St Kilda Blues

by Geoffrey McGeachin

  ‘You think you’ll be okay? You can still count on me.’

  Roberts smiled his twisted smile and gave a wink. ‘That’s good to hear. In case you didn’t know it you’re about the only bloke in this whole bloody fiasco who is looking good; daggy pants, worn slippers and that awful St Kilda footy jumper notwithstanding.’

  Rebecca came back in with tea in a heavy cup labelled with the hospital crest. There were a couple of aspirin tablets on the saucer. Berlin cradled the cup in both hands, letting it warm him before he swallowed the tablets and sipped the tea. It was good tea, strong and milky, with more sugar than he usually liked but tonight it was just fine.

  Roberts offered Rebecca the chair but she sat on the bed beside Berlin.

  ‘I walked back from the canteen through casualty and it looks like half the coppers in town are out there. It’s probably an excellent night for committing a major crime and getting away with it. There are a lot of police bigwigs and reporters as well, and there’s a rumour that the premier is on his way in along with Rupert Arnold. Sounds like he’ll be making some sort of statement,’

  Berlin finished off the tea and put the cup and saucer on the metal cabinet beside the bed. ‘I had them bring your car over, Rebecca, from the studio. Why don’t you let Bob run you home? We can get a divvy van to pick him up there and drop him off in Carlton.’

  Roberts stood up. ‘I’m good with that, if Rebecca doesn’t criticise my driving.’

  Rebecca shook her head. ‘I’ll just wait here with you, Charlie, I don’t mind.’

  He took her hand. ‘It’ll just be bullshit from here on in, especially with Bolte and the police commissioner showing up. You’ve had a hell of a night with the girl and everything and you don’t need to waste your time on it. You should go home and try to get some sleep.’

  He held up the container of sleeping pills. ‘You can have these if you like.’

  She said no to the pills with a shake of her head so he put them in his trouser pocket to flush down the toilet later. ‘You know I’m right, you should head home. I’ll be there as soon as I can, I promise.’

  Rebecca nodded. She gave him a kiss and a hug and if it hurt this time he didn’t notice.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Over the next hour Berlin was subjected to interrogation by several senior officers about his investigation and the events of the night. There were questions about Tim Egan that he couldn’t answer. If Egan really was from Queensland like he’d said it could take weeks or months to track down his details. The home address typed on the Victorian driver’s licence folded up in Egan’s wallet was false, they told him, as was the licence itself. Telexes were going out to all the other states with a description of the killer and his methods, seeking to find any matching crimes. Berlin really hoped they wouldn’t but wasn’t going to hold his breath.

  Throughout the questioning, the top brass were also warily trying to suss out Berlin’s relationship with Scheiner, and with the premier, if there was one. Berlin understood they were trying to work out how to position themselves to get the best out of the situation for themselves. He also knew it would probably be several days before he discovered exactly which unknown senior officer or officers had been closely supervising him during his investigation and could therefore claim a large part of the credit for its successful resolution.

  After the fourth bout of questions, Berlin had had enough and decided to call it a night. He should have just gone home with Rebecca, he realised. If the premier had already turned up Berlin hadn’t seen him, and it seemed like half of Russell Street was milling about out in the hospital corridors. One copper less wasn’t going to make any difference to this circus, especially one with a bruised and battered face, dressed like a derelict and, what was probably worse, a St Kilda supporter.

  He stepped out into the hospital corridor and practically bumped into the premier. Henry Bolte was surrounded by reporters and senior police, including Chief Commissioner Rupert Arnold. Bolte gave him a confused, dismissive look, and Berlin could smell whisky. Bolte looked tired, probably worse than Berlin felt, if that was possible. A senior police officer brushed Berlin to one side as they herded the press into a group next to television and newsreel cameras set up on tripods and framed by a battery of lights and microphones.

