St Kilda Blues (4 page)

After the South Melbourne tram incident and the run-in with the tradesman and his panel van they made it to Brighton without any more drama, which was just fine by Berlin. Roberts still drove over the speed limit, slowing down only for pretty girls in miniskirts; thankfully there were plenty of those about. At the Derby Day race meeting two years earlier, visiting British model Jean Shrimpton had worn a skirt four inches above the knee, outraging the newspapers and the cream of Melbourne society. Their outrage was compounded since she also hadn't bothered with a hat, stockings or gloves. Now, just two years on, Shrimpton's outfit seemed almost demure. Berlin had watched as his daughter's hemlines crept higher and higher, inspired by fashion magazine images from what everyone called Swinging London and aided by her mother at the family's Singer sewing machine.

Rebecca was dressing for the times now as well. With her slim figure and those long legs, she could have pulled off the miniskirt look but chose not to. Sometimes she wore blue denim jeans and he wondered if she did it to tease him, knowing his feelings about trousers on women. She also favoured a young designer named Prue Acton. Whenever Berlin needed to replace a suit Rebecca gently guided him towards something slightly more hip but he hated narrow lapels and thin ties. He stuck with his classic overcoat and an Akubra fedora in grey felt, and thought the narrow-brimmed trilby-style hats popular with the younger detectives made them look like cockney spivs.

Roberts swung the sports car off Beach Road and down Honeysuckle Drive, heading towards the dark blue waters of Port Phillip Bay at the far end of the street. In the distance Berlin could see a police divisional van with its blue roof light and hood-mounted siren. The van was parked on the left side of the road, half up on the nature strip, with a uniformed officer leaning against the driver's side front mudguard.

‘Pull over here for a second, would you, Bob? Behind that Volvo is good.'

Roberts swung the sports car into the kerb, pulled the handbrake on and cut the engine. He leaned down towards Berlin's side of the car, reaching for the folders. Berlin took his arm at the wrist and shook his head.

‘Let's just leave them where they are for the moment, shall we?'

Roberts sat back in his seat. ‘I thought maybe you wanted me to give you some background, tell you where we are at the moment, fill in some of the detail. I've got copies of the statements from the girl's old man, the housekeeper and the driver.'

‘I'd rather hear what they have to say first, if you don't mind, and afterwards we can crosscheck against what you've got.'

‘Sounds fair enough, I suppose. Why did we stop then?'

Honeysuckle Drive was quiet, still, the nature strips neat, freshly-mown.
Was Sunday grass-cutting day out this way too? If you had money to live in an area like this did you push your own Victa mower?
Every house had a high wall or a thick, tall hedge to shield it from view, keep it private, keep its secrets. Berlin was sick of secrets.

‘Anything else you need to tell me, Bob, anything I might want to know before we get much further into this? Anything I should be worried about, maybe?'

‘Like what?'

Berlin ran through the list in his head. There were always so many rumours, so many stories, so much gossip. Cops could be like a bunch of old women that way. There were the tales about Bob Roberts and his young girlfriends, of course, tales that were accepted as just the way things went, even admired and envied. There were other stories as well, starting six months or so back and less admirable. Stories concerning envelopes collected and bad company, both in and out of the force, and favours done and people who should know better sometimes looking the other way.

‘Like exactly who's behind this investigation. Our little sideshow, I mean, you and me, not Tony Selden's investigation. I guess what I'm asking myself is, exactly what am I doing here?'

‘C'mon, Charlie, we both know you're a bloody sight better at this kind of thing than most of the blokes who are actually doing it right now. But like I said you don't have any friends because you don't play the game so you always get yourself pushed out of the way.'

Berlin nodded, acknowledging the truth in the statement,

‘Someone fucked up, and big. Having a series of young girls go missing and no one noticing or seeing a pattern, apart from you. And then no bugger really giving a damn until this Scheiner kid disappears and the premier gets involved. But the way the system works is that one man's fuck-up is another man's golden opportunity.'

Jesus Christ, were there really people who thought like that, who saw stolen children, missing kids as a pathway to promotion, to a higher rank?
Berlin knew the answer to that even before he had the thought.

‘So what's the golden opportunity here?'

‘Look, it's no secret there are changes coming, and probably right at the top. There'll be a state election sometime early next year so every­one is trying to set themselves up to look good. Toss in this inquiry into possible corruption and it makes for interesting times. Did you know that's apparently a Chinese curse? “May you live in interesting times.”'

‘Something the child bride taught you?' Berlin regretted the comment the moment it was out of his mouth. ‘Sorry, I'll try to stop doing that.'

Roberts acknowledged the apology with a nod. ‘There are certain people who seem to think I might have a promising future in the police force. People who look at that sort of thing longer term.'

Did these people look at Roberts as a good copper who caught the crims, or as someone who was reliable and flexible and who knew how the system worked and how the real game was played?

