“Thursday, the fourteenth in the evening?”
The two men exchanged looks and then Neil nodded. “Sounds about right. Why do you ask, Clyde?”
“Go on, you were saying about your friend recognising this man in the photo.”
I knew the block of flats, directly opposite the oval. “Max” must have lived on one of the upper floors to be able to see through the branches of the trees in front of the sports ground—and, if it was a pickup place, most likely had a pair of binoculars at hand to check out the comings and goings.
“Max said he was feeling antsy and had never forgotten what this bloke of yours liked to do here in the steam room, so he went downstairs and followed after him. The grandstand and men’s toilet underneath can go off from time to time, so Max thought he was onto a winner. When he found him, your man was sitting up in the stand at the back and had put his hat on, pulled down, covering his face, like Cagney in a gangster movie—you have to remember how odd this looked because it was after midnight—both his shirt and jacket unbuttoned and spread wide open, baring everything. He was completely naked otherwise. His trousers and underpants folded on the seat next to him, his shoes and socks on top. Otherwise, he sat there with his knees apart, stark naked and playing with himself.”
“And your mate, ‘Max’—I’m guessing that’s not his real name—what did he do?”
“Well, he hesitated for a bit, mainly because of the hat. Who wears a hat in the almost pitch-black? If he’d taken everything else off apart from his shirt and jacket, why was he still wearing his bloody Stetson? Anyway, by now, Max said his dick had overruled his sense of caution. The bloke started whispering and beckoned Max to come closer. So he wandered up, leaned down to have a feel, and then pulled his own out and asked the man if he wanted to chew on it.”
“And?”
“Well, the man said he was really in the mood for a root and asked Max if he liked to take it. I don’t know if anyone told you, but that bloke in your picture has a very big one when it’s hard and our friend’s no angel, so he said he’d couldn’t think of anything he’d like better. After that, the man got all amorous, pulled Max down onto his knee, kissing him, running his hands over his body, until he begged Max to go down on him for a while, all the while telling Max how handsome and sexy he was.”
“And?”
“You’re not getting off on this are you, Clyde?” Neil asked with a grin.
I glanced down at my lap. We were all three naked. “Does it look like it?” I said, laughing at the obvious flirtation, but then firmly informed him I was not available and asked him to continue.
“Max said there came a time when he was really aching for the man to give it to him, and, by this time, he’d stripped off all his own clothes so turned around and bent over one of the bleachers and told the man to go for it. But the bloke just pulled him to his feet and kissed him hard, rubbing up against him, saying that he wanted to do it downstairs in a toilet cubicle where it’s private and where they wouldn’t be disturbed.”
“But I suppose Max wasn’t interested in that?”
“No, and let me tell you, Clyde, I was surprised myself because Max never takes anyone home, but he told the man that he lived close by and asked if he wanted to go to his flat. Your bloke would have none of it, insisting, cajoling, trying to lead him downstairs, gently at first, drawing him by the arm, but when Max resisted, it became more aggressive, forceful. So Max pulled away and told the man to take his hands off him.”
“What happened?”
“The man started to get a bit snarly, so Max told him he’d had enough, picked up his clothes, and went home. Said he was shaking when he got in the door and had three scotches before he felt calm enough to go to bed.”
I thought then that “Max” was the luckiest bloke in the world. Instead, some poor soldier with a skinful of grog had ended up on the wrong end of a straight-edge razor, choking on his own blood on the floor of a cubicle in a public toilet, a couple of hundred yards from where I lived.
“Do you think Max might talk to me? Privately, off the record?” I knew I could have probably tracked him down, but he’d hardly be willing to talk to a former police detective knocking unexpectedly at his front door. If he was going to speak to me, it would have to be because of his two friends.
“Unlikely, Clyde. But I’ll ask.”
“Tell him we can meet anywhere and it can be as anonymous as he likes. There’ll be a fiver in it for his trouble. You know where to find me.”
“No job too big or too small?” Neil said with a smile.
