St Kilda Blues (16 page)

It didn't take Berlin long to find what he was looking for. The pathway curved out in a wide arc from the back door of the Marquet house. Crushed flat by regular use it wove its way between the trees, ending in a small covered clearing that faced up towards the windows of the old schoolhouse. The bark of a tall gum had been worn away at shoulder height by someone leaning against the tree.

Fallen branches and leaf litter covered the ground in front of the tree, and interspersed amongst the crisp, dried leaves and splintered shards of bark were dozens of cigarette butts. Something else had been spattered over the ground cover amongst the butts and branches and dried leaves. Berlin chose not to think about what it might be.

There was a slight look of relief on Bob Roberts' face when Berlin came back into the kitchen. ‘Get what you needed, Charlie?'

‘More than we needed Bob, but we'll talk about it back in the car.'

Something in his tone told Roberts not to ask any more questions.

Berlin glanced towards the sewing machine and bolts of cloth in the living room.

‘Singer make a good machine, don't they? My wife used to do a lot of sewing, Mrs Marquet, but not so much now. She made all the curtains for the house when we first moved in.' He walked into the living room and picked up a bolt of flower-patterned fabric. ‘This is nice, colourful, very cheery. I reckon this would make a nice set of curtains for your girls in that sleep-out.' He smiled. ‘I can't see it taking you much more than a day to run some up.'

The woman glanced at her husband and then down at the floor.

‘I think some nice curtains might brighten up the room out there, help them get over things. Give them a bit of privacy too. Young girls, young women, they need that.'

She glanced at her husband again. ‘I suppose I could do that.'

Berlin smiled a cheery smile. ‘That's the spirit, you might be able to get Maud to give you a hand. We'll be going now and I'm sorry we had to disturb you, especially after everything you've been through. Thanks for the tea and scones.' He looked back towards Clive Marquet who was still sitting at the kitchen table. ‘I might just have a quick word with your husband on our way out.'

Berlin walked across the living room to the front door of the house and opened it. He glanced at Clive Marquet and tilted his head, indicating his presence was required outside.

Roberts waited in the car while Berlin walked slowly across the front of the house and then down the side. Clive Marquet followed at a distance. Berlin stopped at the back of the building, waiting for him to catch up before he spoke.

‘You know, you're pretty cut-off way out here in the bush Mr Marquet. If it was me, I'd be worried about my family. You seem like a bit of a handy bloke, I can't see it being too much trouble for you to fit some good locks to those doors of yours. I'm a bit partial to locks on bathroom doors too. Like I said, I've got a teenage daughter and girls that age do seem to like a bit of privacy.'

Clive Marquet's jaw was working rhythmically, moving left to right, and his eye twitched. ‘I don't see what bloody business it is of yours, what a man does in his own home, puts up curtains or doesn't. Puts in locks.'

Only Berlin's years of practice in suppressing his feelings, his anger, saved Clive Marquet from a broken jaw or something worse.

‘You're absolutely right, it's none of my business. Did you serve in the war, by any chance, Mr Marquet?'

Marquet shook his head. ‘I did my time in the CMF. Korea was over by then so I didn't get the chance to go overseas. I was done before the Malaya business started up.'

‘Then you were bloody lucky, believe me. I was in the war, a prisoner of war in fact, over in Germany. In Poland, actually, but I don't want to split hairs.'

Berlin knew what he really wanted was to split Clive Marquet's ugly face wide open. It was hard to believe the bastard couldn't sense the rage in him but Clive Marquet appeared to be just confused.

‘I don't follow you.'

Berlin picked up a handful of gravel from the pathway and began tossing stones into the bush, one by one.

‘Let's see if I can make it a bit clearer, then. I was locked up for a while and a lot of blokes who got locked up like that, behind barbed-wire, found that when they got back home they needed to be in the open. They needed to walk, to feel that they could go anywhere, to clear their heads, I suppose, get the bad memories out. I was like that. I actually still go walking, mostly at night.' He bent down and scooped up more gravel.

