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

“When you say discreet, what do you think I’d do?”

“Keep your trousers on, preferably, Clyde.”

I didn’t know how he knew, but he seemed to. What the hell, I didn’t care. I was a private citizen these days.

“Maybe you’d like to go in my place, Brendan?”

“Not my thing, Clyde.”

“You’d be the first Arab man I ever met who didn’t play for both teams.”

“Clyde Smith, you’re embarrassing D.C. Paleotti.”

Vince was far from embarrassed, in fact he had his head down, examining something in one of his files, seeming to be trying his hardest not to laugh.

*****

Tom was waiting for me outside the clink. Harry had phoned him and told him I’d need a lift.

“You have a car now?”

“You’re the one who told me to get one.”

“How the hell?”

“Pay as you go, Clyde. Get with the times. It’s second-hand, but goes like a beauty, and Harry’s father helped me choose it.”

“Did he now?”

“I was talking to him about the idea on Christmas Day. Seems your Harry learned to look after cars from a World War One motor mechanic.”

“He’s our Harry, Tom, not just mine.”

“Where to, Clyde?”

“Unless something terrible has happened, I haven’t slept yet. What time is it?”

“Quarter past ten.”

“Maybe I should call past the Bishops …”

“Maybe you should go home and get some sleep. Tell you what, I’ll pick up something for lunch and wake you at about say one? Or do you want to sleep through?”

“Grab something from Stones, Tom.”

“Is Stones open, Clyde? It’s New Year’s Day.”

“They might open late and close early, but unless something drastic has happened, they’ve always been open. Lots of New Year’s Eve party hangovers to provide food for. Ralph always said it was the busiest day of his year.”

“I’ll give them a call first to make sure then, shall I?” Tom asked.

“I’m sure there’ll be no need, but if they’re closed for some reason the fish and chip shop on the corner is open three hundred and sixty-five days of the year.”

“Righto, Clyde. Anything else?”

“Where’s Harry? Did he say?”

“At home. He took Dioli there for his mum to look after.”

“What?”

“He rang me from Dioli’s house. Said the D.S. was so drunk he’d pissed himself and was lying on the floor of the kitchen howling his head off about being alone—”

“I’ll wait to hear the details from the horse’s mouth, thanks, Tom.”

“Righto, Clyde. Home then is it?”

“Yes please, Tom, and whatever Gerd and Liesl have on special for lunch sounds great—take one of my Pyrex dishes with a lid from under the stove. I’ll give you my spare key. If I don’t wake up easily, yell directly in my ear, really loudly, and then stand back as quick as you can.”

“Stand back? Why?”

“Cause I might get such a fright I pick you up and throw you out of my bedroom window, head first.”

Tom chuckled, but I did notice the wary sideways glance he gave me as we turned into Mount Street off Coogee Bay Road on our way to my flat.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The following morning, after I’d got up early to make a few dozen copies of the photographs I’d taken of Art’s sketches, I heard voices as I climbed the stairs to my office.

My office door was closed, the blind drawn, the sign I’d made saying we’d be closed until Monday the seventh of January still in place. I opened the door. There was no mail on the floor, so I assumed Tom must have collected it. The sound of loud laughter coming from Harry’s office made me curious.

“Hello there,” I said around the doorway.

Harry, Tom, and Mark Dioli were standing in front of Harry’s large blackboard, Harry with his shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbow, and Tom in shorts and a polo shirt. It was odd to see him laughing with Dioli, especially as the detective’s rudeness was the main reason he’d resigned. Mark wore his suit. It looked like he might have been passing through on the way to his office.

I noticed his bruises were still dark, covering the right-hand side of his neck, and there was a row of stitches through his right eyebrow. It had been covered with a sticking plaster when I’d last seen him.

“Hello, Clyde,” he said, raising two fingers in a casual gesture of hello, but avoiding direct eye contact.

“What’s all this, then?” I asked, indicating the blackboard as I leafed through the pile of mail I’d picked up from Harry’s reception counter on the way into the room.

“Harry kindly put me up at his parents’ house last night, and he offered to drop me to work.”

“There’s something I thought of while I was lying in bed this morning,” Harry said. “And I wanted to run it past Mark and you and Tom, here in my office, away from the rest of his crew at the police station.”

Harry didn’t need to explain it was a face-saving gesture. Like me, he’d long ago figured out that Dioli always had to appear to be the man in charge. Now I knew more about him and his background, I understood. It was no skin off my nose if I had to sit in the backseat.

“Now we know the murderer has a gun and isn’t afraid to use it, it changes things, doesn’t it, Clyde,” Harry said.

Dioli took his jacket off when he saw me do the same and offered us his pack of smokes. They were a brand I couldn’t regularly afford, but I took one and thanked him.

“It was something kept going through my mind last night, too,” I replied. “I bet the coroner’s findings are that the barrel of the gun was deflected as the man pulled too hard on the trigger—otherwise the bullet would have smashed out the right-hand side of his skull. The unaccustomed effort to keep his hand steady made him twist his wrist as he fired, and that’s why the exit wound was at the back of the head. More than likely, he’s not used to using a gun, so probably isn’t a war veteran.”

“Nine