“That was my assistant, not me,” I replied, shaking my head in disbelief. I’d known that ad would turn around and bite me in the bum one day.
“I was there when Max told that story, Clyde,” Boyd said. “Neil left out a few of the dirtiest bits, but other than that I can affirm what he told you was more or less what Max reported at the pub when he told us what had happened.”
“I believe you, Neil,” I said to him. “Please don’t think I believe you’re making it up, honestly. But, if Max won’t speak with me, could you please ask him if he remembered what time it was he saw the cab arrive and if he remembered which cab company it was?”
“I will, Clyde. Don’t worry.”
“Can one of you give me a hand?” Boyd asked at that moment, trying to get out of the water. I grabbed his arm and helped him out. He landed neatly at my side and then ran his hands over his head to squeeze the water from his hair. “Is that big redhead I saw you with in the pie shop just before Christmas your latest squeeze?” he asked.
“Latest and last,” I said. “I’m definitely off the market, fellas. This one’s for keeps.”
“Good on you, Clyde,” Boyd said. “Nice to know that sort of thing still happens in our world.”
“Be a lot easier if everyone wasn’t so blasted afraid of being caught all the time,” Neil added.
“Find your friends and don’t stray far from home, that’s my motto,” I said. “Why do you guys go out tomcatting anyway? Surely you have a few regulars.”
Boyd shrugged. “Sometimes the blokes you like are the ones who are the most scared of being caught out. The anonymity of the beats is the reason pickup places are so popular.”
“Never been my thing, to be honest. Although I did see my fair share of it during the war. The dunes in the desert in North Africa and the deserted docks at night in Malta. It was different back then though. You didn’t know whether you’d be alive the next night, and a bit of company …”
“Neither of us is a stranger to that either, Clyde,” Boyd said. “I meet lots of ex-servicemen because of this,” he added, slapping the thigh of his missing leg. “I don’t see their interest as pity, it’s more about knowing what we all went through together.”
“I think it’s more about how fat your cock is, Boyd, to be honest,” Neil said.
His crude, but pointed, jibe made us laugh very loudly.
“Anyway, Clyde, is that all you want to know about this man in the photo?”
“If I remember anything, I’ll sit up back at the Boomerang in the stalls and wait for you to wander past with your torch shall I?” I said to Neil with a grin.
“Sit up the back and you might get more than a flash of my torch, Clyde.”
“Really?”
“The short session on Fridays that starts at five and finishes at quarter to seven? All sorts—mostly married men, but a few people who should know better. I like that session.”
“I suppose you get to see a lot?”
“Nah, Clyde, but you wouldn’t imagine the size of the tips I get to turn my head the other way.”
*****
I walked up the stairs from the pool to the office and checked the clock on the wall. Quarter past five. Luka would be here shortly, and there was one more thing I wanted to ask Craig before he got here.
“That painter who fixed up the rail after the man I showed you in the picture had sat on it. Do you have a receipt for h
is work?”
“Sure, Clyde. If you give me a moment, I’ll have a look in the filing cabinet. What do you want it for?”
“You said that bloke was visiting fairly regularly for about three months until you banned him, is that right?”
“Yes, about four years ago or thereabouts.”
“You know, Craig. It’s the ‘thereabouts’ that’s often the key to most mysteries. If you can somehow link the date of the painter’s work to the last time you saw him, it will give me a confirmed timeframe around which to start laying out my timetable.”
“Timetable?”
“His first round of killings was just over three years ago and then he stopped. I can’t work in a vague vacuum of dates. Investigation doesn’t work like that. The more precise we can be, the easier it is to trace—”
“First round of killings?”
“Craig, this stuff is highly sensitive, you have to understand I told you only what you needed to know.”
“Wait a minute, Clyde. I have a bad feeling about this.”
“Oh?” The small hairs on the back of my neck pricked up. I called it my copper intuition. I knew I was going to hear something unexpected.
“Boyd, the guy you were just talking to? The bloke sitting down near the pool?”
