St Kilda Blues

by Geoffrey McGeachin

  June 1966

  The steel wheels clattered over a set of points in the rails and the second-class carriage shuddered and lurched sideways. A girl walking towards the lavatory at the rear of the carriage lost her footing in the aisle, falling forward towards his seat, her hand finding his left shoulder to steady herself. He looked up from his book.

  She smiled at him as she straightened up. ‘Oops.’

  ‘Oops,’ he said, smiling back at her.

  He had a nice smile, warm, friendly and totally lacking in guile. Smiling was important. Girls, especially the young ones, liked a man with an open, genuine smile and his was a good one. He practised the smile in a mirror every morning after brushing his teeth. The smile and a friendly twinkle in his eye said he was a good bloke, a nice feller, someone who could be trusted with a man’s car or wallet or his wife. A man’s daughter was an entirely different proposition, of course, if she was around the right age.

  The girl had a seat a dozen rows ahead of him in the second-class carriage. She stayed standing beside him, and he remembered her taking the stool next to him in the rocking buffet car several hours earlier. She’d commented on his pie and chips on the heavy china railways dinner plate. He’d smiled then as well. She’d added that his apple pie with vanilla ice-cream looked good too and he’d nodded in agreement, though to him it was all just food, just fuel to keep him going. He ate because he had to, the taste and smell and look of his meals meaning very little to him.

  Her right hand was resting on the seatback now, close to his head. He could smell perfume. He knew his sense of smell was weak so she must have been doused in it, must have splashed it on. Had she done it for him?

  ‘Good book?’

  He closed the pages to show her the title, How to Win Friends and Influence People.

  ‘My old man used to read that,’ she said. ‘He was in sales. You in sales?’

  He nodded. It was always easier to nod and agree, whatever the question. But it was also important to talk. Normal people had conversations. Conversation wasn’t his strong point but he was working on it and the book was helping a lot. If the girl was going to keep standing there, perhaps she wanted to have a conversation. She was around eighteen, he guessed. She was wearing one of those new miniskirts, the top of her thighs almost level with his eyes. Did she want to go and do sex in the lavatory? he wondered. He’d heard that girls on trains sometimes did, especially these days. It was quite a disgusting idea. He realised he probably should say something nice and studied the girl’s round face, and the short haircut that framed it.

  ‘You look like Cilla Black.’

  The girl blushed. ‘Really, do you think so?’

  He nodded and smiled, even though he was quickly getting bored with her.

  ‘Thanks, I love Cilla. I’ve got all her forty-fives. I like your gear. You don’t look like a salesman.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He was pleased. He chose his clothes after carefully studying the newest pop magazines. It was important to be ‘in’. But not too in, not too groovy, not too noticeable, not too memorable. Stylish, but blending in, that was best.

  He opened the book again, hoping she would take the hint. He didn’t want to do sex in the grimy lavatory with its smell of carbolic acid and a toilet bowl that opened down to the steel rails and wooden sleepers flashing by under the carriage. She was also too old for him to cut. Besides that, there wasn’t time to do it properly with their destination only an hour away and the risk of discovery much too high. A railways lavatory was no place for doing sex or for the other thing. Sex he didn’t care for all that much but the other thing was another story all together, and the other thing took time if you were going to do it right.

  The girl finally took the hint and moved back to her seat after a brief goodbye. She seemed a little hurt by his lack of interest. He closed the book and stood up, reaching for his leather bag in the brass overhead luggage rack. He rested the bag on his lap after he sat down, so he could feel the dagger hidden in its base, nestled close to his groin.

  Time to do it properly was always the problem with the other thing. He needed a safe place, a secure place, a place where he could come and go unnoticed, a place where the screaming would go unheard. So far the cave had been the best place. He’d had a week there, just him and the girl from the roadhouse. The memory caused the heat to rise and he pressed the bag down harder into his lap. He glanced out the train window at the flat, dry country. Sometimes it was just so exhausting living this life.

