Black Wattle Creek (Charlie Berlin #2)(32)
Berlin stood watching as the children assembled, neatly by class, for the Monday morning ceremony. As the flag broke at the top of the white painted flagstaff the children came to attention and the boys saluted. Berlin was almost surprised to find himself straightening up at the fence and his feet coming together. It was an effort to keep his right hand at his side. After the salute they recited the pledge, thin reedy voices carrying across the playground:
I love God and my country
I honour the flag
I will serve the Queen
And cheerfully obey my parents, teachers and the law.
It had been ‘serve the King’ when Berlin was a lad, and it was just words to all of them until Hitler and Tojo came along. He hoped it would be just words to those schoolchildren until they were old and grey.
They sang ‘God Save the Queen’ after the pledge and then the assembly broke up, the children marching off to their classrooms in single file. The boys swung their arms wildly as a brass-band recording of ‘Colonel Bogey March’ played over the school loudspeakers. The record was old and scratched and jumped in several places, making it hard for the boys to keep in step. Berlin couldn’t help remembering the air-force sergeants screaming at hapless mobs of green recruits trying to stay in line and in step on the parade ground at Somers Camp on Westernport Bay, where he had done his initial RAAF training.
A steak and eggs breakfast was waiting in a frying pan on the stove when he got home. Rebecca had just made tea and now slid some thick-cut white bread under the grill to toast.
‘Everything go okay?’
‘Police escort right to the gate. No dramas apart from Peter starting in on one of his anti-communist rants again.’
Rebecca laughed. She buttered the toast and served his breakfast. When she put the plate down in front of Berlin she was more serious. ‘Sorry I asked, but Bob getting beaten up like that made me a bit nervous. You’ll be careful too, won’t you?’
Berlin sprinkled salt and pepper over the fried eggs. ‘I’m always careful, you know me. As soon as Bob can talk I’ll find out what’s going on. There are plenty of people around who wouldn’t mind thumping a copper and for any number of reasons.’ Berlin cut into his well done steak and took a bite. ‘Nice bit of beef. You haven’t seen my overalls lately by any chance?’
Within five minutes of starting work, Berlin knew it was going to take him most of the morning to get the floorboards trimmed to size and in position. After cutting through just five boards his right arm was aching. The panel saw was getting blunt and he was having trouble getting it through the hardwood. He decided to try rubbing the teeth with meat dripping from the pot Rebecca kept near the stove in the kitchen.
Greasing a saw with fat was a trick his brother had taught him, a long time ago, back before the war. The panel saw Berlin was using had belonged to Billy. If it wasn’t for the war his brother would be here now, helping him build the darkroom, laughing with him, showing him how to do the thing right. William Berlin, Billy to all and sundry and a larrikin of the first order, had sailed with the Eighth Division to Singapore as a machine-gunner. He was in hospital with malaria when the British commander surrendered the island to the Japanese, and had never been heard from again.
Berlin liked the feel of the worn wooden handle of the saw in his hand. Sometimes it felt like he and his brother were shaking hands one last time. After the war he had collected the saw and all the other carpentry tools from the garden shed of his grandparents’ old home in Flemington. The new tenant had been glad to see the stuff go and even happier to see Berlin drive away. Right after the war Berlin hadn’t been the kind of man people felt comfortable being around.
He had just taken the lid off the pot of dripping when the phone rang in the hallway. The receiver was barely up to his ear when the tirade began.
‘Jesus Christ, Berlin, are you shitting me? You are supposed to be on holidays, you stupid prick – what part of that don’t you understand?’
‘Good morning, Inspector Chater, did you have a good weekend?’
The common wisdom amongst the lower ranks at Russell Street was that if Chater were to go after crims like he did his subordinates, then Melbourne would be a much safer town and in very short order. It was all too obvious to Berlin that Chater was on his case this morning, and in a big way. But the inspector would never talk like that if they were face to face. He was always happiest doing his bullying at a distance.
Berlin’s fist tightened around the handset. ‘I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about, Inspector Chater.’
Berlin always called the man Inspector Chater, putting the emphasis on Inspector. In the air force it might have been classified under dumb insolence, showing contempt for a superior through excessive formality.
‘Upstairs says one of my men has been clicking around in something that doesn’t need to concern them, and surprise, surprise it’s bloody you. So whatever you’re doing, stop it. Why can’t you just take your kids to the zoo or the pictures or ice skating like a normal person, for Christ’s sake.’
‘It’s a school day.’
There was a long pause before Chater said, ‘You’ll keep, Detective Sergeant Berlin, you’ll bloody keep. Now, pull your nose out of other people’s business and get on with your holiday. And that’s an order from a superior officer, you got it?’