‘You mean people with enough pull at the top to organise a parallel investigation?'

‘People like that, yes, and I suppose a parallel investigation is what we're doing. And since I'm the one who brought you in on this, for appearances' sake I should probably look like I'm in charge of what we do. Officially you're still with the fraud squad, remember?'

‘It's hard to forget.'

‘But for right now I'm happy just to follow your lead. And if we pull this off, manage to find the girl and she's still alive, I'm fine with sharing the credit.'

If that was true then Roberts was in the wrong bloody job. Berlin knew how it would go without having to think about it too much. Find the girl safe and the person who appointed the person who appointed Roberts would be photographed smiling next to an also-smiling police commissioner and a very relieved Scheiner. If they didn't find the girl, or they found her dead, fingers would almost certainly be pointed in someone's direction, quite possibly his, and if there was any job lower than paper shuffling in the fraud squad it was London to a brick he'd wind up doing it.

‘One last thing, Bob. If we're doing it my way then it's got to be done my way, slow and steady. If Selden's people are under pressure then they'll go at it like bulls at a gate. I know the girl is missing and hopefully she's still alive, but when you rush things you miss things. You okay with that?'

Roberts nodded. ‘Fair enough, Charlie, you're the boss.' He reached for the ignition key then hesitated. Berlin waited. When people hesitated you always waited.

‘Scheiner was in the military in Germany, back in the war. Just so you know, he's got a few scars.'

‘No surprises there, it was a war.'

‘Just thought you should be aware, in case it made a difference.' Roberts rubbed the side of his face. ‘The German thing, I meant, not the scars. You know, a couple of old soldiers on different sides.'

‘I was an airman and the war's been over a long time, over for me too.' It was a lie but Berlin knew that was the way most people wanted to hear it. ‘Besides, it was a bomb from a German Stuka that got your old man in the Middle East, wasn't it? That make a difference to you and how you dealt with Scheiner?'

Roberts shook his head. ‘I suppose not. Anyway, whoever dropped that bomb on the nasty bastard did me and mum and the world a favour.' He restarted the Triumph's engine. ‘Righto then, I suppose we should get on with it.' As he turned the sports car back out onto the roadway he leaned hard on the horn.

The police constable lounging against the parked divisional van straightened up and walked across the footpath to a tall brick pillar set into a high stone wall. He spoke into a metallic silver grille and by the time the Triumph turned left into the driveway a heavy steel gate was already sliding slowly open. The stone wall surrounding the house was broken only by the gate across the driveway. The wall was about seven feet high, Berlin judged, not like a prison but still high enough.

They drove up a slight incline onto a paved parking area in front of a double garage. The garage on the left side contained a very wide gold Cadillac with a left-hand drive warning sticker pasted on the rear chrome bumper bar. The right side of the garage held an E-Type Jaguar, the hard-top model in British racing green. Robert switched off the Triumph's engine and the two men climbed out of the car. Roberts walked across to the Jaguar and bent down to peer in the driver's side window. He looked back towards Berlin.

‘A bloke can dream, eh?'

Berlin studied the Scheiner residence. The house itself was two storeys, cream brick, and a wee bit too modern for his taste but he knew Rebecca would like it. The floor-to-ceiling front windows on the ground floor looked out onto a small, neat garden with a fountain surrounded by a well-kept lawn. Smoke was coming from a chimney at the side of the house.
Did they burn money to keep warm?
From the look of the place they could afford it. A bloke could dream about places like this too.

A uniformed constable was standing beside the front door. The two detectives crossed a portico and went in through the unlocked door, Berlin carefully wiping his shoes on a thick coir doormat before stepping inside. The interior of the house was just as modern as the outside. There was light-coloured, almost white, wood panelling and the pale beige carpet made Berlin glad he had wiped his feet. In the living room two detectives he vaguely recognised were sitting on a leather sofa. A coffee pot and cups were on the glass coffee table in front of them. Berlin could smell the coffee and it smelled good.

He turned around as a woman came into the living room carrying a plate of biscuits. Maybe forty, Berlin judged, with close-cropped hair, dark once but now patchy with flecks of grey. She was tall and slim, with a pale face and eyes red-rimmed from crying. Her neat, grey, tunic-style dress Berlin guessed was a uniform designed not to look too much like a uniform, and she was wearing flat, nicely polished shoes. She put the plate of biscuits on the coffee table in front of the detectives and turned to Berlin.

‘I assume you're the new detective they said was coming to help. My name is Vera Minchin. I'm Mr Scheiner's housekeeper. I also look after . . . I look after Gudrun.'

As Berlin put out his hand he looked for a ring on her left hand. He couldn't see one. ‘My name is Detective Sergeant Berlin, Charlie if you like. Is that Miss or Mrs Minchin?'

