Black Wattle Creek (Charlie Berlin #2)(3)
The woman opposite was knitting faster now, mouth set tightly into what Rebecca called a cat’s bum, angry eyes fixed on the kissing couple. Perhaps she had a sixteen-year-old daughter, or maybe she was just jealous. Berlin moved toward the door of the compartment, and as the train slowed he tapped the bodgie on the ankle with the toe of his shoe.
The couple broke the clinch and looked up at Berlin. The girl, maybe sixteen but not much more, had bright red lipstick smeared outside her lip line. The boy was sporting long sideburns and oily hair brushed up into a greasy black wave that broke over a pimply forehead. Berlin towered over him. He watched the boy assessing him with his beady rat eyes. What did the little bugger see? The boy grinned and Berlin knew exactly what he was thinking. An old bloke, really old, over thirty maybe, and big, but not that big. Tatty overcoat well out of style and a nose that was broken at some point, probably for sticking it in places where it didn’t belong. Like right now.
‘You got a problem with something, mate?’
Berlin studied the boy’s face carefully before he answered. Bodgie gangs were into pushing and using the amphetamine Benzedrine, but luckily these two didn’t look like users. Berlin knew all the signs to look for, and that knowledge came from painful personal experience. He’d had the boy sussed quickly – little rat eyes but not much in the way of rat cunning. All piss and vinegar, as the saying went. And not a very good judge of character either, from the dismissive way he’d just spoken.
‘Why don’t you give it a rest now, Romeo, maybe give the girl a chance to breathe?’
The girl in question glared up at Berlin and angrily nudged the boy with her shoulder, urging a response, wanting a confrontation. Berlin knew her type too.
The boy sat forward, chin up, responding to the girl’s nudging. ‘Oh yeah? Who says so, and why the f*ck should I?’
There were gasps from several passengers, shocked at hearing the vilest of obscenities spoken out loud in public. Berlin’s right hand clenched involuntarily and made a fist, the muscles and tendons in his right arm tightening up to the bicep and beyond. He wanted so very much to lean down and say, Because if you don’t I’ll smash my bloody fist so hard into that dirty little gob of yours I swear you’ll have broken teeth coming out of your arsehole for a week.
Berlin hated the anger that was always lurking just beneath his outwardly calm demeanour. He leaned in closer until his nose and the young hooligan’s were almost touching. The smell of Vaseline hair tonic and stale sweat was coming from the boy. Berlin spoke softly, the squeal of the steel wheels on the braking train keeping the words just between the two of them.
‘You’ll do it because I’m a policeman, sunshine, and because I say so. And you’ll watch your mouth in public from now on if you know what’s good for you.’
Berlin left the ‘unless you want a fist in it’ part unsaid, but the message was there in his tone. He had piloted a heavy bomber into the lethal night skies over German-occupied Europe with a crew who would jump at his every order, and he knew how to make himself understood.
The bodgie straightened up in his seat. ‘Oh, okay, fair enough, if you say so.’
Berlin knew what the boy was thinking; that this would be different if he had a couple of his mates with him, copper or not. And it would also be different, Berlin knew, if he was in the company of some of the older policemen he was acquainted with, men in uniform who would smile at the little twerp and sadly shake their heads, and then haul him bodily from the train by his greasy hair. They’d beat him bloody in the empty, draughty waiting room, to the silent approval of passengers passing quickly by with their eyes averted.
The train shuddered to a stop and Berlin pulled the heavy sliding door open. As he stepped down onto the platform his nose twitched at the acrid smell of hot brake pads wafting up from under the carriage. A glance back into the compartment showed the knitting woman was still knitting, still angry. As the train pulled away the couple went back to their kissing, the boy casually flipping the policeman a two-fingered salute through the still open carriage door. Berlin watched the train till it was out of sight and he was the last person on the station platform.
The ticket collector was waiting at the gate. Berlin found the return half of the thick cardboard ticket in his coat pocket. As he handed it over, the collector winked and said, ‘Thanking you, squire, have a good evening.’
It was nice to see someone who was happy in their job.
THREE
Berlin crossed the road quickly at the railway gates, stepping between cars slowing down for the bumpy passage over the tracks. Inside the pockets of his overcoat his fists were bunched tight and he could feel the hardness up his arms and across his shoulders and on up into his jaw. The brisk five-minute walk from the station would let him get most of the anger out, or at least force it back down into that dark, dark place where it lived.
The barbershop was shut up tight, as were the newsagency and the chemist. There was the usual gaggle of watchers outside the radio shop, staring at the flickering television screen behind the glass. The Dutchman who owned the shop had rigged up a loudspeaker outside so they could hear as well as see. The set on display was an Admiral, the same as Berlin’s. Two hundred quid – what had he and Rebecca been thinking? Berlin’s picture was at least as sharp as the set in the window since he’d shelled out the extra money for the good aerial. They’d done it so the kids could watch the live broadcasts of the Olympics, but now, almost a year on, Zorro was proving to be the major draw.