‘I go walking at night to forget about the awful things I've seen and done and sometimes I come across things that are even worse.' He scattered the remaining gravel into the scrub in one throw, hearing it hit leaves and branches and then tumble down into the ground litter. ‘Funny thing is – maybe not so funny, I suppose – a bloke can get confused. Sometimes I don't even know where I am when I'm out wandering, sometimes I wind up a suburb or two away. Who knows, I might even find myself wandering round out this way one night.'

Marquet was smart enough to keep his mouth shut now, which Berlin appreciated.

‘Way too easy for a bloke to lose his bearings at night, Clive, easy to lose track of time and place. I sometimes worry I might be wandering through the bush somewhere at night and bump into somebody and maybe get confused and think they're a German guard out to kill me. Before I can stop myself I might find myself beating up some poor bastard just out for an innocent walk, smashing him to a bloody pulp. Makes you think a bloke might be wise to start keeping himself indoors after dark, so nothing untoward happens to him, nothing nasty, if you see what I'm saying.'

Berlin turned away from the bush and looked up at the back of the house, at the clear-glass bathroom window.

‘Put that in yourself, didn't you? Not a bad job. My brother was a carpenter, carpenter's apprentice, really, and he'd probably reckon that was a pretty decent bit of joinery. Now, if it were me I would've gone for frosted glass or maybe white perspex. Still lets the light in but softens it off a bit. Cuts down on the fading of the towels and what have you as well.' He reached down and picked up stone about the size of an apricot. ‘You might want to take a step back, Clive.'

It was a good throw, the stone hitting the pane of glass about a third of the way up. Shards of glass tumbled out of the frame and down onto the path. Berlin thought of the sparkles of glass on the asphalt on Lakeside Drive where Melinda Marquet had been struck by the car.

He heard the bathroom door open and then Mrs Marquet was standing in the bathroom, looking down through the shattered glass at the two men on the pathway. Berlin waved.

‘We've had a bit of an accident, I'm afraid, Mrs Marquet. I was just telling your husband that if it was me, I'd fill her in with three-ply or masonite till you can get a glazier out here. Nice bit of frosted glass shouldn't cost too much, probably get mates rates given he's in business locally. You'd better watch your feet up there, Mrs Marquet. We wouldn't want you getting yourself hurt. And don't worry yourself about your hubby down here. I've already warned him he needs to watch himself.'

The soundproofing was the longest part of the job but it was important to get it right. Testing was done by running his stereo at maximum amplification with the Rolling Stones ‘Paint It Black' on the turntable. Inside the small room the noise was deafening but from the outside he couldn't hear a thing. A young girl's screams could have a different, higher pitch, of course, so he still might have to use a gag, which was somewhat disappointing. There were certain advantages to the isolation of the bush but in the big city he had better access to guests and it was so much easier to blend in on the crowded streets. Looking and sounding and seeming innocuous took a huge amount of effort, but it was worth it.

Setting the room up had taken longer than he had anticipated but it was necessary to get it exactly right. He had stuck by his decision to avoid pleasure until it was complete, until he could do his work in safety and privacy, and it was a wise move, he now realised. The first after such a long period of abstinence would be so much sweeter. Besides, the time had been put to good use and his skill with the ropes had improved immensely. The Japanese magazines bought under the counter from the creepy bookseller in St Kilda had been very useful with that. While he had admired the delicate kimonos and intricate binding of the half-naked women in the black and white photographs, and their suspension from the beams of what looked liked ancient farmhouses or rooms with paper walls, he was looking for something else. He would make his binding both artistic and secure and he planned to photograph his better efforts. But once the girls were secured it was what would come after that was of much more importance.

It was hot in the room, now it was summer. Most of the building work had been done at night and on weekends over winter when the place had been freezing, but the physical activity had kept him warm. After the building there had been the stocking of the place with the necessary items and, again, these had been brought in bit by bit at night and on weekends. The soundproofing and the hooks in the ceiling beam had been the final items and they were now done. The list of supplies, like the plans for the place, had all been kept in his head, where they were safest.

He slowly ran his left index finger around the room, counting items silently, mentally ticking things off the list. When he finished he realised the room was ready. It was time to invite his first guest over, and the realisation of how close it actually was brought the heat up between his legs. Tomorrow was Saturday and it was still summer school holidays for another two weeks so the dances and discotheques would be packed.