  Berlin found himself stuck behind a large group of senior police who were standing slightly behind and to the left of the premier, probably hoping to get their faces on television. The chief commissioner was standing just behind the premier in a spot guaranteed to get maximum press coverage. The officers were smiling, leaning in close from time to time to make quiet comments to each other.

  The premier appeared to be a little confused as to what to do until a clipboard holding a typed foolscap page was pushed into his hands. He took a pair of reading glasses from his jacket pocket and ran his eye over the text, glancing several times across to the other side of the corridor, towards a second group of senior officers. There were no smiles in the second group, Berlin noticed. Most of the faces were impassive, though a couple of the men seemed nervous, their eyes flicking back and forth between the premier, the assembled press and the smiling officers across the corridor. The senior officer who had confronted Berlin at the Scheiner house was at the front and his eyes found Berlin’s for a moment and then moved on as if he didn’t recognise him.

  ‘Pen.’

  The premier said the word without looking up from the clipboard. A half-dozen ballpoints and fountain pens were immediately held out to him. He took one of the fountain pens and scribbled notes on the typed page. Several lines were also crossed out before he screwed the cap back on the pen and put it into the breast pocket of his suit jacket.

  When the premier looked up and towards the camera and reporters, all noise in the corridor ceased. Berlin saw Bolte run his eye slowly across the assembled press pack: the TV cameramen, the kneeling press photographers and the reporters with notebooks open or microphones in hand. His contempt for the people in front of him was obvious and all-encompassing.

  ‘Gentlemen, earlier this evening a missing girl, the daughter of one of the state’s best-known citizens, was rescued from captivity due to the diligence and hard work of members of a special task force of the Victoria Police Force.’

  Berlin was glad that Rebecca had gone home but he was a little sorry Bob Roberts wasn’t still around to hear the pair of them described as a task force. The premier looked up from the typed statement and spoke directly to the assembled reporters.

  ‘A police force which, as I have often said, is the finest in this country, and this evening’s events prove that once again.’ He glanced over towards the second group of senior officers. ‘Despite the ill-informed nattering of people who should know better. This special task force was under the direct supervision of Chief Commissioner Arnold, who reported back to me on developments as they occurred. Events came to a head this evening and culminated in the missing girl being rescued from premises in South Melbourne where she was being held captive.’

  The premier looked back down at the paper. ‘The officer who effected the rescue was forced to confront the kidnapper, who it appears may also have been responsible for a number of other missing girls, missing girls who were the subject of an exhaustive and ongoing investigation by the task force over the past many months. This investigation was kept secret for reasons of security and to avoid unduly alarming the public at large.’

  So the missing girls were still just missing, not decomposing in the dirt of a closed down confectionary factory in South Melbourne. That news would come later Berlin knew, the gruesome details released bit by bit to soften the awfulness and keep a dazed and horrified press and public from asking difficult questions.

  The premier paused and waited for the press reporters, bent over their shorthand pads and scribbling furiously, to look up in his direction. Berlin noticed that every time Bolte paused and looked up there was a blizzard of camera flashes from behind and beside the TV and newsreel cam
eras.

  ‘In the ensuing violent confrontation,’ the premier continued, ‘the offender lost his life while the officer concerned escaped unscathed, for which we can be grateful. I of course commend all the police officers who took part in this investigation and most especially . . .’ The premier paused and looked at the clipboard for a moment. ‘And most especially Detective Inspector Charles Berlin, an experienced, dedicated and conscientious officer and a man who is well known to me. The girl in question is now safe and well and back with her father, who has asked us to respect her privacy. Our best wishes go out to her for a speedy recovery. You can get more information from my secretary in the morning. Goodnight.’

  The premier tossed the clipboard in the general direction of an officer and turned around. The phalanx of smiling officers directly behind him parted to allow him to pass. Berlin was squashed up against a wall of the corridor behind two senior officers. As soon as the premier was gone they began conducting a post-mortem of the press conference with their voices lowered.

  ‘Nice jab at the inquiry, that should shut the bastards up for a while. The press will have to start singing a different tune now as well.’

