The Gilded Madonna Read online

  He looked fit to explode but said nothing.

  “Let me tell you something about me, mate. I might be a shitbag tough cop who plays rough, but I left the police force because I didn’t want to do it any more—I’d had a gutful. I didn’t get fired, or moved on, or encouraged to leave. But if this victim in there on the slab is army, you’re going to be working with some real hard-arsed bastard from the military who won’t give a toss about pleasing anyone in the police force or treading on anyone’s toes. I guarantee he’ll make your life hell if you don’t seem to be pulling your weight. He’ll eat you for breakfast and then write so many complaints the chief superintendent won’t be able to see out of his window over the top of the pile.”

  As he didn’t speak, but continued to glower at me, I continued. “That bit of advice I said I was going to give you? I don’t give a shit if you take it on board or not, but put your head down, do your policing, and don’t pass on your cases to junior detectives. Once the new D.I. arrives, he’ll rip you a new arsehole if you aren’t seen to be pulling your weight. I would, if it had been me coming in as your new boss.”

  “Rip me a new arsehole? I bet you’d like that—”

  My anger boiled over before I could stop it. I looked around quickly and then grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and pushed him into the recess of the entrance to the forensic department.

  “Fuck you, Dioli,” I said, my face two inches away from his own. I was furious. “I’ve tried to help you, but you’re too far up your own arse to see it.” I kneed him in the nuts and he doubled over. “Now go report me for assault, and see how far that gets you.”

  I turned around when I reached the roadway. I was perhaps twenty yards away, and couldn’t see clearly, but he was crouched on his haunches, pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand. Although I couldn’t be sure, I was pretty damned certain he was trying not to cry.

  “For fuck’s sake,” I muttered under my breath, hesitating whether to turn back, but then I decided I need to find time to cool down. I knew myself well enough that if he gave me any more lip, it wouldn’t be a friendly tap in the goolies with my knee, but I’d be tempted to rearrange his face. I’d given him good advice—albeit grudgingly—and he couldn’t see it for anything but me being arrogant and condescending; behaviour he was guilty of himself on both occasions I’d run into him.

  In our whole interchange since he’d arrived at my front door earlier that day, he hadn’t once used my name, or had even called me “sir”, as I’d suggested was an appropriate way of addressing a civilian. I didn’t know what had happened to him to give him a chip that big on his shoulder, but I had a choice these days: I could turn my back and walk away, which I’d just done. I realised I was feeling too angry again over nothing, so lit a smoke and stared at the clouds for a while until it passed.

  As I got into my car to head back home to have some breakfast, I couldn’t shake the image of the dead lance corporal from my mind. It had affected me in the same way as the previous four victims. I’d seen no end of dead men both during the war and after, but it was the desecration of their bodies and the unspoken, cryptic message of the slashed X below each man’s navel with its embedded Catseye that still had me guessing—I’d never stopped trying to work out what the hell it meant. When crims left something at a crime as obvious as that, there was always a reason. It invariably was either a message or a symbol for something else. At first we’d focused on the Catseyes, but as they were prized by every kid in every school in the State, we’d found most silent cops were missing at least one or two. A whack of Dad’s chisel with his hammer and most boys’ collections of marbles would be complete.

  Murder at the moment of orgasm. I’d never thought of such a gruesome thing until Quinton Halloran had sent me some case studies from America after the second killing. Days at the police archives and at the specialist reading room of the State library had led me to discover that it was a recognised psychopathology—the new word they used for mental disturbances of different types. In the literature, most often it was mentioned as men making love to women while they strangled them, timing the pressure of their hands around their victim’s neck to coincide with their own orgasm.

  If the Silent Cop killer had killed again after an absence of three years, where had he been? That would have been my first question had I been in charge of the case. But, as I wasn’t, and helping Vince with the disappearance of the Bishop children was my priority on top of my own private investigative work, I decided to forget about it.

