Black Wattle Creek (Charlie Berlin #2)(42)

‘Mr Callahan stopped by, did he, Beryl? For a chat? To explain things?’

‘That’s right, how did you know?’ She sounded surprised. ‘Saturday afternoon around one, it must have been. Vic had just driven me home from the shops. He brought the most beautiful flowers and he was most apologetic – Mr Callahan, I mean. It seems it’s not uncommon, getting all hysterical, so now we can all forget about it and get back to our lives.’

She sounded like she was reading from a prepared script, like on a radio drama.

‘So it’s all done and dusted then?’

‘That’s exactly right, Charlie. There are more important things in this world to worry about than one man’s leg, that’s what I think. Cyril was a soldier, Charlie, and he was always ready and willing to give a leg or an arm or an eye in the service of this country. And a soldier doesn’t stop serving just because the war is over or he’s retired. Cyril was in it for the long haul.’

Berlin could see what Rebecca had meant about a strange tone in her voice. ‘That’s a fine sentiment, Beryl, and I’m sure Cyril would agree.’ It was what she was saying or not saying in that voice that had him intrigued. Cyril’s leg wasn’t missing, but if it was then it was all in a good cause. But she was edgy too, a little uncertain. The cat was rubbing its whiskers against his leg now, purring in a low rumble.

‘Did they stop by in a white panel van, by any chance?’

Beryl answered immediately. ‘Oh my goodness no, they were in the saloon car, the big one I rode in to the funeral, behind the hearse. I don’t think they’re the kind of men to ride in a panel van.’

‘Mr Callahan and the hearse driver, was it? Horvay, the New Australian?’

There was a long silence from inside the house.

‘I think I have to take a nap now.’ He could hear the tiredness in her voice but there was something else, that brittle edge again. ‘You come in here right now, puss, and stop annoying Mr Berlin, you hear me? Give my love to Rebecca, will you Charlie.’

There was a squeak of hinges, the cat slipped in through the slightly open screen door, and then the front door was pushed firmly closed. Berlin heard a key turn in the lock.

‘My Uncle Cyril was a good bloke.’

Berlin turned round to where Vic was leaning on one of the carport uprights. He was only a couple of feet away.

‘That’s what I’ve heard.’

Vic stepped over the low railing and onto the porch. He took a cigarette from the packet on the table and pulled a silver Zippo lighter from his trouser pocket. Berlin could smell lighter fluid before the flint sparked and lit the wick.

‘Did you recognise the two men in the saloon car?’

Vic lit his cigarette and snapped the lighter closed. ‘It was Callahan, like she said, but I didn’t know the other cove. Wasn’t the hearse driver, though, I remember him from the funeral.’

Berlin indicated the house with a tilt of his head. ‘Is she okay? Your auntie.’

Vic blew a shimmering smoke ring before he answered. ‘Been a bit skittish since they left, so I said I’d stay over. She’s a nice old lady, been good to me. And my uncle too, both of them have looked out for me. He was an extra-good bloke, like I said, he was in the war, you know. Shame he caught the cancer.’

‘You hear them talking? The visitors, I mean. What they said?’

Vic shook his head. ‘I was giving the car a wash. Too bad about that bump, but they said they’d pay for a panel beater to fix it up. Said it would be good as new, you’d never know she scratched it.’

‘Callahan said that?’

‘Nah, the other bloke, the pom. Up himself. Bit of a poofter, I reckon. Had one of them silly beards, you know, just on the chin.’

Berlin wrote his home phone number on a piece of paper from his notebook and handed it over. ‘Call me if she has any problems with anyone.’ He winked. ‘Anything you can’t handle, I mean.’

Vic nodded, folded the paper and slipped it into his trouser pocket.

‘Think you might get it in the will? The Holden, I mean.’

Vic turned and looked at the car. ‘I bloody wish.’

Berlin was halfway down the drive when the boy called after him. ‘Florist.’

He turned and looked back.

‘You were asking, the panel van. It was an FJ. From the florist.’

‘Did it have a sign on it?’

‘Nah, just a white van, nothing special. It pulled up behind them when they arrived, and some bloke got the flowers out of the back and took them inside.’

‘What did he look like?’

Vic shrugged. ‘A bloke, I dunno. Big enough, I suppose. Dressed all in white. Looked like a bit of a nong with this bloody great bunch of flowers in his mitts.’

Berlin knew that Beryl Moffit was nobody’s fool. When three men come visiting and one’s a heavyweight boxer she would get the message quick smart. Even if the boxer was carrying an armful of flowers.

Berlin started the car and glanced back across the street. Vic was up on the porch with a beer glass in one hand and Carter Brown in the other. The fat tabby cat was sitting in the front window with the lace curtains falling behind him. And in the middle of the front lawn of Shangri-La the push mower sat all alone, upright and abandoned.