Golden Relic

by Lindy Cameron

  Maggie shook her head thoughtfully. “He was a cantankerous old so-and-so but I’ve no idea why someone would want to poison him to death.”

  “Poison? Who told you that?”

  “Daley, he���” Maggie stopped when Sam groaned and put her head down on the table.

  “That man!” Sam growled, sitting up again. “He’s convinced there’s a mysterious plot afoot to ruin ICOM ‘98, that Marsden’s death is just one gory part of it, and that if the press gets hold of the story they’ll be going through his sock drawers to get all the juicy details. And yet he can’t keep his own mouth shut. He may as well hire a float and tell the whole city. I could strangle him.”

  “I know how you feel,” Maggie laughed. “I have often been tempted to defenestrate him.”

  “To what?”

  “Chuck him out the nearest window, dear. Just to shut him up.”

  Sam was still laughing when she noticed Rivers enter the bar. She motioned to him to get a drink before joining them. “You won’t tell anyone about the poison will you, Maggie?”

  “Pah! Who would I tell?” Maggie assured her.

  “Dr Maggie Tremaine, Constable Hercules Rivers,” Sam stated, as the latter slid onto the bench seat beside her. “Don’t ask,” Sam said, when she noticed Maggie’s questioning look.

  “You can tell me later, Hercules,” Maggie suggested, leaning over to Rivers. “Especially seeing you look as surprised by my appearance as I am���delighted by yours.”

  “Sorry for staring,” Rivers stated. “It’s just that Robert Ellington kept saying ‘formidable woman, formidable’ like you were some scary thing. I expected you to be seven feet tall.”

  “Ha! The silly old fart,” Maggie chuckled.

  “So, what have you got, Rivers?” Sam asked, wondering if it was her imagination or whether Maggie Tremaine was indeed flirting with the constable.

  “First off, Ellington said he was sitting at that dinner between Dr Bridger and Ms Douglas. He says Bridger and the Professor were talking about an archaeological dig in Peru, and some old Inca called���hang on,” Rivers pulled out his notebook and shrugged at Sam, “I’m trying to get the hang of this processing deal, but this one I have to look up. Right, an Inca dude called Teepackamoo.”

  Maggie nearly choked on her drink. “You needn’t have bothered looking it up, Hercules. The dude’s name was Tupac Amaru.”

  “Is there any reason why this topic would’ve made the Professor claim he was ill so he could leave the dinner early?” Sam asked Maggie.

  “Not unless he was suddenly grief-stricken over the murder of the last Inca king by the Spaniards over 400 years ago,” Maggie said. “Lloyd was not a social man. He probably just wanted to go home.”

  “Oh.” Sam was getting depressed and starting to think Rigby was right about Marsden’s death being a ‘domestic’ affair. It was obviously time to get her intuition sent somewhere for a reality check. “What about the Internet stuff?” she asked hopefully.

  “Ah, now this is interesting,” Rivers stated, placing a computer printout on the table. “The first two are pretty wacky but I haven’t found any connection except the dates. A guy was killed in a hit-and-run snow mobile accident in Anchorage on July 6, last year; and a suicidal Scotsman leapt off the roof next to the museum in Edinburgh on December 23. He lived, by the way.

  “The rest of these are probably more relevant. An art broker died of smoke inhalation in a gallery fire in New York on March 15, 1997; some Egyptian scrolls and Roman coins were stolen in a burglary at an archaeological museum in London on October 10; and lastly, a van carrying South American treasures was hijacked in Paris four days ago. That last one doesn’t really fit though, because the Exhibition had already left.”

  “Not all of it,” Sam stated, feeling her intuition sparking on all cylinders again. “I believe you know something about this Paris hijacking, Maggie.”

  “Yes, and the burglary in London. What has all this got to do with Lloyd?”

  “Nothing directly, but each of these bizarre little incidents occurred during a visit to those cities by the ‘Rites of Life and Death’ Exhibition.

  “So Marcus is a suspect,” Maggie smiled.

  “No. As I said before, he wasn’t here when Marsden was murdered. Although he was probably still in Paris during the hijacking.”

