Black Wattle Creek (Charlie Berlin #2)(43)
TWENTY-EIGHT
Mid-morning, with everyone at work, it was a quick drive to the hospital from Beryl’s house. Parking was also easy, since visiting hours didn’t start until two. Walking in through the main doors was the hard part for Berlin, but deep breathing and thinking about Sarah and how she giggled when he tickled her helped him to the elevators. He got an icy glare from the nurse in charge of Bob’s floor when he stepped out, but the doctor from Sunday was on duty and recognised him.
‘He’s doing well, DS Berlin. Being young and fit helps. His eyesight looks to be okay too, which was our main worry. Probably going to be some facial scarring but that should fade in time.’
The venetian blinds in Bob’s room were open and there was a view out over the parkland towards the zoo. Dull grey light filtered through the overcast, flattening the gently undulating landscape.
Roberts was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. Berlin pulled the visitor’s chair over to the side of the bed and sat down.
‘Good to see you awake, Bob, you’re looking a lot better than when I last stopped by.’
There was no mirror in the room, so Roberts couldn’t catch him in that lie. His facial swelling appeared to be down a little but the bruising had progressed from deep blue-black to yellowish, and the white of his left eye was bright crimson with blood. His right eye was still under a bandage.
‘You remember what happened?’ Berlin picked up a notepad from the steel cabinet by the bed and put it next to Roberts’s right hand. ‘Can I get you a pencil?’
Roberts kept staring at the ceiling.
‘Rebecca will help look after Alice and the kids as much as she can till you’re back on your feet. I guess you heard Essendon got done like a dinner on Saturday?’
Still no reaction. The sun broke from behind a cloud and the room was filled with light.
‘You thought you were going to die, didn’t you?’
The bloodied left eye turned in Berlin’s direction. You’ll get over it, get better, be good as new, Berlin wanted to say, but he stayed silent. Once you’d looked into the black hole that was death and clawed your way back you were never the same,
Roberts turned his gaze back to the ceiling and kept it there. After a couple more minutes of silence Berlin took the hint and stood up. He didn’t say goodbye.
Back at the nurse’s desk by the elevators, the doctor was looking at several X-rays clipped to a wall-mounted light box.
That was quick,’ he said to Berlin.
‘He didn’t feel much like company.’
‘Probably understandable,’ the doctor said. He pointed to the X-rays. These are the latest pictures, DS Berlin. Just came up from Radiography.’
Berlin picked up the acrid aroma of hypo, or sodium thiosulphate – photographic fixer. He knew the smell, and the name, from visiting Rebecca’s father’s darkroom with her. He’d enjoyed watching her move prints through the trays of chemicals, making black and white images of their children appear as if by magic under the dim orange lighting. While the prints washed in running water, the two of them would have sex up against the enlarger bench, because Rebecca said it was a traditional practice in darkrooms. He’d enjoyed that part too.
The doctor ran his finger down the shadowy black and white images. ‘The ribs aren’t too bad. The jaw and this cheekbone fracture are my main worry. Still, like I said before, he’s young and fit. It’ll take some time but he’ll get over it.’
‘Time heals all wounds, eh Doc? That’s what they say, right? I might give him a few days before I stop by again.’
At the hospital entrance a nice elderly lady volunteer in the hospital gift shop directed him to the closest public telephone. He tried Gladys again and this time she answered. She sounded like she might have been drinking, or perhaps her doctor had given her that pill after all. But she remembered Berlin and their conversation on the night her husband died, so he got right to the point.
‘Glad, when Len was on nights at Blackwattle Creek, did he ever mention anything about driving to other places, picking things up?’
She didn’t answer straight away. Berlin guessed she was trying to sort things through in a fuzzy mind.
‘I don’t think so, Mr Berlin, not that I recall anyway. He said he pretty much always had his hands full from the moment his shift started. He said he didn’t have time to scratch himself.’
‘So his job was mainly looking after the inmates? And that took up all his time?’
‘That’s right. He was doing midnight to midday. There were supposed to be three or four people on at night but mostly it was just him on his Pat Malone, he used to say. Of course things were beginning to get a bit easier after they started transferring the loonies out.’
Berlin paused. He remembered that the asylum was a lot quieter than he’d imaged it would be. And Len was doing a lot of standing around for someone who was supposed to be going flat chat. ‘They were getting rid of patients?’
‘Oh yes, it had been happening slowly since January. That was the only thing that made it bearable, he told me. Some went off to Aradale and a lot to Beechworth. Len was hoping they’d get it down to none quick smart, so he could transfer somewhere else. It was a shame, because he was happy till they made him do the nights. He said it all changed when that Dr Jessop took over last Christmas.’