to say hello, Dioli. There was another one last night.”

“Another what?”

“Another Silent Cop killing. Not too far from here either.”

“Then why the hell are you here? Why isn’t Paleotti telling me this?”

“Because he still hasn’t been to bed yet. He’s over at Kensington filling in your new D.I. who’s also been up all night.”

“What the—?”

“Major gas explosion at the old forming factory in Barker Street. Three houses destroyed, twelve dead. All the manpower went there.”

“Still doesn’t explain why you’re here.”

“The chief superintendent phoned me last night just before midnight and asked me to attend the crime scene as a consultant, to give Vince a hand. I have no input or jurisdiction. I was asked to offer up any connections or historical observations with the cases that happened under my watch.”

“Is that all?”

I shook my head. “No. We have a witness this time.”

“A witness?”

“Yes. You heard me the first time.”

“But this is wonderful. It’s a breakthrough—”

“Just before you get too excited, there’s something I need to tell you, and I’d prefer it if Nurse Watson or Doctor Samson was here when I do.”

“Whatever for?”

“Because I don’t want to be responsible for you bursting a blood vessel when I tell you, that’s why.”

“Ha!” he said. “Whatever you think it might be, I can assure you I’m a professional policeman. Nothing will upset me that much.”

“I wouldn’t speak so hastily if I were you,” I said, picking up the vase from his bedside table. I’d just filled it with water from the tap in the basin in the corner of his room, when Shirley arrived with two cups of coffee on a tray and ready to perform his vitals.

*****

Of course, Dioli had been incandescent with rage. A witness whose name he was neither allowed to know nor could he interview, or even see a photograph of. After Shirley had threatened to put him in the children’s ward, he’d given her a grudging grin and then had settled.

He was still annoyed, but I sat and waited.

“Well?” he asked, after draining his coffee.

“I’m waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“Unlike you, I don’t respond well to abuse, Dioli. I can walk out the door and leave you fuming. I’ve told you this witness is under our protection, and to be perfectly honest, if I didn’t have a vested interest in the Silent Cop killings, I’d have told you to go fuck yourself and you could do without my information. Your little tirade in front of Nurse Watson was irritating for me, and it did nothing but belittle you in her eyes. Were she a different sort of nurse, you might find your food delivered with a dummy and a rattle left on the tray ‘by accident’.”

“Do you think I care?”

“Okay, I’ve tried my best. Good luck, I’ll tell the chief super­intendent you refused my help—”

“No, wait. All right, I’m sorry.”

“What is it with you, Dioli? Not every hand that feeds you is going to bite you at the same time.”

He stared at me for a very long time. I could see some inner process churning away in his eyes. It was almost as if he was afraid to speak. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I did,” he said.

“I’ve been called the C-word more times than you’ve had hot dinners, Dioli. I wasn’t offended for myself, but for Nurse Watson. She might be a serving army officer and has heard worse, but still, it’s not the best thing to