  How many years had he been on the road now? How many jobs had he had in small towns? Abattoirs were always the best – anonymous places filled with loners and wanderers like himself. The money was good, paid in cash, and best of all he got to practise his knife skills. He’d done some time in canneries in fishing towns too but he didn’t like the smell and filleting tuna was nothing like boning out a steer.

  Small towns were good but they couldn’t be too small. You got noticed in really small towns, noticed by the cops and nosey neighbours, and getting noticed wasn’t good. The bigger country towns were best, places you could blend in, take the time to get a feel for the locals, quietly suss out the weak and the lonely and vulnerable.

  Cafes and roadhouses on the highway were usually the best places to go looking. Places with young, unhappy waitresses, girls working after school serving greasy hamburgers to fat, unwashed truckies in stinking blue singlets or creepy travelling salesmen in crumpled suits looking for a mixed grill with tea and a slice of pavlova to follow. And to follow the pavlova some furtive, sweaty sex in the back seat of a company-supplied Ford Fairlane parked somewhere out on a lonely bush track. Ideally, you would take a girl after a salesman had spent time chatting her up over his dinner, making it obvious what he was looking for, getting noticed by staff and locals. Better still if the salesman’s smarmy charm worked and the girl was seen driving off with him.

  If the salesman was a decent bloke and dropped the girl home or back at work afterwards then she was safe for the moment. But if he was a cold bastard like a lot of them and just dumped her, left her standing bewildered out on a gravel track with her knickers bunched up in her hand, then she was fair game. Fair game for a helpful bloke with a nice smile and a twinkle in his eye. And by the time the ravaged body was found and the salesman tracked down by the cops and interviewed and beaten bloody for claiming innocence and eventually cleared, the quiet young bloke with the nice smile and the brown leather bag had long since moved on.

  The clickety-clack sound of steel wheels on iron rails increased briefly as the connecting door at the end of the carriage opened and closed. The conductor worked his way down the swaying centre aisle, putting his hands on the seatbacks for balance.

  ‘Melbourne in an hour, Spencer Street Station and the end of the line. I’ll be locking up the dunnies in thirty minutes in case you have to go.’

  A few moments later the girl brushed past him as she made her way towards the rear of the carriage and the lavatory, She was giggling, and grinned as she looked back over her shoulder. A minute later a young sailor in white bell-bottomed trousers and a white shirt came after her. He looked a little embarrassed. The name ‘HMAS Cerberus’ was visible on his cap band. Cerberus was the Royal Australian Navy’s training depot for new recruits.

  He heard the noise of the lavatory door slamming shut then a click as it locked. The heat under the leather bag, under the dagger, was still there and stronger now. The young sailor and the girl were probably doing sex right now. Was she enjoying it? he wondered. If the carriage had been less crowded, if he had been stupid, if he had been the one to follow her inside, she would have had a totally different kind of experience. And it would have been a lot more pleasant for him than for her.

  He remembered something he had read somewhere, something about Cerberus. Cerberus was a three-headed dog who guarded the gates of Hades. The idea of a three-headed dog didn’t appeal to him but having his own private Hades was a concept that had interested him for s
ome time now. He had long ago decided that, despite what the conductor had said, Melbourne wouldn’t be the end of the line for him; it would be a new beginning.

  NINETEEN

  The Marquet property was up a dirt track running off the main road. The area was heavily forested and Roberts missed the turn-off and was forced to do a U-turn half a mile further on. He ran the Triumph into some mud on the side of the road and as he reversed, the spinning rear wheels spattered the back of the car with mud. Roberts cursed under his breath.

  They didn’t have to go too far up the Marquet’s driveway before trees and high scrub cut off the view back to the main road. The house itself was a simple white-painted weatherboard that probably harked back to the 1930s. It had a rusty galvanised iron roof, a wide, bull-nosed veranda and a wooden single garage set off to the left. A dark blue, mud-speckled Chrysler Safari station wagon was parked outside the garage next to a four-wheeled trailer. The Safari was one of the largest station wagons on the road but for a bloke with a wife and five kids and a furniture business it was probably barely big enough. Four kids now, Berlin thought, mentally correcting himself.

