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

groaning as he did so. “I’ll grab his jacket and pull, you push him off the bed with your hip,” he said. “Ready? One, two … three!” I pushed Kemeny with a shove of my hips. He fell off the bed, landing face down, angled across Mark’s thighs.

“Can you manage?” I asked.

He nodded and then with what looked like extraordinary difficulty scrabbled into the jacket pocket and retrieved the key. “Ah, Christ this hurts!” he said, holding his hand at an awkward angle, trying to fish out the keys with two fingers. It took him a few tries, until the keys finally slipped from the jacket pocket and fell onto the floor.

“Undo yours first,” I said. After a few attempts, using the arm of his injured shoulder, his handcuff snapped open and he pulled himself up onto the bed next to me and unlocked each of my cuffs in turn. I leaned down and pulled the razor from Kemeny’s fingers, wiping the handle on the edge of the sheet before cutting through the ropes that restrained my feet.

“Are you all right, Mark?” I said, pulling him into my arms. He didn’t resist. I recognised he was profoundly shocked from what he’d seen.

He stared at me blankly, nodding slowly, so I got to my feet and staggered to the wall, sliding down until my backside was on the floor. “Come here,” I said, “away from the bed.” He crawled over the floor and sat between my legs, the back of his head resting on my shoulder.

We sat in silence for more than a few minutes.

“So, I’m your Johnny, am I?”

“You tell anyone and I’ll fucking kill you, Smith.”

Slowly, we began to laugh.

*****

It took a fair amount of time for the bullets to stop flying and before I saw two uniformed officers gingerly threading their way across the rifle range, following a path of short red flags, set out to mark safe passage.

They must have shaken their heads in disbelief to first see a bloodied sheet, tied around a broom handle, waving from behind the easternmost concrete target tower, followed after, when a ceasefire had been called, by two naked, bloodied men who, after a whistle blast and an “ahoy” from the captain who led the way, staggered out into the open and collapsed onto their knees in the sand, hugging each other, laughing and crying at the same time.

Kemeny’s dog appeared from nowhere and sat patiently at our sides, waiting for the officers to reach us.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Three days later, I was sitting next to Mark’s hospital bed, making notes from time to time about what had happened since the moment we’d stumbled out into the sunshine behind the target block. I’d promised Brendan Fox I’d make a full, written statement in police force “official language”, but hadn’t had the heart just yet to sit down for several hours to clunk it out on my typewriter. I’d been too preoccupied with the events that had unfurled as a consequence of our kidnapping, Kemeny’s death, what he’d told me about Johnny Edgar, the Bishop children, and, most importantly, the health of my new friend/foe, Mark Dioli.

We’d had to wait for about ten minutes before two stretcher bearers had arrived to take us to the command hut of the rifle range, and by the time we’d reached it, Vince and Brendan had already arrived with a doctor. Someone had been quick off the mark and had called the police station the moment I’d been spotted waving my improvised, bloodied flag.

Although I’d tried to insist I wasn’t injured and needed to talk to Brendan immediately, I’d been covered in so much blood he’d ordered me to let the doctor check me over first. I had seen he and Vince had been impatient to find out what had happened, so I’d mouthed “Kemeny” as I was being led down the corridor towards the first aid room and then ran my finger across my throat, shaking my head. Vince disappeared, saying he had to make a phone call, no doubt to get more cops down there to investigate the scene in the bunker.

Half an hour later, over a cup of tea, with a blanket over my shoulders, and the ambulance having taken Mark away, Vince had returned—he’d organised an investigative team and a photographer for the underground hideout, informing me that Jack was already up there too. Not only that, but news that had made my heart sink. I’d known I was in for a bollocking and then a bit of tough love—Harry was on the way from Holsworthy, where he’d been meeting with Jeff Ball to discuss Terrence Dioli. So, for the next twenty minutes, I’d told both Vince and Brendan what had happened, and what I’d believed were the reasons Kemeny had taken his own life instead of mine.

Brendan had been called to the telephone just as I’d finished and then had returned quickly to tell me that it had been the hospital, informing him that Mark was already in theatre, and that although serious, his condition was not grave. I think my enormous sigh of relief had signalled that something had changed between us during our time in the bunker.

We’d briefly discussed what should happen next, and as a result of our conversation, Brendan had put a call through to the Lithgow police and had asked them to go to the Bishop property at Glen Davis to rescue the children. I’d later learned there’d been an armed stand–off, but eventually the children had been handed over, safe, well–looked–after, but traumatised and desperate for their parents.

Harry had arrived at the rifle range white–faced and breathless, at first relieved and then furious. He hadn’t shown it in front of the others, but I had sensed the tension in his frame and the way he’d been working his thumbs into his fists at his sides. He’d gone ballistic when I’d insisted on driving to Lithgow to bring the children home after they’d been examined at the