The housekeeper's handshake was firm. ‘It's Vera, just Vera.'

Berlin decided Vera Minchin might not be the marrying kind.

‘Can I get you gentlemen a cup of coffee or tea?'

Berlin shook his head. ‘No thank you, Vera, I think we should get started right away. Why don't you tell me what happened so we can get on with finding Gudrun.'

Vera looked over at Roberts. ‘Well, as I told your detective friend here last night, Mr Berlin . . .'

Berlin stopped her. He spoke gently. ‘You're telling me now, Vera, so why don't we pretend I don't know anything and start from the very beginning. Would you like to sit down while we talk?'

He glanced across at the two detectives on the couch and tilted his head in the direction of the front door. The detectives looked up at Roberts, who smiled.

‘You heard the man, boys, hop it.'

The younger of the pair started to get up and from the look on his face Berlin sensed there might be trouble.

‘Listen, mate . . .'

The older detective reached over and put his hand on the younger man's arm. ‘Let it go, Reg, these bastards aren't worth it.'

The older detective stood, bending down to put a couple of biscuits on the saucer of his coffee cup before straightening up again. He did it slowly enough to show he was making a point and Berlin saw that he kept his eyes fixed on Roberts' face as he moved past him. For a brief moment Charlie Berlin almost wished he was back in the reliable boredom of the fraud squad. Toes were getting stepped on here, that was for sure, and for once he wasn't the only one doing it.

Vera sat on the vacated couch and Berlin sat down beside her. It was a very comfortable couch. There was an open fireplace at one end of the living room with logs crackling on a stainless steel grate, oval and very modern looking. Split logs were stacked in a neat pyramid next to the fire. From somewhere towards the rear of the house Berlin could hear the sound of an axe on timber.

The housekeeper saw that he had heard the sound. ‘It's Mr Scheiner, cutting firewood. He likes to do it, for the exercise, he always says.' She looked away, towards the rear of the house and then back at Berlin. ‘He's been chopping away for hours this morning, ever since he got up. I don't think he slept, really.'

Charlie Berlin had chopped a lot of firewood in his time. Sometimes it was because they'd needed wood for the fire, sometimes it was to help someone out or because he hated seeing an axe handled badly. And sometimes Berlin had chopped wood because the exertion and repetition of the act gave a man time to think or a reason not to think. Sometimes it was just you and the axe and a pile of logs and your mind cleared for a while, cleared of the bad memories that made you want to do bad things.

‘Now, right from the beginning, Vera, tell me everything. How long have you been with the family?'

‘I was engaged for the position of live-in housekeeper seven or eight years ago – no, it was eight. Mrs Scheiner employed me and she was a very lovely lady. Mr Scheiner adored her and so did Gudrun and so did I. Mr Scheiner gave her a Porsche for their tenth wedding anniversary – you know, the German sports car. He was very generous that way.'

Rebecca's dream car was a Porsche. She had fallen in love with them after a bright red 356 convertible had once overtaken the old Studebaker like it was standing still.

Vera put her hands together and looked down. ‘A week after the anniversary a drunk driver hit them, Gudrun and her mother. They were just going into town, to do some shopping at Georges. Mrs Scheiner died instantly but Gudrun survived, thank God. I don't think Mr Scheiner could have gone on if he'd lost both of them. He's a good and decent man who doesn't deserve any of this.'

Berlin wondered if Scheiner's wife's death in a German car was the reason his garage now held American and British vehicles.

‘Mr Scheiner was devastated, of course, but having Gudrun to take care of was what helped him hold his life together. Gudrun is fifteen now, almost sixteen, really. She's been begging her father to let her go to the dances in town on Saturday night for months. She's only fifteen as I said but . . . and I didn't think it was wise but Mr Scheiner finds it hard to deny her anything.'

The pause after the ‘but' caught Berlin's attention. There was something she hadn't said, but they could come back to that.

‘This was the third Saturday night we had taken the girls into the city.'

Berlin stopped her. ‘The girls? Can you be a bit more precise please Vera? We're pretending I don't know anything, remember.'

‘Of course, Mr. Berlin, I'm sorry. Gudrun went with her school friend, Rosemary. Rosemary Clairmont. The Clairmonts live round on Beach Road. Rosemary is nine months older than Gudrun and Mr Scheiner felt the girl was quite . . . responsible.'

He could tell from the slight hesitation and shift in tone that Vera might not have agreed with her employer on that particular point. Listening to what was left unsaid, picking up on the pauses, watching the eyes – this was half the skill in being a good cop and Berlin wondered if Roberts was paying attention.

‘And when you say we took them into town you mean . . . ?'

‘Myself and Oscar, Mr Scheiner's driver. We took them in the Cadillac.'

‘Is Oscar here this morning?'