  Maggie roared with laughter. “I can imagine ‘Phineas’ doing away with a competing colleague, but I can’t see Dr Marcus Bridger carrying out an armed robbery in broad daylight,” she said. “What on earth made you look into all this?”

  “Coincidences,” Sam stated. “I hate them, and they’re cropping up everywhere in this investigation.”

  “Well I’ve another one for you,” Maggie offered. “A dear friend of mine, Dr Alistair Nash, was curator of that burgled London Museum. He died in a car crash on the day of the robbery.”

  “Whoa!” said Sam.

  “It’s just a coincidence, Sam dear. They do happen.”

  “Not without a reason they don’t,” Sam pronounced, and explained her theory about a smuggling operation.

  Maggie was highly amused. “An intriguing possibility, but not very likely,” she said.

  “Do you need me any more tonight, Sam?” Rivers asked. “It’s just that I’m supposed to be playing pool in the inter-department comp tonight.”

  “No, that’s fine. Thanks for all this info.” Sam pocketed the printout. “And good luck.”

  “I’ll just get us another drink,” Maggie said, getting up to follow Rivers. “Pool?” Sam heard her say. “I would have thought you’d play football.”

  Rivers, who looked like he was being completely charmed by Maggie, continued to chat with her at the bar until the drinks had been served.

  “There’s nothing like a handsome, strapping young man to get my wires all abuzzing,” Maggie announced, returning to her seat.

  “Maggie,” Sam laughed. “He’s got to be 20 years younger than you.”

  “I thank you for the compliment Sam, but it’s closer to 30 years. I turned 54 last month. And there’s no need to look so amazed, you don’t look 35 either.”

  “How do you know how old���”

  “Oops,” Maggie muttered. “I’ll have to come clean now, if I’m going to ask for your help.”

  “My help?”

  “Yes. I confess that after Daley arranged this meeting I did a little investigating of my own.”

  “You checked me out? Why? How?”

  “Suffice to say I know a lot of people. It wasn’t difficult. So, although I didn’t know what you looked like, I did know that Sam Diamond had achieved a few firsts in the Bureau: the youngest woman to earn the rank of Detective, and the youngest anything to be promoted to Special Detective. I also know you have a Masters in Criminology, that you usually beat the boys at the shooting range, and I’m told you’re smart, intuitive, analytical and prepared to take risks.”

  “I am?” Sam said warily, realising she’d pressed her whole body back into the bench seat.

  “Don’t look so worried, Sam,” Maggie said, searching her bag for something. “I simply have a mystery that needs unravelling, and I suspect you’re good with mysteries.”

  “Yeah? Well right now, my old boss thinks I’m good at inventing them.”

  “Good. Because if you can make them, you should be able to break them.” Maggie pushed a small box, with writing on it, across the table.

  “If you are reading this my fears have been realised. I am no more,” Sam read aloud. “Good grief! Is this what Marsden sent you?”

  “You know about this already,” Maggie said in surprise.

  “I knew ‘about’ the package but not what it was. I spoke to the lawyer after Ellington said Marsden had asked him to contact Hudson & Bolt if anything happened to him.” Sam removed the lid and then held it in mid air as she stared, with disappointment at the contents of the box. “A key? Is that all?”

  “And that ridiculous note,” Ma
ggie said. “Lloyd knew I wasn’t much of a lateral thinker, so I don’t know what possessed him to send this to me.”

  Sam shuffled around the bench seat until she was sitting next to Maggie, and placed the note on the table between them. She read aloud, but softly:

  Check the odyssey of Ouroboros.

  Safe no more.

  Return to the finder, from the words

  of the Bard. Sweet bugger all

  back here is the key to Thomas’s clue.

  “Fascinating isn’t it?” Maggie said sarcastically. “I don’t have the faintest idea what it means.”

  “Who’s Thomas?” Sam asked.

  “I have no idea. And the only Bard I know of is a dead playwright so he’s not going to be much help, is he?”

  “You don’t know who Ouroboros is either I take it,” Sam said, picking up the note.

  “What, not who,” Maggie corrected. “That I do know, but it’s a symbol found worldwide and means different things, for instance: ‘my end is my beginning’. In Orphic cosmology it encircles the Cosmic Egg; the Egyptians saw it as the circle of the universe, the Greeks as ‘all is one’, and the Hindus and Buddhists as the wheel of samsara. In alchemy Ouroboros symbolises the unredeemed power of nature.”

