Book Title: Bridge at the Beach (A Clyde Smith Mystery #4)
Author and Cover Artist: Garrick Jones
Publisher: Moshpit Publications
Release Date: April 12, 2024
Genre: Crime Thriller
Themes: Sowing one’s oats; Finding Mr. Right; Acceptance in community; Historical fiction; Crime Fiction; Detective Fiction
Heat Rating: 2 flames
Length: 134 000 words/ 392 pages
It is part of the Clyde Smith Mystery Series, but does not end on a cliffhanger.
Buy Links
Amazon US | Amazon AU | Amazon UK | Smashwords
Blurb
Clyde’s idyllic afternoon in the surf with his mates is interrupted by the news that there’s been a quadruple suicide in an apartment overlooking the beach.
Two of the deceased are the parents of Barry Wilkinson, one of Clyde’s childhood friends, a man he hasn’t seen since Clyde donned the khaki and left for war. Wilkinson engages Clyde to discover the identity of a mysterious woman who has been left a huge sum of money in his father’s will.
On the surface, what appears to be a straightforward case evolves into a complex story of deception, lies, violence and murder. Relationships are tested, new ones formed and Clyde discovers that those connections that seem unrelated are closely linked behind a veil of secrecy.
The early summer of 1957 is a time in which Clyde nearly loses everything he holds dear—his own life included—all because of two couples who died while playing bridge at the beach.
The following morning, I hurried up the stairs after my dawn run to Clovelly and back. I’d had a dip in Craig’s pool, after which a quick smoke with him while catching up on his and Harley’s news, then, wanting to get to the office early, got stuck into preparing breakfast.
Steve was manning reception this Saturday morning, but I had a pile of work on my desk to finish before Tuesday and didn’t really want to come into work tomorrow or on Monday, my day off, to spend time on it.
I fed Baxter, cracked a few eggs into a frying pan with two rashers of bacon, and while they were spitting away on a low heat, filled the moka pot.
“Good morning!” Harry called out from the front door. He’d spent last night with his parents, and I wasn’t expecting to see him until it was time to pick up the boys from Percival House and take them to the cricket.
“Had breakfast?” I called out, wondering what was taking him so long to join me in the kitchen, but then I felt his arm around me and a distinct shape pressing against my backside. “Are you naked, Harry Jones?”
He kissed my ear and wiggled his hips against my arse, one hand insinuating itself through the fly of my boxer shorts. “I missed you last night,” he said, nibbling my earlobe.
“So I gather.”
A few minutes later, the gas turned off, Harry on his back on the kitchen table with his knees under my armpits, the back door burst open.
“Gidday, Mr. S. Any chance of some bacon and—Ooh, fuck me! I’m sorry.”
There was nothing to do but brazen it out. There was no use trying to move. If I did, I’d give him an eyeful of everything. “Why don’t you fucking knock, Octavius Toolidge?” I yelled over my shoulder.
“I’ll come back later,” he called out through the closed door, having bolted the moment he’d caught a glimpse of us mid-flight.
“Don’t bother. Just give us a few minutes, okay?”
His muffled reply was probably something to do with “a few minutes”, but I pulled Harry to his feet then down the hallway to my bedroom to throw on some clothes.
“Remember where we were, Jones,” I said, kissing him.
“My body remembers exactly where you were, Clyde,” he replied.
Okky didn’t look at all embarrassed when I opened the back door. In fact, he was cleaning his fingernails with his penknife; he looked up, gave me a cheeky grin and a wink. “Job done, Mr. S.?” he asked.
I grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and pulled him into the kitchen.
“Don’t worry about me. Seen it all before,” he said, sniffing the air. “Is that coffee I smell?”
“You tell anyone about this and you’re minced meat. Got it?” I growled.
“Come on, Mr. S., we’re all blokes. It’s not as if I haven’t been where you were more than once in my life, and not just buried up to my nuts in ladies either.”
His attempt to jolly me along made me want to knock the leer from his face, but somehow I began to see the funny side of it. I’d been caught out in worse situations, but at least this time I had my back to the door.
“Apologise to Mr. Jones when he comes in then I won’t kick your arse down the stairs.”
“Right you are; anyways, I come bearing good tidings.”
“Of comfort and joy?” I asked drily.
“Wha …?”
“Never mind,” I said. “I suppose you want breakfast?”
