Golden Relic (13 page)

"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," Maggie 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 world-wide 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.

"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 dunno 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."

"It seems he only decided last week," Sam stated.

Julia shook her head slowly. "That's what I find unusual. Lloyd planned his trips meticulously,
for weeks in advance. And he was usually excited and voluble, even if he was going somewhere he'd
been before. It was always a new adventure but everything had to be perfect."