  Roberts parked the car facing back down the driveway and the two men got out. Through the scrubby bushland that surrounded the property Berlin could make out another structure. It was a classic one-room bush school house, painted white like the main building and had to be the sleep-out O’Brian had mentioned. He thought he caught a glimpse of a face watching them from one of the large windows.

  Roberts reached into the back seat of the Triumph and took out his clipboard. The two men crossed the veranda to the front door and Roberts knocked. The woman who opened the door was wearing an apron and had a dusting of flour on her hands. Her face had a sad expression that Berlin knew much too well. He let Roberts do the introductions.

  ‘Sorry to bother you, Mrs Marquet, but I think Constable O’Brian telephoned and said we were coming? I’m Sergeant Roberts and this is Detective Sergeant Berlin. We’ve just got a couple of questions, if you don’t mind. It won’t take long. Is your husband at home?’

  ‘Clive came back from the shop when I rang and said you were on your way after young Shane called.’

  That wasn’t what Berlin had hoped for but he knew letting O’Brian call ahead had still been the right thing to do under the circumstances, especially when he looked at Mrs Marquet’s face. Berlin had done enough missing persons cases to be able to gauge the pain in a parent’s eyes – too many, he realised. Where the child was missing for less than a week the eyes always had a strong glimmer of hope. That hope began to fade as more and more time passed, but of course any sign of hope was now long gone from Mrs Marquet’s face.

  ‘I was making scones and I’ve got the kettle on. It’s a bit of a drive from town so you probably want a cup of tea.’

  Berlin nodded. ‘That would be lovely.’ The daughter had the mother’s eyes. Or perhaps not. Perhaps it was just that same strange look that he had picked up on.

  Inside, the house was a jumble of mismatched furniture. The living room was cramped and the low ceiling gave it a claustrophobic feel. There was an upright piano against one wall but no sign of a television. Berlin noted the neat rows of books on the shelves and the fact that every spare flat surface had some kind of knick-knack on it, from ceramic birds and animals to miniature Dutch windmills and vases and eggcups.

  They crossed the living room, following Mrs Marquet to the kitchen. The smell of hot scones made Berlin’s stomach rumble. Clive Marquet was sitting at a laminex-topped table surrounded by a half-dozen mismatched kitchen chairs. He was short, with a stocky build and a reddish beard starting to turn grey. Berlin didn’t trust men with beards. The man was wearing dark blue overalls and work boots and his wristwatch had one of those snap on leather covers to protect the face. He looked up from the paper he was reading.

  ‘You took your time getting out here, get lost did ya? Have you arrested someone?’

  Berlin shook his head. ‘I’m new on the case and Detective Roberts here is helping me fill in some background on the —.’ He’d been about to say ‘victim’, but stopped. ‘I wanted to get some more information on your daughter.’

  Marquet grunted. He was angry, which was understandable. Was it worse to have a missing child or a child you knew would never be coming home? Berlin wondered.

  The kitchen windowsill had the same jumble of knickknacks as the living room. Mrs Marquet put a plate of scones in the middle of the table and took a plastic container of butter from the refrigerator. The two detectives sat at the table and drank tea and ate scones. The butter had a slightly odd taste and Mrs Marquet noticed Berlin hesitate after his first bite.

  ‘It’s unsalted. I am sorry, I’ve forgotten your name, Detective.’

  ‘That’s not a problem. It’s Berlin, but just call me Charlie.’ He took another bite of the scone and smiled at her.

  ‘My husband only likes unsalted butter, Mr Berlin. Charlie.’

  Mr Marquet grunted again and looked at his wife, or rather, through her. Mr Marquet gets what he wants, Berlin decided. Was that anger there a long time before his daughter went missing, was murdered?

  There was a photograph of the five Marquet girls on a sideboard beside Berlin. Melinda, the victim, was obviously the oldest. If it was a recent photograph, Berlin guessed the ages of the next two at perhaps thirteen and twelve, and then there was a gap to a child who looked around seven, and another, possibly aged five. Any other time he might have joked about a man surrounded by six women, but now wasn’t the time. In any case, Clive Marquet didn’t seem like the type who appreciated a joke.