“If you’re having some, then yes please.” Harry returned from whatever he’d been doing in the bathroom and began to get busy at the stove. “Oh, hello, Mr. Jones … sorry about earlier. I was telling Mr. S. here that I—”
“For fuck’s sake just sit down and shut up, Okky,” I said. “Don’t make things worse. Nothing was going on … you understand?”
“Hey, Mr. S., it’s me, your partner. You know what goes on between you and me … and Mr. Jones, of course … is sacred. Cross my heart and hope to die.”
He looked so earnest it made me smile. I glanced at Harry; I think he was mortified, but he went on as if nothing had happened. I took over from him at the stove while he put the grill on for toast then set the table.
“What brings you this way so early on a Saturday morning?” I asked.
“As I said, I did a bit of digging for you … about them sheilas.”
“Rose and Blanche?”
“Yep. Them two. Rose’s real name is Rosemary Middleton; she’s the one what works weekdays at a Woolworth’s cafeteria in town—downstairs, corner of Pitt and Market Streets. Blanche was harder to track down. I heard she used to be a tram conductor, but now she’s a cleaner at the Brigidine Convent just up the road from the nick. Lives in; she gets weekends off. Has an elderly mother who lives over Campsie way. Visits her first thing both days, then most weekends it’s off to the Wilkinsons’ for a few hours.”
I nodded. Girls on pitiful wages, especially Blanche, who, living in and working at a convent, would probably earn about two quid a week. Cafeteria workers wouldn’t earn much more. For young, unmarried women, part-time prostitution was often an option to create a better life—as long as a pimp wasn’t involved, or working in a brothel where they were invariably exploited.
“You said it was harder to find out about Blanche?” Harry said, setting the table for breakfast.
“Yeah, but needs must, you know how it goes.”
“No, I don’t. Care to explain?”
“George Hastings, Mr. S. You said to track him down. Well, he’s the one who gave me the information. Got his address for you too. Just had to do him a favour, then he was happy to tell me everything.”
“A favour? I hope you didn’t do something that will get you into trouble?” I said, bringing the frying pan to the table.
“Nah, just let him chow down on Snakey while he whacked off. It was nothing.”
My hand hesitated over his plate. I knew there were lads around like him; I’d known a few in the army. They’d stick their dick into anything warm and alive. Who was I to make judgements?
“Thank you for going beyond the call of duty,” I said.
“It was nothing, Mr. S., anytime. Besides, that George could give lessons to all of my girlfriends on the art of sword-swallowing.”
Gradually, Harry’s stiffness evaporated, and by halfway through breakfast we were all laughing as Okky related some of the local goings-on—mostly gossip about who was doing what and with whom. He and Harry washed up the breakfast dishes while I went to the study to find my wallet and my betting slips for this afternoon’s races.
“Here’s a fiver, young man,” I said, handing him the money and my racing bets after we’d done the washing-up and put everything away. “There’s four quid for the bets and the other twenty bob is for you to thank you for your trouble. Now, is there anything else I should know about George Hastings?”
He thought for a bit before answering. “Only rumours.”
“Tell me.”
“Well, I don’t know if it involves him directly, but I’ve heard on the grapevine that there’s a sort of courier service run by the tram drivers and conductors. Picking up and dropping off stuff, you know the sort of thing.”
“Drugs?”
He shook his head. “I’d have heard about that. No, I don’t think so. As I said, it’s just a rumour. There is one thing about George though you need to know.”
“What’s that?” I asked as he put on his jacket, about to leave by the back door, the way he’d come in.
“He can be very tight-lipped. Sometimes won’t say a word.”
“Even for money?”
“I tell you what though, Mr. S. Let him have a suck of those hairy low-hangers of yours and he’ll tell you anything you want.”
He winked then closed the door behind him before I could say a word.
From the outback to the opera.
After a thirty-year career as a professional opera singer, performing as a soloist in opera houses and in concert halls all over the world, I took up a position as lecturer in music in Australia in 1999, at the Central Queensland Conservatorium of Music, which is now part of CQ University.
Brought up in Australia, between the bush and the beaches of the Eastern suburbs, I retired in 2015 and now live in the tropics, writing, gardening, and finally finding time to enjoy life and to re-establish a connection with who I am after a very busy career on the stage and as an academic.
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