  ‘Too bloody right, and a few of our people are going to have to keep their heads pulled well in for a bit, stupid bastards. Bolte hasn’t survived this long without knowing who his friends are and how to put the boot in when it’s needed’.

  ‘I thought that Berlin chap was just a DS. A bit of a no-hoper was what I heard.’

  ‘Well the prick’s a bloody Detective Inspector now, the premier has spoken. Paperwork will need to get pushed through first thing in the morning and backdated a month or so. And make sure everyone who talks to the press knows what to call him. Lucky sod too. A little bird told me he was going to be one of the sacrificial lambs to the inquiry, but that was dropped thanks to that backstabbing bastard Roberts. I suppose all this means Roberts has to be up for some sort of commendation too now. For God’s sake, do you mind?’

  The last comment was directed at Berlin, who had forced his way past the two officers. He wanted air and he wanted out, out of the smell of the hospital, which was starting to get to him, and away from the worse stink of politics. He turned back around to the two officers with their neatly pressed uniforms and shiny silver buttons.

  ‘As a matter of fact I do mind. I mind very much.’

  He turned away and headed down the corridor in his too-big footwear, hoping he wouldn’t slip and fall on the waxed and highly polished hospital hallway floor.

  A constable took a van round to a side entrance to avoid the press, and if any of the reporters actually saw Detective Inspector Charles Berlin leaving the casualty department they didn’t make any notes of it. The only person waiting for him was Warren Sunderland, standing outside in a gentle drizzle of rain. Droplets of water were beading on the shoulders of the reporter’s suit and a nasty bruise was beginning to show on his jaw.

  ‘You might be smiling now Berlin,’ Sunderland said, ‘but you have made yourself some pretty powerful enemies.’

  Berlin lifted his head up and felt the soft rain on his face. It felt good and fresh and clean, better than any hospital shower. ‘I’m not smiling, Sunderland, and the higher the rank the more powerful the enemies from what I can see. But right now all I want to do is go home to my wife and go to bed so I won’t stop and chat if it’s all the same to you. And don’t you have a special edition of your rag you need to pulp?’

  Sunderland smiled a cold, hard smile. ‘You will keep, Berlin, you will bloody keep.’

  There was very little traffic given the time of the morning. It finally stopped drizzling when they reached Pascoe Vale Road and the streets were already starting to dry. Berlin had told the constable to turn the police radio off and he was enjoying the peace and quiet. He’d had quite enough crime and mayhem for one night and if a Detective Inspector couldn’t order a constable around, what was the point of the promotion?

  God, he was tired. He sat back in the passenger seat of the police van, half dozing, watching the streetlights flash by through partially closed eyes. He thought about the premier’s press conference, remembered all the flashes from the press photographers. Afterwards, one of the senior coppers who’d had him backed in against the wall had said something about backdating his promotion and he hazily wondered if that would mean back pay. Then he remembered the other one had said something else, something about the inquiry and then something about Bob Roberts.

  When they turned into his street he could see Roberts sitting on the front fence, smoking. The Mini was parked up close to the side gate and all the lights in the house were on. Rebecca was sitting on the porch. Roberts stood up when the divisional van arrived, crushing his cigarette out on the footpath with the toe of his shoe. Berlin was about to tell him about the press conference and ask about the inquiry but he stopped. The expression on Bob Roberts’ face was one that he’d never seen before.

  ‘I’m sorry Charlie, I really am. About everything. You should go to her, she needs you. Call me if there’s anything I can do, anything.’

  Berlin looked across the lawn towards the porch where Rebecca was sitting. Behind him he heard the passenger-side door of the divisional van slam shut and Roberts telling the driver to get moving.

  He walked up the driveway, surprised at the silence all around him. As he turned right onto the pathway to the front door he saw the yellow-white paper of the telegram on the porch next to Rebecca.

  She looked up at him. ‘It was under the front door when we got here. I tried to ring you at the hospital but the switchboard was jammed. By the time I got through you’d already left.’

