Black Wattle Creek (Charlie Berlin #2)(36)

‘I’d really like to talk to him if it’s not too much trouble.’

‘Righteo, can you hang on please?’

Berlin heard her put the phone down and then a screen door slam, and it was about a minute before the screaming started.

He couldn’t break the connection so he left Rebecca holding the phone while he went next door. He used Joe’s phone to call Russell Street, asking 024 to dispatch a police Divisional van to the address on the note.

As he sprinted back to his house he noticed a dark green Ford Zephyr parked in the gloom between two widely spaced streetlights. Berlin knew every car in the street and this one didn’t belong to any of his neighbours. Mud spatters obscured the licence plate but he noted the St Kilda football club decal in the rear window. Back inside the house he grabbed his hat and coat and ran out to the Studebaker. When he straightened it up out on the roadway the dark space between the two streetlights was empty.

It took him almost thirty minutes to reach the address and by that time Len had been cut down. The garage doors were wide open and an ambulance was parked behind the powder-blue police divvy van in the driveway. The ambulance driver was snoozing behind the steering wheel. There was no rush since Len would be going to the morgue rather than the hospital. His body was on its back under a blanket on the concrete floor inside the garage. Berlin could see the bottoms of a pair of khaki overalls and Len’s limp feet splayed wide in a well-worn pair of white Dunlop sandshoes.

A ladder was resting against one of the cross beams and the rope was frayed where they had cut through it to get the body down. Berlin was reminded of the remnants of rope in the peppercorn tree by the letterbox at the Giles farm. An ambulance officer was leaning against a workbench at the far end of the garage, smoking and flicking through a copy of Australasian Post. He must have found it on the bench, judging by the oil stains on the bikini-clad cover girl.

‘Where are the uniforms?’ Berlin asked him.

The ambulance officer didn’t look up. ‘Inside with the wife. She went a bit hysterical when she found him.’

‘Gee, no kidding?’

A side door in the garage opened onto a neat backyard, where a concrete path led to a screen door – the one he’d heard slamming over the phone a short time before.

The kitchen table was cleared, the dishes stacked on the sink for washing. Berlin heard voices in the living room and went through. Len’s wife was sitting in an armchair, staring off into the distance at nothing. A constable was sitting in the chair opposite with his notepad open. The woman had a glass in her hand and Berlin could smell brandy. As Berlin walked in, a second constable standing behind her had a bottle of St Agnes up to his lips and was taking a long swig. He almost choked when he saw Berlin.

‘I’m DS Berlin. Got a problem with your nerves there, Constable?’

‘No sir, sorry sir.’

The constable pushed the cork into the bottle and put it back in a cabinet stuffed with knick-knacks.

Berlin tilted his head towards the kitchen. ‘Hop it, both of you.’

The telephone was still off the hook. Berlin picked it up. ‘You still there? It’s me, Charlie.’

Rebecca answered. ‘Is everything all right?’

‘Not really, no. I might be a bit late so don’t wait up. Thanks for holding on.’

He put the receiver back in the cradle and sat down in the chair opposite the woman. She was about thirty, blonde, slim and very attractive. Somehow he hadn’t pictured Len with such a good-looking wife.

‘My name is Charlie, what’s yours? I’m the bloke who called to speak to Len earlier, you know, before …’

‘I’m Glad, Gladys.’

‘Do you know why … do you know what happened, Gladys?’

She shook her head. ‘We had our tea and I put the bub down, then he said he had something to finish off in the shed. He liked to fiddle with things, you know, make things, take stuff apart. I must have fallen asleep in front of the heater and then you rang.’

‘Was he depressed? Unhappy about something?’

She thought for a moment. ‘He didn’t like working nights.’

‘At the asylum?’

She nodded. ‘They switched him to the nightshift a couple of months back, just for a fortnight or so, they told him. They got real busy with something, he said. Len was good for a long time, years really, and then they put him on nights.’

‘Good?’

‘He was in the war, up in the islands. We got married just before he left. He always said if he had it to do over he’d still do the marriage part but not the army. He wasn’t too good when he came back – you know, nervy and stuff.’

Berlin nodded. He knew what nervy and stuff was. ‘So a couple of months ago … ?’

‘Something must have set him off. He was edgy all of a sudden, you know, skittish. He started to grind his teeth again, something awful, when he was sleeping. And mumble away to himself He did that for a long bit after the war. He talked about wanting a different job. I know he was looking. I never thought it was good for him dealing with a bunch of crazy people.’

‘And he didn’t say anything about what was bothering him?’

‘No. He’d just mumble something in his sleep about the smell, but he’d never want to talk about it when he woke up.’