St Kilda Blues (Charlie Berlin #3)(5)
Sarah had played that song constantly on the little record player in her bedroom in the weeks before she left. He had banned her from using the radiogram in the living room a year back over a broken needle. It came out later that Peter had been the one who did the damage to the stylus but she had covered for him, taking all the blame. It took her six months to save up for that little record player, working after school at the local doctor’s surgery where she was a favourite of all the patients.
The music stopped when the engine was cut. The driver climbed out and paused to light a cigarette before walking towards the house. Rebecca was on her knees at a flowerbed beside the driveway, clearing weeds. The driver stopped beside her and had a word. Just a word. At one time there would have been hugs and kisses but not now. ‘He’s inside,’ he heard Rebecca say without looking up.
Berlin had the front door open before Bob Roberts could knock. If the scars that war had left on Charlie Berlin were all hidden deep inside, the wounds to Bob Roberts from a very different conflict were plain enough to see. There was the limp, of course, not bad but still there, and the thin white scar on the cheek, arcing savagely from his eye socket to the corner of his mouth. And the anger.
The two men shook hands. The last time they’d met, Roberts had been in a suit but now he was wearing a black rollneck skivvy, dark trousers and a brown corduroy jacket. His hair was longer, with side-burns almost down to his jaw. He’d probably soon have a moustache like a Mexican bandit, going by what some of the other St Kilda detectives were starting to look like.
‘G’day, Charlie. What is it, six months, a year? You’re looking fit. Still doing those morning push-ups, I see. How are things with the fraud boys? I heard you moved over.’
Berlin shrugged. ‘About what you’d expect. I suppose I’ll get used to it one day.’
‘You’ve got to go along to get along, Charlie, you should know that by now.’
‘I’m a changed man, Bob, keeping my head down, my mouth shut and staying well out of sight.’
Roberts grinned. ‘Seems to be a lot of that going around just lately. Not worried about the inquiry, are you?’
‘Not really, how about you?’
Roberts looked at Berlin and smiled. He was still a good-looking bloke, Berlin decided, despite the scar, or perhaps because of it.
‘Me, Charlie? I’m as pure as the driven snow, just like everyone else. Anyway we both know this inquiry will end up same as all the others: wasting six months, costing heaps of money, going nowhere, frightening the chickens and turning up bloody nothing.’
Berlin looked over Roberts’ shoulder. Rebecca was watching them, still on her knees with the trowel in her hand. He waved to her and she went back to her weeding.
‘Why don’t we go through to the kitchen, Bob? There might still be some tea in the pot and you can tell me why you’re here, and why I’m here instead of trying to figure out who embezzled six hundred quid from the Oatley Bowling Club.’
‘Fair enough, but it’s six hundred dollars now, remember, mate? Not quid. And the reason I’m here is there’s a young girl, a teenager, gone missing. Disappeared into thin air on Saturday night.’
Berlin searched Roberts’ eyes. ‘I just read the papers and listened to the ABC news and they didn’t mention anything about any missing girl.’
‘That’s the thing about newspapers and the ABC, Charlie, they won’t always tell a bloke the stuff he needs to know.’
TWO
The tea in the pot was cold and Roberts refused the offer of a fresh one. He sat down at the kitchen table and took a packet of Craven A from his pocket. Berlin shook his head at the offered cigarette.
‘I’ve given them up, remember?’ He and Rebecca had both stopped smoking five years back when Peter turned fourteen. They’d agreed it was hypocritical of them to forbid Peter to smoke if they still did. It hadn’t stopped the little bugger though.
Roberts lit his cigarette with a silver lighter. He put the lighter down on the table. The lighter looked expensive, very expensive. Berlin searched the kitchen drawers until he found an ashtray. He put it on the table and sat down opposite Roberts. ‘So what’s so special about this missing girl that Chater pulls me away from the great bowling club robbery?’
Roberts slowly rolled the cigarette back and forth between his thumb and index finger before he answered. ‘Couple of things. For one, she’s got a rich dad who has the ear of the premier, so Mr Bolte wants action.’
‘And?’
‘Turns out she’s number nine in the last twelve months.’
Berlin felt his stomach tighten. ‘Nine? In twelve months? How do eight other teenage girls go missing without anyone making a fuss before now?’
‘You know how some kids are these days, Charlie, a lot of sex and drugs and boozing and staying away from home for days at a time. I guess no one saw it as a pattern.’ He paused. ‘No one but you, as it happens. That’s the reason I’m here.’
‘I’m not doing missing persons any more. They shifted me sideways in March, after that third girl, remember? No one wanted to hear what I was trying to tell them.’
The police had no dedicated missing persons squad so any missing persons cases were usually flicked to whoever was at a loose end that week. Missing kids, especially the young ones, were the very worst cases, so Berlin always got those. Some were found quickly, some not. Berlin’s face told distraught parents he knew something about loss and despair and they warmed to him instantly, telling him stories of the missing tyke that broke his heart. Sometimes there was good news and sometimes no news, not ever. Invariably the cases were one-offs but there was something about these three missing girls that had caught and kept his attention earlier in the year.