  “Oh, well that’s helpful,” Sam said mockingly. “What does this symbol look like?”

  “It’s often depicted as a serpent or dragon biting its own tail, symbolising self-sufficiency and the eternal cycle, wherein the serpent begets, weds, impregnates and kills itself.”

  “It’s life and death,” Sam said excitedly.

  “Yes exactly. Ouroboros the serpent perpetually injects life into death and death into life.”

  ‘No, yes, I mean look at the first sentence,” Sam babbled, pointing to Marsden’s note. “He’s telling you to ‘check the odyssey of Ouroboros’. That has to mean the ‘itinerary’ of the ‘Rites of Life and Death’. I knew I was right about that Exhibition.”

  “Well I’ll be damned,” Maggie declared. “That doesn’t mean they’re smugglers.”

  “No, but I’ll bet anything it means that at least one of them is a murderer.”

  “None of this explains why Lloyd suddenly decided to go to Peru. That’s not like him. He usually put a lot of planning into his field trips.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t a field trip,” Sam suggested. “The Professor set this whole mystery in motion the day after the exhibition arrived in Melbourne. Perhaps he was threatened and simply decided to go somewhere safe.”

  “Surely he’d have left straight away, instead of applying for leave and waiting a week.”

  “Unless it was Dr Bridger who threatened him. Marsden bought the ticket and delivered this package to his lawyer the day Bridger flew to Paris. The Professor’s flight to Peru was for today, when Bridger was supposed to return to Melbourne. He came back early though.”

  “But not early enough to kill Lloyd.”

  “No, that’s true. But perhaps someone else from the team is involved too; or all of them.”

  “Sam dear, I believe you’re creating your own plot and losing it as you go. You’re supposed to be solving, not creating a mystery.”

  Sam sighed deeply. “I know.” She picked up the key. It just was an ordinary door key. She bent over the note again. “Hah! Maggie, this is a cryptic clue.”

  “I know dear. It’s all very cryptic.”

  “No. Most of it is straightforward; it’s obscure but directly translatable. The last sentence though is an actual cryptic clue.” Sam held up the key. “And I bet this will open the answer to the clue.”

  “That much I did work out,” Maggie stated. “It’s obviously the key to the clue.”

  “No, it’s the key to the answer; ‘Thomas’ is the key to the clue. But who is Thomas?” She picked up her beer.

  “Sam, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Sam sat bolt upright and loudly gulped the mouthful she’d taken. “Yes! ‘Sweet bugger all’ is the answer. Oh Maggie, this is really clever,” she said admiringly. “It’s hlaraygib.”

  “Really? You sound like you’ve got whooping cough.”

  “It’s Welsh, Maggie. ‘Thomas’ is Dylan Thomas. The word ‘back’ in the clue tells us to reverse the letters of ‘bugger all’. Have you got a pen?”

  Maggie found a pencil in her bag and Sam wrote the word ‘Llareggub’ on a paper napkin. “See, ‘bugger all’ backwards,” she said. “It’s the name of the town in Dylan Thomas’s Under Milkwood.”

  “But you called it���”

  “Hla-ray-gib,” Sam nodded. “It’s not a real place Maggie, and my Welsh accent is totally Australian.”

  “Ha. And all this time I thought the name of Lloyd’s retreat was pronounced Lara-gub.”

  “What retreat?” Sam asked.

  “Lloyd had a little mud brick cottage that his sister left him when she died 15 years ago. It’s in Eltham.”

  Sam held up the key again. “This will open the answer to the clue,” she repeated.

  Chapter Five

  Melbourne, Sunday September 20, 1998

  “Sam?” No answer. “Yo, Sam.” Jacqui tapped her finger on the kitchen table.

  “Go away, Jac, or at least be quiet. Please. It’s too early.” Sam remained motionless, her head resting on the crook of her arm on the table.

  “Why are you up?” Jacqui poured herself a coffee from the pot and refilled Sam’s mug.

  Sam opened one eye, then sat up before opening the other one. “What are you wearing?”

  “Reuben’s long johns,” Jacqui replied, turning to show off the USS Detroit stamp on the back.