  There had been no sign of liquor in the living room but if he opened any of the kitchen cupboards Berlin wondered what he would find. Not beer – beer drinkers were usually convivial, and Clive Marquet looked like the kind of man who took his alcohol in private. But of course, it takes one to know one, Berlin thought.

  Robert had his clipboard out and was asking questions. Mrs Marquet sat quietly and let her husband do the talking. The man grunted and snapped and said they were questions he’d answered before, for the uniformed men, and afterwards for the detectives, and then again when the body had been found.

  Berlin watched and listened. Clive Marquet was a bully, he decided, and he didn’t like bullies.

  Mrs Marquet refilled Berlin’s teacup and he suddenly realised he had to piss. He also remembered Constable O’Brian’s cryptic suggestion that he should have a look at the toilet.

  Mrs Marquet pointed him to a doorway down the hall. He passed two doorways opening off the passageway. The one on the right was obviously the master bedroom, with a double bed and wardrobe taking up most of the space. The other bedroom had two bunk beds and a small dressing table painted pink. Each of the bunk beds had a jumbled assortment of dolls on the pillows. A two-bedroom house was a small space to raise five daughters, which was no doubt why the Marquet’s had installed the old schoolhouse out the back.

  He walked into the bathroom and turned to lock the door behind him. There was no lock. On his left was a large bathtub with a showerhead suspended over it. The shower curtain was clear plastic. There was also a small washbasin and facing it a flush toilet with a wooden seat. A floor-to-ceiling window filled the wall next to the toilet. Berlin recognised the hand of an amateur carpenter in the construction and installation of the window frame. He unzipped and pissed into the toilet bowl. Outside in the yard, through the window, he could see the circle of bright green grass that indicated the presence of a septic tank. Was the window one-way glass, he wondered? Was it mirrored on the outside, reflecting the bush surroundings, while from inside you could sit in privacy and do your business looking out over the bushland?

  He zipped up and flushed and washed his hands at the basin. Above the basin was a mirror and above the mirror was a light fitting. The bulb in the light fitting was one of those mirror-backed globes that threw a strong directional light. Berlin had installed a fitting like that above his back d
oor years ago, after someone had tried to burn down a darkroom he had been building. When he first turned it on at night he hadn’t liked the effect, the harsh light reminding him of the lights along the barbed-wire perimeter fence of the prisoner of war camp in Poland. When the bulb burnt out six months later he hadn’t bothered to replace it.

  At the bathroom door he stopped and looked back. The lamp fitting was angled down in a way that would illuminate whoever was sitting on the toilet. That was the moment when Berlin knew the glass in that tall window wasn’t mirrored on the outside.

  Back in the kitchen, he studied Clive Marquet, trying to suss out what the man was about. While he had compassion for any father who had recently lost a child there was something definitely unsettling about the man. He decided to make the first approach to the mother.

  ‘Constable O’Brian told us your daughter Maud was home sick today.’

  Mrs Marquet nodded. ‘That’s right, she’s in bed out in the sleep-out, poor little dear. She and Melinda were so close.’

  ‘I understand but I’m afraid I need to have a quick word with her, if that’s okay.’

  Mrs Marquet seemed confused at being asked her permission and turned to her husband.

  Clive Marquet pushed his chair back from the table. ‘If it’s necessary I’ll go out with ya.’

  Berlin kept his tone neutral, conversational, friendly. ‘If it’s all the same to you, Mr Marquet, I’d rather have a word in private. I have a daughter about Maud’s age myself and I know sometimes mum and dad can make them a bit uncomfortable. And I’m sure Detective Roberts here has a few more things to ask you both. I’ll only be a minute, I just have a couple of questions.’

  Clive Marquet was on his feet now, short and gruff and aggressive. ‘I’m not sure I want a man talking to one of my girls outside my presence.’

  Mrs Marquet put a hand on her husband’s arm. ‘But he’s a policeman, Clive, and he has a daughter.’