“Yes, what about him?”
“I don’t know if I should tell you this or not, Clyde. It’s pretty private.”
“Go on, Craig.”
“No, sorry. It’s nothing probably.”
“Do I have to grab you by the nuts and squeeze it out of you?”
“You know what you’ll squeeze out of me if you do that, don’t you,” he said, grinning cheekily.
I raised my eyebrows and sighed. “Give me a hint.”
“Go ask him about what happened to his mate Allan in January of 1953.”
“Allan who?”
“Dead now, so it doesn’t matter. In the meantime I’ll look for your receipt.”
“Luka will be here in about five minutes, can you look after him for a bit while I’m talking to Boyd?”
“Oh, I can do more than look after him, Clyde.”
“Oh really? And what about Harley?”
“Oh, Harley would be into it like a shot, don’t you worry, Clyde. You kept him on a short leash for a long time. A boy’s got to spread his wings, and he likes tall, dark, and handsome … and foreign-looking.”
I shook my head and left him rummaging through his filing cabinet.
*****
“Allan? Who told you about Allan?” Boyd said after I’d asked Neil to give us some space for a few minutes.
“It doesn’t matter, mate, and I was told nothing more than to ask you.”
“What do you want to know?” he asked.
“What happened to Allan in January, 1953?”
“In January, 1953? That’s going back a way.” He sighed deeply and then looked out over the sea for a minute or two, obviously deciding whether to speak or to tell me it was none of my business.”
“If you’d rather not …”
He snorted softly and then said, “Well, he died in 1953, so I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Are you sure? I’m happy to leave it if you like.”
He shook his head. “Nah, it’s all right, Clyde. I don’t mind, and it’s so long ago now. Here, make yourself useful and grab my crutches for me will you? Neil’s wandered off and I …”
“No problem at all, mate. Would you like a smoke too? I’ll grab my ciggies while I’m at it.”
“That’d be nice. Thanks, Clyde.”
After I returned with his crutches, I helped him up, and we moved onto one of the benches behind the pool area.
“Anything else I can do?” I asked.
“Nah, I’m fine,” he said with a grin and a wink. “And there’s no need to sit—the view’s just fine.”
I was standing facing him, my groin at his eye level.
“You said he died in 1953?” I said, offering him a cigarette. “Can you tell me how?”
“Same as me. Got hit by a car. That’s how I lost this,” he added, slapping the thigh of the leg that was missing from just above the knee.
“Oh, I thought you lost yours during the war?”
“I did. They had cars back then in the dim dark ages during the war, you know, Clyde.”
I laughed loudly. “Mine was mostly spent in a P.O.W. camp in Italy, mate.”
“American jeep. Driver lost control and drove over our two-man tent with me inside. Got me an early mark back home.”
“Sorry to hear it. Truly.”
“Lots worse off than me, as you probably know too. Now, tell me why you want to know about what happened to Allan.”
I decided he’d had enough time inspecting my bits, even though he’d been cagey about pretending not to, so I put my towel down next to him and sat, my feet stretched out, staring at the horizon while I decided how I should reply.
“For the moment I can’t tell you why. I’m sorry, Boyd … but after you’ve told me, I might be able to open up a bit. Look at it from my angle. Maybe what you’re going to say will have nothing to do with the case I’m working on and then I’ll have blurted out something that’s meant to be private.”
“Once a cop, always a cop.”
“Look, you can trust me. I wouldn’t be prying if it wasn’t important, and I have a feeling it might just be.”
“Very well, then. Allan was a great guy, struggling with a slow intellect, but everyone’s pal. He had one major problem though.”
“What was that?”
“He was sex mad, and I mean not just toey all the time, but obsessed with having sex, anywhere, any time, with anyone wearing trousers. He compensated for feeling stupid by making himself available to men—he used to tell me that because blokes liked him, it made him feel wanted and ‘normal’, and the more of them he had, the more normal he felt. He was what we used to call a ‘bog boy’ back then. Lived in public toilets after dark. He was good-looking enough, and tall with it. You couldn’t tell to look at him that he was mentally challenged, but because of it he was naïve, very trusting and often very reckless too.”
