The Gilded Madonna, Garrick Jones [best fiction novels txt] 📗

she’s apples, Tom,” I replied. “You’ve got the hang of being a P.A. without me even knowing what you should be doing.”

“Well, I was running around like a chook with its head cut off for Dioli after he arrived, and before him I did a lot of dog’s body work for D.S. Telford, so …”

“Sam didn’t treat you badly?”

“No, of course not, Clyde. He was terrific actually, even brought in morning tea once or twice.”

I didn’t know how to react to that. Maybe Sam had turned a corner? We barely spoke these days except when we had to. I couldn’t forgive him for cheating on me behind my back and lying to me about it. I wasn’t proud of the way I’d arrived at his flat and had spat in his face, punched Billy in the jaw, and had lost my temper when I’d found out they’d been carrying on for months in secret while Sam and I were supposed to be, I don’t know what … a couple? Too strong a word for what we’d had.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“You’re right, Tom. No harm done.” I opened my wallet and handed him two red twenty-pound notes. “I went to the bank this afternoon. This is a month’s advance on your wages, and sixteen quid on top to use as a deposit for a flat of your own—you’ll need money to get the gas, electricity, and telephone put on. What’s left out of it, buy something nice for yourself. Maybe one of those portable radiograms, something for yourself as a housewarming present.”

“Clyde—”

“You can’t camp out on Vince’s front veranda forever, Tom. Just pop in to see Mr. Llewellyn at Lowry’s and tell him you’re working for me. He’ll show you around the flats in the area, unless you want to move closer to town?”

“No, I love the beach. I hated the police single men’s quarters so much I can’t tell you. I wasn’t unhappy about being told to pack my things when I handed in my resignation.”

“I don’t know how anyone could live there, if it’s anything like what it was when I first got a posting here and while I was still doing basic training for the police force. I remember that rabbit warren, all tiny rooms, dirty, smelly communal bathrooms and food not fit for a dog. Anyway, Tom, find somewhere nice, big open rooms with windows that will let the night air in. Living in your own digs for the first time in your life is something you’ll remember for the rest of your life, mate.”

“Well, I’m not sure my mother would allow me to accept this, Clyde …”

“Who’s working for me, you or your mother, Tom? Leave it to me to sort out your mum. I’ve already told you I’d phone her. If it’s going to keep you awake at night, you can pay me back at five bob a week. Or, if we start getting a lot of investigative work, we can talk about a commission for you on top of your wages and then you can pay me back in dribs and drabs.”

“Gosh, Clyde, I don’t know what to say—”

“Hello, anyone there?”

Vince had arrived and was standing in the doorway of my office. From where I was sitting on the floor of Mr. Kovacs’ former premises I could see the back of his head.

“In here,” I said.

“Well, what on earth?”

“Pull up a seat, Vince,” I said, patting the floor next to me. “There’s a lot to tell you.”

*****

“And you said Dioli just scrapped Sam’s plan?”

We’d gone to my flat to discuss Vince’s case. Baxter was hungry and tired of not being in his own space—he loved the chair in my study more than any spot in his other temporary homes. He didn’t mind the office, but he’d been back and forth to Harry’s house so often he’d started to grumble. Besides, he was a bossy cat. He liked his poached chicken breast right on the dot of seven in the evening.

Fortunately, Trixie had made enough shepherd’s pie for the three of us. We’d prepared vegetables while we were discussing the case.

“He always made some off-hand remark about ‘new policing’ whatever that might be,” Tom said.

“His new policing seems to be licking the new chief super­intendent’s arse, if you ask me,” Vince added.

I’d been making notes while we ate. The shepherd’s pie was an Italian version of the traditional Aussie regular, Monday night dish that thousands of families made, to use up the leftovers from the Sunday roast. My recipe included minced onion and garlic, tomato paste and fresh basil, with some parmesan grated through the mashed potato. I’d had to stop Tom throwing the pea shells in the garbage—I’d make a nice thick potato soup with those, which was delicious cold with a little cream stirred through it.

“If I’ve got this right, Mrs. Bishop sent the kids to the shop in Coogee Bay Road to buy a threepenny bag of broken biscuits, is that right?” I said.

“Yes, Clyde. She stood at the gate of their cottage in Byron Street and watched them walk down the street hand in hand until they got to the corner, then she went inside.”

“How long did she wait before she went looking?”

“Oh, about twenty minutes. She thought they might have run into her sister, who lives in Carrington Road and might have popped into the shop and had been talking to them. But as the minutes ticked past, she started to get anxious and went down to ask the shopkeeper. He said they’d never arrived.”

“That’s a busy street during the day. Half past three in the afternoon and no one noticed anything?”

“There was a man in the phone box at the top of Powell Lane where the stairs go down from Coogee Bay Road. He said he saw the kids standing outside the shop patting a dog and then his call answered and he turned his back.”

“You have this man’s name?”

“Yes, I interviewed him,” Tom said. “It was as