Vera shook her head. ‘I'm afraid he's at the doctors, with chest pains. It's the stress. Oscar's taking it – this situation, I mean – very personally. He's been with Mr Scheiner since before Gudrun was born.'

Berlin made a mental note to interview the driver to see if his version of events jibed with Vera's. ‘So how does this usually work, taking the girls into town to the dances? Was it the same place every time?'

‘The very first weekend was a place in South Yarra; I think it was called Opus. The next time it was a discotheque called Bertie's, in the city on Spring street.'

Berlin had heard Sarah mentioning those names. ‘And on Saturday night, Vera?'

‘It was the Buddha's Belly in Little La Trobe Street. Rosemary suggested it. She said it was where it was all happening.' She paused. ‘Stupid little . . .'

She left the statement unfinished. Berlin guessed the missing word was probably bitch.

‘Did you usually go inside with them, into the dances I mean?'

Vera smiled a sad smile. ‘You don't know much about teenage girls, do you, Mr Berlin?'

He thought of young Sarah so far, far away. ‘Probably not.'

‘We park outside on the street and wait in the car, myself and Oscar. I have my knitting and Oscar listens to the greyhound racing. He has an earpiece for his transistor radio, which is very considerate of him.'

Did Oscar bet on the dogs? Berlin wondered. And if he did, did he owe anyone money, more money than he might be able to easily repay?

‘On the first two Saturday nights, at Opus and Bertie's, they came out right on 10:30, just as they were supposed to. Gudrun has a lovely marcasite wristwatch that keeps excellent time; Oscar and I bought it for her twelfth birthday.'

‘That was nice of you . . . and Oscar.' Roberts made the comment from across the room. Berlin noted the pause in the middle but didn't look away from Vera's face.

‘And last Saturday night, at this Buddha's Belly place, Vera? Tell me what happened.'

Vera took a deep breath before she spoke. ‘They were late. It was around 10:45 or 10:50 and Oscar was about to go in but then Rosemary came out, all by herself. She was looking up and down the laneway – looking for Gudrun, as it turned out.'

Berlin waited.

‘She said she and Gudrun had become separated somehow after they went in and now she couldn't find her anywhere.'

‘Did Rosemary say how they got separated?'

There was a pause before Vera answered. Berlin had the rhythm of her voice now and was listening for those pauses, pauses where she tried to work out how to best phrase a response.

‘She said the dance floor was very crowded and it must have happened there.'

Vera had her knees pressed together and her feet together on the floor. Her hands were on her knees, fingers tightly intertwined. Berlin could see white on the knuckles of her clenched hands.

‘But you don't think that was what happened, do you?'

‘Well, the place was very crowded, that part was true, Mr Berlin. Oscar and I searched as best we could, but it was very smoky in there, and dark, and they had those flashing lights, which can be very disorienting. We checked everywhere, including the toilets, and it was very hard to ask people questions, because of the noise of the band, you understand.'

‘You don't think Rosemary was telling the truth about how they got separated, do you? It's important we know everything.'

Vera was looking off into the distance, eyes unfocused. Her mouth was a tight line across her face, her cheeks sucked in so the cheekbones stood out. Berlin waited.

‘Her lipstick was smeared.'

‘Rosemary's?'

Vera nodded.

Berlin could see muscles working in the woman's forearms. She was still clenching her interlocked fingers. It was something a person did out of anger. ‘So you think maybe Rosemary was busy pashing on in a dark corner with some good-looking Romeo and Gudrun was left wandering around on her own?'

‘You might be able to get Rosemary to tell you that, to persuade her to tell you that.'

Vera was trying to suppress the anger in her voice but there was too much of it. Berlin was already planning to interview Rosemary and it looked like Vera was ready to volunteer to beat the truth out of the girl.

‘There isn't any chance Gudrun may have left the dance without you seeing her, is there? Perhaps she came out the front way and you missed her?'

‘I really don't think that's possible, Mr Berlin. It's a rather narrow street and we would have seen her for sure.'

‘Unless you were distracted, of course.' Both Berlin and Vera looked up at Bob Roberts.

‘Distracted by what, Mr Roberts?' Vera's voice was cold. ‘By my knitting? What do you mean exactly?'

‘Distracted by Oscar maybe? I'm just asking. It was a cold night, maybe you two were trying to keep warm.'

‘We had a thermos of coffee and the Cadillac has a very efficient heater. Besides, Oscar isn't exactly my type.'

Berlin decided to keep his mouth shut and let Roberts dig himself in a bit deeper.

‘And what exactly is your type, Vera?' Roberts asked.

Vera stared directly at the other detective and held his gaze for a moment before she answered. ‘Quite possibly the same as yours, Sergeant Roberts, a good-looking, leggy young blonde with nice tits.'

Roberts swallowed hard and blushed, the red of his cheeks making the white scar stand out in stark relief.