  Forget about it? Yeah, who was I kidding. All the way home, I couldn’t stop obsessing over thoughts of those perfect teeth marks, bitten so deeply the victim must have screamed with pain.

  *****

  There’d been four murders, all within the space of three months. I knew it was that long because I’d been pulled out of the hospital ward to attend the scene of the first murder on the day Sam had fallen down the stairs of the Australia Hotel and had broken his leg, and the last death was the day after I’d gone with him to the police medical assessor to see if he was fit to go back to work.

  All the victims had been young men between the ages of twenty-four and thirty and all had been out tomcatting late at night, hanging around in parks or in streets that had an unattended, unlocked public lavatory. The first had been at Charing Cross, followed seven days later by the next at Moore Park, a hiatus of ten days, and then Centennial Park, and finally in a small park in Woollahra, eleven days after the last. All four murder scenes were well-known pickup places to those in the queer community who picked up other men in public places. The details of the murders had never been revealed to the public, nor had anyone come forward when we’d asked through the queer underground. Everyone had been far too scared. I’d heard, only by rumour, had a man not surprised a couple in a cubicle in Rushcutters’ Bay Park, there could have been a fifth victim. He’d been there for genuine reasons, but had shouted at them, yelling he’d call the police. They’d fled. There was supposed to have been a razor dropped at the scene, or found by the intended victim, but as I could never get anyone to open up to me, that lead had come to a dead end.

  As soon as Sam had returned to work, our D.I. had given him a case involving a bank robbery gang to focus on, so we’d worked separately, and as we’d decided never to discuss work away from the police station, he’d only known the bare details of my investigation. I’d had another D.C. working with me back then, who’d since had a heart attack and had died. At the time our boss had thought the case unworthy of extra men, so the two of us had had to try to investigate the most puzzling set of connected murders by ourselves. We’d drawn nothing but blank stares of ignorance, disavowals of knowing anything about homosexuals, and downright rudeness from many men I recognised as being “one of us”.

  However, what I’d learned over those three months was the level of fear most queer men lived with. I wished I’d been game enough in those days to drop a few hints as I’d had to do during my investigation into the death of Daley Morrison, the cricketer. If there’d been a feeling of trust and less fear that they might have been apprehended or charged if they’d spoken up, perhaps I might have learned more.

  *****

  Vince and Tom were already in the surf when I arrived. I’d called in to see Clarrie, my bookmaker at the pub, after which I’d picked up a shilling’s worth of chips at Stones milk bar. They were still hot when I threw the newspaper bundle down next to Harry.

  I dropped my beach bag and stripped off quickly. “Coming in, Harry?” I asked.

  “Sit!” he ordered, pulling out the side of his beach towel and moving his bum to one edge to make room for me.

  He’d hired a cabana, a semi-circular canvas hooped affair, that not only gave protection from the sun but also from the wind. It was big enough for the four of us.

  “Sorry I’m late.”

  “Ten o’clock, Clyde?”

  “It’s only half past … aww, were you worried?”

  “
No, but some greasy-looking half-wit turned up at five past ten asking where you were. How did he know you’d be with me?”

  “Ah, that greasy half-wit, as you called him, is Clarrie’s son, and I told him to meet me down here at the north end of the beach just after ten. If he couldn’t find me, I was most probably in the water, and he should look for the tall broad-shouldered redhead with zinc cream on his nose and cheeks, most likely under an umbrella, and wait with him until I came out of the surf.”

  “Clarrie, your bookmaker?”

  “Yup, called in at nine thirty to put a few quid on a nag at Flemington.” He smiled. “Yes, I put some on for you too, don’t worry.”

  I got insider information about “certs” in races every week. I always won something. Even after my big win early in the year, and the expenses of having my car rebuilt, and a ten-day holiday with Harry in Tasmania, I was still a few hundred quid ahead.

  “So, Clarrie’s son?”

  “Did he say he’d be back?”