  Her voice was flat, emotionless, and Berlin turned ice-cold. He knew what was in the telegram, he could see it on Rebecca’s face and in her eyes and hear it in her voice. If I don’t ask, if I don’t know, it isn’t true, he said to himself.

  ‘You’ll have to telephone the Army tomorrow, Charlie, see if we can get compassionate leave for Peter. I need Peter to be here.’

  Berlin would never know just how far his cry of pain carried in the crisp, still, spring night air. The dagger cutting through Egan’s heart must have hurt like this but Egan’s pain was brief and over quickly and Berlin knew his would never end. He had given Scheiner back his daughter and now he had lost his own.

  He sat down on the pathway, sat down before he fell down, feeling the cold and the hardness of the concrete through the thin fabric of his borrowed trousers. He knew he would live with this pain to the end of his days and with something else, something dark and shameful. He would go to his grave with the awful knowledge that at the worst moment in his life he had asked God why he had taken Sarah and not his son.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Sarah was buried the next day, in accordance with Jewish custom. Israel was half a world away and there was no way they could possibly be there. If there was anything good to be said about the situation, it was that Charlie Berlin had been spared the awfulness of having to arrange a funeral and choose a coffin for his only daughter. There was nothing for him to do apart from sit in stunned silence and listen to Rebecca’s weeping. Maria from next door brought them food but he couldn’t remember eating. Later he would remember visits from ministers and priests and a rabbi. He couldn’t remember hitting anyone so he guessed that he hadn’t and that surprised him a little.

  There was a dusty bottle of sherry in the glass-fronted crystal cabinet in the living room and he’d stared at it for a long while. Sarah came up behind him and rested a hand on his shoulder. ‘You know I wouldn’t want you doing that, Dad,’ she said in her soft, familiar voice. ‘You should remember what you told me about Pip.’ When he turned around there was no one there. His mind was foggy and he couldn’t understand what she’d meant about the dog. For a time he expected a visit from the ghosts of his crew but they’d long since left him to get on with his life while they got on with their deaths.

  It was Alice Roberts who stepped up, taking charge of th
e house and of Charlie and Rebecca. She kept them fed, found vases for the flowers that were being delivered on what seemed like an hourly basis, sorted through the sympathy cards and admitted or gently sent away visitors according to Rebecca’s requests. The kettle seemed to be constantly boiling on the stovetop, trays of sandwiches and plates of cakes and scones appeared as needed and just as quickly disappeared.

  And it was Alice who suggested that a memorial might be a good thing – nothing fancy, just a gathering where people could come and offer condolences and drink and talk as they would after a funeral. It was perhaps seven days after the telegram had arrived when the house was suddenly full of neighbours and friends and acquaintances and strangers. There was ice for the beer in an old concrete washtub someone had dragged out of the shed. The kettle was refilled constantly in a futile attempt to keep up with the demand for tea and eventually a large electric urn appeared, though it made little difference. Plates of freshly cut white bread sandwiches circulated amongst the guests and trays of party pies and little sausage rolls from the local bakery filled the oven.

  The men arrived with freshly polished shoes and wore their darkest suits out of respect, though jackets and ties were peeled off quickly in the building heat of the afternoon. The women wore hats and gloves and sympathetically patted Berlin’s arm until he almost couldn’t stand it. The men shook Berlin’s hand and shook their heads and said nothing, which was the Australian way in times of great sorrow. Then, also in the Australian way, they separated quickly, the women finding the kitchen and the men the beer.

  Lauren was there, helping in the kitchen, and there were other young people too, kids of Sarah’s age, school friends, people she had met in her after-school job at the doctor’s surgery, and friends she had made at her Jewish youth group. Rebecca was calmer now – too calm, he thought, though he was glad the weeping had passed. He initially regretted throwing away the sleeping pills the casualty doctor had given him but knew she would have rejected them if he had offered.