“Reckless?”
“What he got up to, Clyde, when he was out on the prowl, most nights of the week. No sense of danger. He was like a puppy—everyone wanted to play with him.”
“And?”
“He was down at Rushcutters’ Bay Park one night …”
Rushcutters’ Bay? The hairs on the back of my neck bristled so fiercely I had to shake my head.
“…and he met some guy in the dark under the trees along the creek there with a nice smile and big piece between his legs. The guy kept running his hands around Allan’s arse, grinding himself against him, kissing his neck, and constantly begging Allan to let him put it in him. Allan was a pushover for a persistent, sexed-up man—he’d get so aroused he couldn’t think straight—so said yes, but he didn’t want it out there, in the open under the trees, so asked him if he had anywhere to go. The man flicked his head towards the public toilet in the middle of the park and took him by the hand and led him inside. As soon as they were inside in the cubicle, he encouraged Allan to get down on his knees to give him a bit of oral action, to get them both ‘warmed up’.”
I had a pretty good idea of how this story was going to pan out, and I felt a little uneasy waiting to see if it turned out as I suspected it might. “Go on,” I said.
“Well, Allan told me the man was not only very turned-on but also encouraging and appreciative of what Allan was doing—kept saying how nice it was and complimenting him on how well he was doing it—and then suddenly squatted down and kissed Allan full on the mouth, asking him if he was ready for it.”
“Are you sure he said the man kissed him?”
“Yes, Clyde. Is that important?”
“No,” I lied. “Sorry to interrupt, please go on with what you were telling me.”
It wasn’t the first time I’d heard that Green E
yes was into kissing and affection with intended victims. It was unusual for a sex predator to be so caring, almost loving, encouraging and complimenting their victim on their sexual abilities and how desirable they were and then murdering them in such a grotesque manner at the climax of their mutual enjoyment.
“Allan said that as he got to his feet, the man turned him around, undid his belt from behind, and then ran his hands over his arse and legs, telling him how he’d make sure Allan had a good time, that he wouldn’t neglect him. Allan said the man was very passionate and had taken care of him with his hand while he slowly built up speed and then, when he whispered he was about to shoot his load, he pulled back the collar of Allan’s shirt and licked his neck, moaning loudly. Right at that moment some bloke who’d seemingly come in for legitimate reasons heard them grunting and peeked over the top of the door and started to yell his head off, screaming at the top of his voice about ‘bloody poofters’ and threatening to call the cops. So, as they ran out of the cubicle, Allan pushed the bloke who’d been yelling backwards into the trough, all the while trying to get back into his strides, and then he and the bloke he’d been doing it with in the cubicle took off in different directions across the park.”
“And why did Allan tell you this, Boyd? If he’s a ‘bog boy’ as you so tactfully put it, surely he’d be used to regular men walking in on such things and getting angry.”
“Well, the only reason I knew is that he banged on my front door at two in the morning, really upset, shaking.”
“What?”
“Because, when he’d got to his car, he couldn’t remember which pocket he’d put his keys in. He said he’d always take them out of his trouser pockets if he knew he was going to take his strides off, and put them in his coat pocket, in case they fell out and he couldn’t find them in the dark. So, when he put his hand into the pocket of his jacket, he cut himself. The guy who’d been slipping him a length had also slipped a straight-edge razor into his coat.”
I think I might have swallowed a fly, my mouth gaped so wide and for such a long time. This was the rumour we’d heard years ago. The attempted murder that had gone wrong. It had to be our man. His first recognised, botched-up attempt. Perhaps there were others before? But certainly not in our patch. Rushcutters’ Bay was not really in the area the other murders had taken place, but not a million miles away either. Maybe it was a trial run, for the murderer to see whether he could do it or not? Unless we caught him and could question him, we’d never know.
The Gilded Madonna Page 35