Black Wattle Creek (Charlie Berlin #2)(16)

‘Sorry about that.’

Lazlo put up his hands. ‘Oh, there is no need to apologise, Charlie. I myself once beat a man half to death over a crust of bread.’ Berlin stopped with his ginger ale halfway to his mouth. ‘I guess that means we’ve both got something to remember next time we have a meal together.’

Lazlo put his knife and fork together on top of the plate. ‘Nothing to fear, Charlie, we are now in a land of plenty. Not all of it palatable, it has to be said, but for now food is food.’

‘You seemed to enjoy that pie.’

‘I’m not complaining, just commenting. You ever read Conrad, might I ask?’

‘Conrad who?’

‘Joseph Conrad, the writer. A Pole originally, but I won’t hold that against him. Conrad came to the tropics from Europe as a youth a long time ago, and he always remembered his first smell of the wind blowing off the Spice Islands. It brought to him the exotic scent of cloves and nutmeg and cinnamon and blossoms unknown in Europe. He described it as the East sighing on his face.’

‘Sounds very poetic.’ Berlin thought he had seen the name Conrad on one or two of Rebecca’s books. He might have to look him up.

‘Indeed yes, Charlie. Sadly, however, Australia didn’t sigh on my face so much as smack me in the chops with a leg of boiled mutton.’

Berlin laughed. ‘So what brought you here? You a DP?’

‘A displaced person, yes, but not in the sense you might understand. Actually I am a journalist. I came last year to cover our Olympic team for the people of Hungary. For reasons of economy I travelled by ship, and while I was on my way here the Russian army … Well, you know that story. In any case, I was at the famous water polo match and afterwards I was, shall we say, forced to reconsider my future.’

Berlin hadn’t been on duty at the Olympic pool the afternoon the Russia-versus-Hungary water polo match turned into a vicious bloodbath and near riot, but the story had made all the papers. A few weeks before the games began, Red Army tanks and soldiers had ruthlessly crushed a popular uprising against the Soviet-backed and controlled government in Budapest, and angry Hungarian émigrés and their local supporters had screamed abuse at the Russian team from poolside before police were forced to step in.

Berlin understood what Lazlo meant about people reconsidering their future. On the afternoon of the match he had been flat out trying to track down ten Hungarian athletes, including three female gymnasts along with a female Yugoslav shot-putter who had all mysteriously disappeared from the Olympic Village. It appeared that compared to what Australia had to offer, the idea of returning to a life behind the Iron Curtain was not all that appealing.

‘So you stayed?’

‘I’m here. I was one of those fortunate enough to be granted asylum by your government, for which I am grateful.’

‘What about your family?’

‘I have no family.’ Lazlo said this with a finality that stopped Berlin probing further.

‘You’re not a journalist now? My wife’s a journalist – well, she was before we got married.’

Lazlo shook his head. ‘Gave it away, Charlie, took the job driving Callahan’s hearse six months ago. I was scraping by with small articles on immigrants and some translation work, but a career in journalism can only make a man cynical and disillusioned, and since I was already there I realised I had nowhere to go.’

‘Sorry to hear that.’

‘Don’t be. Life goes on, as they say, even in the funeral business. I still retain my powers of observation, however.’ He took a small notebook from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. ‘And a journalist’s habit of recording those observations.’

He opened the notebook and tore out a page, handing it to Berlin. ‘I have perhaps a feeling this might have some bearing on why you came to visit our happy little establishment.’

The torn page was blank apart from what looked like a licence plate number. Berlin stared across the table at the other man.

‘Two men, Charlie, two men in a white Holden panel van. The van was not new, perhaps two or three years old, but in excellent condition, and most unremarkable in every way.’

Berlin looked at the piece of paper again. ‘Okay, I’ll bite, Lazlo, two men in a van doing what?’

‘Coming out of Callahan’s at around five yesterday morning, the morning of out soldier’s funeral. The funeral about which you ask.’

‘What were you doing there at five in the morning?’

‘I was sleeping, in the hearse.’

The waitress had come to collect the plates. She pushed Berlin’s down hard onto the peas and potato left on Lazlo’s, slamming the cutlery on top. If she had heard Lazlo’s comment she ignored it, and walked away.

‘You sleep in the hearse?’

‘From time to time, Charlie, on the odd occasion. One does not sleep quite like the dead, perhaps, but the vehicle is surprisingly comfortable. ’

‘You have an early start yesterday?’

‘Not exactly. However, my flatmate likes to drink to excess and he likes women who like to drink to excess and what usually follows from such drinking.’

The waitress had returned to wipe down their table top with a cloth that looked like it would add rather than remove grime. Lazlo leaned back in his chair, lifting his glass so she could clean in front of him.