Black Wattle Creek (Charlie Berlin #2)(52)
‘For now, as I said, I drive a hearse. I think you and I can in time perhaps be friends, but right now, if this creates difficulties for you, I understand of course.’
There was a mouthful of wine left in Lazlo’s glass. It took every ounce of strength Berlin had to not reach across the table for it.
‘I’m getting in deep into something I don’t understand, Lazlo.’
Lazlo shook his head. ‘You are a smart fellow, Charlie, and a detective. I’m sure you can work it out. Or you could perhaps ask your wife. She is smarter than all of us, but I think you know this already.’
‘I don’t want to get her involved if I can help it. I think this thing might have something to do with the government somehow.’
‘Then it might be best that you shouldn’t tell me about it.’
‘I can’t trust you?’
‘Not for a moment, Charlie, trust me on that. Now, why don’t you finish off my schnitzel, eh? The way you have been looking at it for the past five minutes makes me tempted to call for the Vice Squad.’
He slid the plate across the table. ‘By the way, are you sure it was Special Branch who came to visit and not ASIO?’
‘Who?’ Berlin had never heard the name before.
Lazlo smiled. ‘It is an interesting fact that in totalitarian regimes the secret police are very well known to the public, and in open, so-called free, societies they are very much in fact secret and often unknown.’
‘Australia doesn’t have a secret police, Lazlo.’
Lazlo drank the last of the wine in his glass. ‘But really, Charlie, if they are truly secret, how would you know?’
THIRTY-THREE
The drive from Acland Street took around fifteen minutes. He found a handy place to park without too much trouble, a spot in a laneway directly opposite Callahan’s. The streetlight was burned out at the entrance to the laneway so his car was hidden in deep shadow, well out of sight but with a good view of the front of the funeral parlour. He slid across the seat to the passenger side, to wait. The radio stayed off, partly to save the car battery but mainly so that the glow from the dial wouldn’t attract attention. A near full moon broke through scudding clouds and for a moment, in the silence and stillness, he heard the rumble of his four Merlins and felt the vibrations as they pulled him towards the target.
Had any of it been worth it? he wondered. The death and destruction, the pain and the terror and the loss. Could that loss ever be balanced? Freedom had been the issue, they told them. The sacrifices by the Allied airmen had certainly helped free France, Belgium, Holland, Norway and Denmark. On the other hand, they had also liberated the Poles and Czechs and Hungarians and the little Baltic states from the German Reich to the joys of becoming part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics – whether they liked it or not. And was Lazlo right about freedom being an illusion? One thing Berlin was certain of was that whoever Lazlo Horvay might be he’d never be free of that number on his arm.
A couple of years earlier, young Peter had come down with an illness diagnosed as scarlet fever. Treatment was a daily injection of penicillin, and the doctor arrived promptly each morning in his mud-spattered Land Rover, stomping up the drive in gumboots. The vehicle and gumboots made sense in the outer-suburban and still semi-rural area of his practice. The penicillin was delivered via a very big needle, and by the fifth morning Peter’s wailing had them all on edge. Berlin offered to give Rebecca a break by taking four-year-old Sarah into the city for the day. The reality was they both knew he was having a hard time seeing and hearing his child in pain.
The plan was to take the train into town and have a lunch of meat pies and banana splits in the shiny, clattering Myer cafeteria, Sarah’s favourite place to eat. Afterwards they would take a slow walk up Swanston Street to the state library. He knew she would love the massive domed reading room but in reality he had an ulterior motive for this visit. Sarah had recently begun begging for a pony, and though Berlin found it almost impossible to deny her anything this request was out of the question. The library building was also the home of the state museum, with one of its most popular exhibits being the stuffed body of the legendary racehorse Phar Lap. The massive body, displayed in a glass case near the entrance, would dwarf her, and Berlin planned to explain to the child that this was how big ponies eventually grew, and that they just didn’t have the room at home.
Sarah sat beside him on the train, wearing her best party dress and white socks and patent-leather black shoes with little straps. She was singing softly to herself, swinging her legs as the train rattled and swayed. He looked down at her soft face and gentle eyes and the brown hair just like her mother’s and he knew he would die if anything ever happened to her.
‘What’s that song?’ he asked. ‘I haven’t heard it before.’
She smiled. ‘Oh, I’m just singing the lady’s numbers.’
He glanced across at the woman seated opposite them. She had a shock of pure white hair but when he looked into the woman’s face he realised she was not even forty. She was in a short-sleeved dress and white gloves, and her left arm was hooked through the strap of her handbag. On her right forearm was a crude tattoo, the numbers that made up the lyrics of Sarah’s song. Berlin thought the woman looked incredibly tired.
He patted his daughter’s hand softly. ‘I think that’s probably enough singing for now, what do you say?’