The dagger and sharpening stone were on the small table he had built from leftover timber. He picked up the knife and studied the edge in the pale blue light. Just over his head, screwed into a cross beam, were the two 500-watt lamps he had used for work lights during construction and which were now aimed down towards where the girl would be sitting. The lamps were off now but when they were switched on there would be plenty of light to photograph her and those who would come after through the blue filter mounted on the camera lens. He would photograph his guests in black and white, since no colour developing laboratory could be trusted not to report the images to the police. When he wasn't photographing his guests, when he was just playing, the room would be lit by a single 100-watt bulb covered in blue plastic.

Brother Brian had taught him a long time ago that a photographic filter lightens colours nearest to it in the spectrum and darkens those furthest away. Brother Brian had also taught him how to easily remember the order of the colour spectrum: just remember the name ‘Roy G Biv'. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. A red filter makes red lips appear paler but makes the blue sky in a photograph much darker and more dramatic. A blue filter or blue light, on the other hand, made anything red appear much darker, more dramatic, especially against a pale background.

He floated the blade of the dagger gently across the edge of his left palm, barely touching callused skin already marked with a delicate, almost invisible crosshatching of old scars. A thin line of blood welled up, dark in the soft blue light, almost black against his pale skin. He licked it away. Tonight he would iron his clothes and polish his shoes and practise his smile and his conversation in the mirror and tomorrow it would begin. His guests were waiting out there for him, the shy ones, the awkward ones, the ones who only wanted someone to be nice to them, even just for a moment. And he knew a moment was all that it would take to persuade them, to win their trust, to win them over. All most people wanted was for someone to like them.

Bob Roberts glanced at his wristwatch for the third time in ten minutes. He was driving faster than was probably safe for the conditions but Berlin had decided a few miles back to keep his mouth shut. Roberts was a good driver and the police pursuit training he'd had was obvious, but the silly bugger was still taking some risks. Five minutes later he overtook a sputtering Volkswagen blowing blue smoke from its exhausts and just managed to tuck back in on their side of the road ahead of an oncoming truck that was flashing its lights.

‘Got some place you need to be, Bob?'

Roberts didn't take his eyes off the road. ‘You said you wanted to talk to those newspaper people.'

‘I did, but I would have taken a left about ten streets back to put us on Sydney Road.'

‘This way is quicker and besides, the trams would have slowed us up. Anyway, I need to take a slash, all that bloody tea at the Marquets' place.'

‘There's a pub up ahead.'

‘I'm not bloody blind, Charlie.'

Berlin counted around a dozen pubs before they pulled up opposite the Collingwood Arms. Roberts rolled the car into a no-standing zone and left the motor running.

‘Just be a tick, move it if you have to.'

Berlin watched Roberts sprint across the road, checking his wristwatch once more as he walked into the public bar. Over the years Berlin had known a lot of coppers who needed to stop by the nearest pub midmorning just to make it through to lunchtime. They were the moody ones, the ones with short tempers and foul mouths and constant headaches who were suddenly all sweetness and light after they had just ‘popped out for a couple of minutes to grab something', and come back smelling of peppermint or salted peanuts.

Berlin knew the signs from personal experience, though it was a long time since he had popped into a public bar and fallen into the deep dark hole that was always waiting inside those doors. But as far as he knew Bob Roberts wasn't one of those men.

He glanced down at his own wristwatch. He wanted to get to the
GEAR
offices before lunchtime if possible, or just on lunchtime. Sometimes people anxious to get away from work blurted out the odd fact that they might not have mentioned in a more measured interview.

Berlin's hips were starting to ache in the cramped confines of the sports car.
Jesus, was he getting that old?
How many hours had he spent sitting all alone at the controls of the Lancaster as it droned on through the darkness? Had his hips ached then, or had the fear and the responsibility blocked out the pain? Shifting position didn't seem to help any.

The Triumph was parked outside a record store. He could hear music from inside and there were bargain bins on the street out in front of the shop. The bins were full of 12-inch LP albums with the cheap, nasty covers bargain albums always seemed to have. He decided to stretch his legs and have a look. Reaching over, he turned off the sports car's engine but left the keys in the ignition. About to open the passenger-side door he saw his reflection in the lacquered wood-grain dashboard and stopped and pushed the bright chrome button that opened the glove box instead. The cover swung out and down on its hinges. The packets of Craven A cigarettes were still there but the thick brown envelope was gone.