  Harry glanced at his watch. “Yes, in half an hour. Tell me—”

  “I’m putting a tail on Dioli, to see what he gets up to after hours.”

  “What?”

  I told him about my morning.

  Ten minutes later, he was lying on his back with his forearm over his eyes, trying not to laugh. “You kicked him in the cods, Clyde?”

  “Technically, I kneed him, but yes.”

  “You’re pretty sombre about the whole thing. Whatever possessed you to get so antsy with him? I’ve only known you for barely a year, but I’ve never seen this side of you before. Sure, you can get annoyed, and you’re even a cranky bastard sometimes, but unless you’ve been pushed, I’ve never seen you get violent with someone who didn’t deserve it.”

  I shook my head. I’d been feeling guilty ever since I’d left the police station. It was the vision of Dioli squatting on the ground trying to control his emotions that had made me feel bad.

  “I told you I didn’t like him before he even turned up in my office. It’s that whole nasty thing of using Tom as a verbal punching bag had me offside right from the start. You know, the books I’ve studied on the psychology of crime are pretty specific about that sort of behaviour; the I have to be the best boy in the class syndrome. Men who are so insecure about themselves, they pick on a quieter, more vulnerable person to reinforce their inner need to be leader of the pack. Fuck him, Harry! The truth is I really loathe and detest bullies.”

  “Were you ever …?”

  “Who me? No, not me. But there was this one guy in my unit during basic training. Tom reminds me of him—that’s why I’ve sort of taken him under my wing. I feel protective of someone so kind and well-meaning …”

  “What happened to your mate in the army?”

  I sighed. “Same sort of thing. He got harassed under the showers, they short-sheeted his bed, made him fail at exercises, sabotaged his chances. He wore his vulnerability on his sleeve, and all those men went for the jugular. You know what they called him, Harry?”

  “No, what?”

  “Spunkface Gobbieboy.”

  “Was he …?”

  “No, Harry, and that’s the worst of it all. He had a girlfriend. I even met her once. But one night he was found dead, hanging from the rafter in the ablutions block.”

  “You’re not going to tell me those blokes—”

  “No, no—he wrote a letter to his girl and his parents apologising, telling them he couldn’t go on, he couldn’t take the brutal razzing … you know what the pressure was like to fight when we first went to war. It was shameful not to put your hand up, and even worse to fail at it.”

  Harry draped his arm around my shoulder and squeezed my bicep. There was no need to say anything. Despite every dreadful, rotten, inhuman thing I’d seen during the war years, apart from the incomprehensibly perfunctory and unwarranted shooting of my Kiwi friend, Reg Gibson, in the camp, the death of that young man I’d trained with had lived on with me all this time, and even now, seventeen years later on, I still beat myself around the head about not stepping up to try to do something to stop the bullying.

  “Let’s go in the water,” Harry said.

  “I’m sorry. I went too far with Dioli and now I regret it.”

  “What can he do to you, Clyde?”

  “Nothing really. If he was mean he could probably follow me, kick the tail light out on my car or something minor like that and then give me a ticket. But—”

  I was interrupted by a loud whistle. Tom was standing in the shallows holding a tall black inflatable surf board. They rented them out on the beach for sixpence a session. He waved at me, beckoning us to come into the water.

  “Wrap the chips in my towel and put them in your bag,” Harry said to me, getting to his feet and brushing the sand off his togs.

  “They’ll go all soggy,” I said.

  “I like them soggy.”

  “If I’d known that, I’d have picked up half a loaf of bread.”

  “What for?”

  “Honestly! You boys who didn’t grow up on the beach. You eat the white out the half-loaf and then fill the cavity with your soggy, greasy chips. That and a Chiko roll, and Bob’s your uncle.”

  “How the hell you still have a thirty-four-inch waist, Smith, I’ve no idea.”

  “Will you two stop whatever you’re talking about and come join us?” Vince said. He’d run up from the surf while we’d been standing talking about food … yet again.