  “You’re wearing a gay sailor’s underwear?”

  “Cool aren’t they?” Jacqui said adjusting the sleeves.

  Change the subject, Sam thought. “So, how did your date with Ben go on Friday night?”

  “It was great. Last night too. We all went to an amazing party.”

  “Who all?”

  “Ben and me and Reuben, and Josh, Peter, Leo, James and Elvira.”

  “Elvira?”

  “Yeah. His real name is Brandon but he’s Elvira when he’s all frocked up.”

  “I’m sure he is,” Sam said. “You took Ben, my Ben, out with a bunch of gay boys?”

  Jacqui gave Sam her best ‘which planet are you from?’ look. “On Friday I took Ben out with a bunch of gay boys. Last night your Ben and his Elvira took me to a warehouse party.”

  “I knew I shouldn’t have got up this morning,” Sam groaned.

  “Well go back to bed. Try getting up when you’re less grumpy.”

  “I’m not grumpy, I’m gobsmacked.”

  “Well you don’t need to get all self-analytical about why your famous intuition failed you or you weren’t astute enough to work out your partner was gay. Ben wasn’t sure himself, until he met Brandon.”

  “I was not questioning my prodigious powers of perception,” Sam lied. “I was wondering what Ben’s going to do when his American sailor heads for ports unknown.”

  “Brandon’s not an American sailor, he’s a Melbourne architect. He lives in Yarraville,” Jacqui said. “Now, are you going to tell me why you’re up so early on a Sunday?”

  “I’ve got a date with an archaeologist for breakfast, and I’m trying to figure out what���”

  “To do with your life?” Jacqui interrupted. “Honestly Samantha! Breakfast is what you do after you’ve had the date and spent the night together.”

  Sam scowled at her sister. “It’s a business breakfast and Maggie is not that kind of date.”

  “Oh. What are trying to figure out then?”

  “Maggie has provided some ‘possibly’ relevant information about this case I’m working, but asked that I keep it to myself, or between us, until we check it out.”

  “So? What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing. Everything. I’m a cop, I can’t withhold information from the investigating team.”

  “I dunn
o Sam. It seems to me you’d better check out this ‘possible’ lead with this Maggie person rather than calling the squad in too early,” Jacqui advised seriously. “Your detective mates might get really pissed off if they have to inspect another crate of stone penises.”

  “Bloody Muldoon,” Sam laughed. “I am never going to live that down. But you’re right about this lead, Jac. They can wait till I verify it.”

  The first thing that surprised Sam when she scanned the Regency’s dining room was the stupid thrill she got when she noticed that Marcus Bridger was breakfasting, with Enrico Vasquez, at a table by the window. The second surprise was that she almost didn’t recognise Maggie Tremaine who was sitting, with another woman, on the far side of the room.

  This morning Maggie was dressed much the same as Sam, in jeans and a cotton shirt, but it was her neat, elegantly brushed-back hair that made all the difference to her appearance.

  “Good morning Sam,” Maggie said cheerfully. “This is my dear friend Julia Cooper. Julia this is Special Detective Sam Diamond of the ACB.”

  Sam shook Julia’s hand. “Are you Dr Cooper, curator of the Indigenous Cultures Program?”

  “That’s me,” Julia said.

  “I have a bone to pick with you, Sam,” Maggie stated, as she spread Vegemite on her toast.

  “With me, why?”

  “You might have told me last night that I looked like I was wearing a fright wig.”

  Sam shrugged apologetically. “My sister does things like that to her hair on purpose.”

  “Oh, well, just so you know, this is the real me. Last night I had some kind of static reaction to my new hair dryer, or the lift coming down from my room, or something. Okay?”

  “Yes Maggie,” Sam said.

  “We’ve just been talking about poor Lloyd,” Julia said.

  Sam flashed a warning glance at Maggie and then turned to the waitress who had appeared at the table. “Eggs Benedict and black coffee please.”

  “It’s okay Sam,” Maggie said, “I haven’t divulged anything I shouldn’t.”

  “I’ve been doing most of the talking,” Julia assured Sam. “I was saying how surprised I was to learn that Lloyd was going to a Peru. We had lunch together a couple of weeks ago and he made no mention of it.”