Black Wattle Creek (Charlie Berlin #2)(34)

Berlin could already see the woman Sarah would be, someone very much like her mother, but he had his reservations about where and who Peter would be in a dozen years’ time.

Lazlo had been smiling while he talked about the children but Berlin sensed an underlying sadness.

‘Now Charlie, you must come and meet my new friend Bruce.’ There was a plate of exotic-looking cream cakes sitting in the middle of the kitchen table. Berlin tossed his bag of finger buns and lamingtons up on top of the refrigerator. A man wearing a similar black suit, white shirt and black tie to Lazlo’s was sitting at the table with Rebecca. He stood up when Berlin walked in. At least fifty, Berlin estimated, thin, perhaps tubercular as a child. And from the lines on his face and the stooped shoulders, a man who’d seen a lot in his life. For a man of his age, though, his hair was a quite disturbing jet-black.

‘Charlie,’ Rebecca said, ‘meet Bruce. He brought the cakes.’ She turned to the man. ‘I’m sorry, Bruce, I didn’t get the last name.’

He smiled. ‘No problem, missus.’ He stuck out his hand to Berlin. ‘Bruce Donaldson. Pleased to meet you.’

Berlin shook his hand. ‘Charlie Berlin. Pleased to meet you, Bruce. Nice-looking cakes. Thanks.’

‘It was Lazlo who picked them out. We went to a bakery on Acland Street for them special, right after a funeral.’

‘Bruce here is my competition,’ Lazlo told Berlin. ‘He drives that Ford out front for Melville Brothers. The bodywork is by Weber, like mine, but I find the lines to be a little, perhaps ostentatious.’

‘Bag the old Ford all you like, Lazlo,’ Bruce said, ‘but people are dying to ride in her.’

It must be a standard joke amongst hearse drivers, Berlin decided. Still, like being a copper, it was probably a job where you needed a sense of humour. He might have to think about developing one.

‘You two known each other long?’

Lazlo sipped his tea before shaking his head. ‘Not long, Charlie, we are recent acquaintances. Perhaps two hours or so. We met only this morning in fact, at Melbourne Cemetery, on almost adjacent plots. An error in scheduling, they told us. Side-by-side burials can be unseemly, they said, unless the deceased are related of course.’

‘How’d they sort that one out?’ Berlin asked. He was studying the cakes Lazlo and Bruce had brought. They did look tempting.

‘A simple coin toss. Heads for the C of E and tails for the Baptists. For once the underdogs won, eh Bruce?’

Bruce appeared to be unsure. ‘If you say so, Lazlo. I wouldn’t a minded taking a closer look at that penny they used.’

‘Bruce, it seems, has no time for Baptists, Charlie. And he and I also made a side wager, which is why he had to pay for the cakes.’

‘If you blokes were coming out this way from Melbourne Cemetery, that would make Acland Street a bit of a major detour, wouldn’t it?’ Berlin said. He was thinking that Lazlo must have found his address in the phone book or through directory assistance.

‘It was a detour worth making, though,’ Rebecca said. ‘Charlie, you should try those cream puffs – they’re called Indianer, right Lazlo?’

‘They are indeed, Rebecca. Next time I’ll bring a Dobos torte. And a little something for the children.’

The Indianer were damn good. Berlin stood leaning against the sink as he drank his tea and savoured one. Rebecca and Lazlo, sitting at the table, were getting along like a house on fire. Bruce just kept smiling and nodding and looking uncomfortable. Berlin guessed there were other reasons for the visit this morning besides introducing a new friend and having morning tea.

After second cups all round Lazlo stood up. ‘Charlie, Rebecca has told us all about your carpentry expertise and I see from your most elegant outfit we may have interrupted proceedings. Since smoko is now over I suggest we adjourn to the backyard and survey your handiwork.’

Berlin was now certain this wasn’t just a spur-of-the-moment social visit.

In the backyard the three men lit up cigarettes, Bruce coughing and wheezing as the first intake of smoke hit his lungs. Lazlo walked around the yard slowly, appraising the fruit trees and vegetable plot, the chickens scratching in their pen. Pip, the consummate watchdog, stayed in his kennel, safely away from the strangers.

Lazlo was carefully studying the passion fruit vine growing up the side of the dunny. ‘So tell me, Charlie, how did my licence plate tip work out?’

‘It got results, Lazlo.’ He figured he didn’t need to hear the gruesome details.

Lazlo turned around to Bruce. ‘I was recently telling Charlie here about a panel van and a couple of characters who I spotted hanging around Callahan’s very early one morning.’

Bruce ground his cigarette butt out in the grass under the tip of his shoe. ‘You must mean Blue and Tiny. Two blokes in a white panel van, a Holden, right? That the blokes you mean? I was actually talking to my boss about them earlier today, at the cemetery, while they were getting that mix-up sorted out. Funny, you bringing that up, Lazlo.’

Berlin glanced at Lazlo. ‘Yeah, funny that. You couldn’t describe these characters by any chance, could you Bruce?’

‘Never actually seen the two of ’em myself but they reckon they’re dressed all in white, you know, like hospital orderlies. One’s a redhead, they reckon, small bloke, and the other’s a big bugger, massive apparently. Built like the proverbial brick shithouse, they say.’