He closed the glove box and climbed out of the car to have a rummage through the record store bargain bins. None of the albums featured singers or groups or orchestras that were familiar to him. The more popular albums were inside the shop and he knew he would recognise the music from hearing the kids play it.

There were posters in the shop window for The Beatles'
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
. Rebecca and Sarah both loved the album. He didn't know what to make of it and Peter, once a Beatles fan, hated it. It still rankled Berlin that back in 1964 he'd bet Peter ten shillings that a year after ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand' had first topped the hit parade no one would even remember the name of the band. Losing the bet hadn't been as bad as seeing the look of triumph on the boy's face as he snatched the money from his father's hand. Peter had moved on from the Beatles to the Rolling Stones but he'd always been smart enough not to play their music when his father was around to hear it.

Berlin gave up on the bargain bins. He leaned on a lamppost and waited. The street was quiet, just a few housewives pulling two-wheeled shopping jeeps, deliverymen, a postie with his leather satchel full of letters and a bloke walking along, holding the hand of a six-year-old. The girl was skipping, her dark ponytail swinging from side to side. Was there anything as lovely as a six-year-old girl skipping along and holding her dad's hand? It was funny how life goes on, but it wasn't really funny at all. The Marquet girl was dead and buried, others were still missing, including Gudrun Scheiner, and her old man was at home chopping wood and waiting.

What to do about the Scheiner situation? That was the thing that was bothering him. He could have left it in Lazlo's hands but what if he was wrong? If those contact addresses from Lazlo arrived home with Rebecca he would write the letter tonight and send it in the morning, paying the hefty extra slug for airmail. With that done he could concentrate on the still-missing girls. What would he do if it was Sarah? He pushed the thought away. He didn't know how Scheiner could cope.

A sudden gust of wind hit him, and he made his way back to the car. It was chilly. Summer was coming but it was still weeks away. Right now in Poland it was autumn, and winter there was still weeks away too. He tried to picture Scheiner as a younger man, a man in an SS uniform with a shiny silver skull, a
Totenkopf
, death's head, as a cap badge and the SS flashes on his lapel. A man with a finger missing on his right hand holding a pistol to the temple of a starving and beaten but still-defiant woman, a woman who had decided it was her time to make a stand.

Berlin saw the snowdrifts and the lines of freezing, starving POWs and their guards. He saw crows circling in the dead, grey overcast that kept them all safe from the terrifying Russian ground-attack fighter-bombers with their cannon and rockets. And for one terrible moment, just as the SS man pulled the trigger, he saw Sarah's face looking back at him instead of the girl's, smiling peacefully. He blinked and made the awful image go away. Berlin was good at forcing the images and memories back down into the dark place where he kept them so he could go on with his life. He tried to think nice thoughts about Sarah, remember her skipping along and singing as she held his hand.

Across the street a tall man carrying a briefcase left the hotel bar, quickly looked left and right, then turned left and walked away. Berlin waited for Roberts to appear. It wasn't a long wait.

‘I would have given it a couple more minutes,' Berlin said when Roberts got into the car.

Roberts was reaching for the ignition and he paused. ‘What?'

‘If it was me, Bob, I would have given it a couple more minutes before I came out. Let the other bloke get well clear first.'

Roberts sat back in his seat. ‘Okay, Charlie, so I was meeting with a fizz. The bloke said he had some information on the missing girls, but you know what informants are like; half of what they say is total bullshit and the other half is mostly bullshit.'

‘Okay, if you say so.'

‘You don't believe me, Charlie?'

‘All I'm asking is, whatever's going on, just keep me out of it. Even just sitting and waiting for you across the other side of the road is too much involvement.'

‘It was just a meeting with a fizz, Charlie. Anyone ever tell you you're bloody crazy, paranoid?'

‘Experts, Bob, doctors with stethoscopes and white coats and university degrees, so just do me a favour and leave me out of it, please.'