  “Last one in’s a rotten egg!” I shouted and then took off, hooting at the top of my voice, Harry on my heels.

  The water was cool and the surf light. I struck out, heading into the ocean, beyond the breakers, my ginger-bearded man at my side, matching my stroke.

  *****

  The beauty of cricket is its pace. It can be fast and exciting, but it can also be leisurely and relaxing to watch. Sometimes long periods go by when nothing much seems to go on at all. It made a perfect opportunity for us to throw around ideas about the Bishop case. Today I was supposed to be focused on how to help Vince; however, I couldn’t get my mind away from fleeting thoughts about the sudden and unwelcomed reappearance of the Silent Cop killer.

  At first I’d been surprised to see the cricket match hadn’t been cancelled. Forensics had obviously cleaned up what they could and had locked the gate of the men’s toilet—something that should have happened as a matter of course when the oval wasn’t in use. Had it been locked every night, a young man might still be alive. There was a public convenience down in the small park opposite the beach a few hundred yards away. Taxi drivers used it while waiting for fares from the R.S.L. There was no need to have yet another toilet open all night.

  Of course, once I’d told Vince and Tom about why I’d been summoned to the forensic lab that morning, they’d wanted to know all about it. Both of them had started well after the case had been shelved. It took a good half-hour to explain how the investigation had stumbled from one false lead to another, and only a matter of days after I’d visited one set of grieving parents to tell them how their son had died, another murder had taken place.

  It’s immensely hard for a cop to break the news to any family of a child’s death, no matter what the age of the victim. During the war it had been telegrams, blunt and cruel; but somehow, even though never expected, the possibility had always been in the minds of those who’d remained at home. However, young blokes having their throats slashed while being sodomised in a public convenience late at night? Had I been forthcoming with details of the deaths, I may have ruined many families’ lives forever. Grieving over a murder was bad enough. But, in my opinion, exposing the secret lives of young men to no avail was somehow rubbing salt into wounds that need not be aggravated.

  In other cases, where parents had discovered their son’s homo­sexuality—charged with indecent exposure, or public indecency, for example—they somehow usually blamed themselves for his sexual preferences. In the Silent Cop cases, I’d felt it would have be
en simply cruel to expose that detail. No one wanted them to blame themselves for obliquely being responsible for their child’s murder. Had we not done something to make him queer, he wouldn’t have been in a public toilet at night soliciting strangers for sex—the reasoning didn’t make sense to me, but I’d had the foresight to prevent any family falling into that well of erroneous self-blame.

  I sincerely hoped it wouldn’t be Dioli to break the news of last night’s murder. With luck it would be an army investigator.

  It took some effort to get the topic back to the Bishop case. We tossed around ideas, but with no real results to show—just an ever-growing list of maybes in Vince’s notepad.

  However, although he’d not said much while we’d been chewing the fat, it was Harry’s sudden query that had made us stop, sit up, and take notice.

  “The woman who’d reported the mannequin missing … which fruit shop was she going to? She’d supposedly said she’d only been away twenty minutes.” Although he didn’t live in the area, Harry noticed things—especially if they had anything to do with food. “There’s no greengrocer she could have got to on foot, bought whatever she needed, and then returned in that amount of time. I’m sure the newspaper report said twenty minutes?”

  Vince nodded. “I didn’t hear that detail at the briefing, but it was all over the news.”

  “What do you mean, you didn’t hear it at the briefing. It’s your case, why the hell didn’t the desk sergeant come straight to you?” I couldn’t have been more amazed if I’d tried.

  “Because he went to Dioli instead. I was with the Bishops when it happened. Cyril Bishop had telephoned me saying his wife had found a reel of undeveloped film in their camera and there were very recent pictures of the children on it we might find useful. He offered to drop it in, but I needed a breath of fresh air, and as they only live a few blocks away from work, I went to pick it up.”

  “I still don’t understand why you weren’t told the details, Vince. It doesn’t make sense.”