Black Wattle Creek (Charlie Berlin #2)(41)
‘What I mean is I ask you to do me a favour and have a chat to Beryl Moffit and now I feel there are all sorts of things happening that you don’t want me to know about. Things that you want to talk to Bob about without me there.’
A high-pitched whistle from the kettle gave him an excuse to break her gaze and turn away. He did want to see Bob by himself and he was also planning a little detour on his way in to the hospital. When he turned back after shutting off the gas burner she was in exactly the same position with exactly the same look on her face.
‘Charlie, you know that thing that you do, that thing where you don’t tell me stuff because you think it might worry me?’
He looked at her across the table.
‘Well, that worries me, Charlie, it really does.’
She was right about him keeping things to himself, especially the really bad things. He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
‘At the moment all I have is a series of apparently unrelated events, Rebecca. Believe me, if I can tie any of this together, and Beryl and her old man are involved, you’ll be the first to know, I promise.’
‘Just don’t leave me out, Charlie, okay? The good or the bad. You and I are way past that.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
The young bloke pushing the hand mower across the sloping front lawn of Shangri-La was wearing blue suede shoes, baggy trousers narrowing at the cuffs and a white singlet. The arms holding the mower handles were tanned and well muscled. He stopped mowing when Berlin slammed the Studebaker’s door and watched him cross the street towards the driveway. Maybe eighteen, nineteen, Berlin guessed, and if he’d paid for the Charles Atlas bodybuilding course then he’d certainly had his money’s worth. Since the day wasn’t all that hot Berlin guessed that was the point of him stripping down to the singlet. A bit of muscle on the front lawn sends a hard to miss message to potential callers.
The Moffit’s version of Shangri-La was a single-storey, cream-brick bungalow with a nice shady veranda, the kind of lush, well-established front garden Berlin hoped to have one day, and a carport at the end of the sloping driveway. The late Cyril Moffit’s pride and joy was parked nose out halfway down the drive. As Berlin walked past he ran his finger casually over the scuff in the pale blue duco where Beryl had collected the gatepost at Callahan’s.
‘Help ya?’
The boy was leaning on the handles of the upright mower. From his haircut and sideburns he was obviously an Elvis Presley fan.
‘I’d like to speak to Mrs Moffit.’
The boy shook his head. ‘Auntie Beryl isn’t well so she’s not taking visitors. There was a bereavement in the family recently, you understand.’
‘I talked to her the day after the funeral, said I’d look into something for her.’
‘You deaf or what?’ There was no aggressive tone in the question, but a slow folding of the boy’s arms showed off his biceps and made the message crystal clear. Anybody wanting to have a chat with Beryl was going to have to get past him first.
‘I’m not deaf, but I’m a policeman or what.’
The boy considered Berlin’s response for a moment and then shook his head. ‘She said no visitors and that means no visitors.’ He drew himself up to his full height and took a deep breath to puff out his chest. Berlin was reminded a little of a peacock. And Berlin knew a peacock could do some damage if it decided to.
‘Vic.’
The boy turned his head back towards the house. Berlin could see the front door was slightly open behind a flywire outer door. ‘It’s fine, Vic, you can let him up on the porch. I know him.’
‘You sure, Auntie Beryl?’
‘Yes, it’s fine, let him come up. The lawn is looking lovely, you’re a good boy.’
Berlin walked up three concrete steps to the shade of the porch. The white-painted, wrought-iron ‘Shangri-La’ sign mounted on the wall by the front door was echoed in wrought-iron railings bordering the porch and a forest of plant hangers. There was a single chair next to a table set off to one side. A blue silk shirt was draped over the back of the chair, and the table held a bottle of VB running with condensation, a beer glass and a paperback copy of a Carter Brown murder mystery with its trademark lurid cover. An open packet of Ardath cork-tipped cigarettes next to an overflowing ashtray suggested that when young Vic wasn’t gardening he was sitting and reading. And watching.
Beryl didn’t open the door and invite him in. She was in shadow and it was hard to make out her face behind the flyscreen door.
‘Sorry to disturb you at home, Beryl, but Rebecca said you’ve been having second thoughts about what you saw. On the day of the funeral, I mean.’
‘I feel so silly, Mr Berlin, getting you and Rebecca involved, all over nothing.’
He could smell flowers inside the house. Probably left over from the funeral, he guessed. ‘It’s Charlie, remember? And you seemed pretty convinced about Cyril’s leg when we spoke.’
There was a pause before she answered. ‘I’m so sorry, Charlie, but I must have been distressed and imagining things, like Mr Callahan said. My sister had me all worked up about the medals and I was in such a tizzy when I got to the funeral parlour that things got confused. I understand now what happened.’
Berlin felt something brush his ankle. He looked down to see a fat tabby cat brushing its tail against his trouser cuffs.