Black Wattle Creek (Charlie Berlin #2)(62)

The rain had stopped but the gutters were still running and he had to jump a miniature river to get into the alley. She had the vehicle parked hard up against the buildings on the left so he had no option other than to get into the seat behind the driver. The· car was three or four years old and well kept. The interior smelled like fish and chips and Berlin wondered if there was grease on the upholstery.

The woman was watching him in the rear-vision mirror. She had mousey-blonde hair cut short.

‘I know you from Russell Street, don’t I? Took me a moment, you being out of uniform. Milligan, was it?’

‘It’s Millikin, Deborah. Or Deb if you want. I met you once, on the Sawden kidnapping case.’

The Sawden case had involved a little boy who’d gone missing for a week before finally turning up as a runaway. He’d taken off after his father had given him a belting. When he came back his relieved father had hugged him for a moment and then belted the kid’s backside black and blue all over again for scaring his mum and wasting police time. Berlin remembered Millikin as the policewoman who was there to comfort the frantic parents while they waited for news of their youngster.

‘Okay, out-of-uniform Policewoman Millikin, what can I do for you?’

Millikin turned around and looked at him over the seat back. She had bad skin covered by a touch too much makeup.

‘It’s more about what I can do for you, DS Berlin.’

‘And that is?’

‘Introduce you to someone.’

‘For business or pleasure?’

‘Don’t be a dickhead, this is too important. And you’re on some pretty thin ice right now. You do know that, right?’

Berlin put both hands on the seat back in front of him and leaned towards the woman until their noses were almost touching.

‘What I do know, Millikin, is that I’m cold and hungry and tired and I’m really not in the mood. And while I’m on leave right now I still outrank you, so you might want to watch who you go calling a dickhead.’

She shook her head. ‘They were right about you.’

‘What’s more, I don’t like the idea of being followed, and you’ve been on my tail for days. You want to tell me about that? And who the hell are “they”?’

The rain had started up again and water was beading on the windscreen.

‘Okay,’ she said after a pause, ‘here’s what’s going on. Last Saturday afternoon I was stuck on duty at Russell Street. You blokes might not like lady coppers too much but we’re handy to have around when everyone above the rank of sergeant wants to slope off to the grand final or the pub. Anyway, around four the deputy commissioner comes in and he’s ropable. Got called away from the last quarter at the MCG to meet with someone.’

As the deputy commissioner was famous as a rabidly loyal Melbourne follower, Berlin assumed it must have been something pretty bloody important to get him away from the dying minutes of the match of the year.

‘I had to dig out your file and take it up to the top floor quick smart, along with a pot of tea and some biscuits. I took a bit of a squiz at your file while the jug was boiling.’

‘Probably not all that long a read, I suppose.’

‘Not too exciting either. I don’t know whose toes you might have stepped on but I wouldn’t put money on you making commissioner any day this century. I took the file in with the tea, and the brass ignored me as usual. The older blokes really don’t like lady coppers, do they?’

She was right about that. The moment any policewoman left the detectives’ office the comments would start, usually led off by Chater making a crude suggestion about the only thing they were good for. Berlin always found that surprising, given the man had four daughters.

‘Anyhow, I poured the tea and as I was leaving the commissioner handed your file across the desk to this bloke he was entertaining and said, “This is what we have on the bastard, what do you want done with him? Or would you rather handle it yourself?’”

Hearing that he wasn’t the top floor’s golden-haired boy wasn’t news to Berlin, but he didn’t like the idea of being palmed off like that.

‘Who was the bloke he was entertaining?’

‘Never seen him before, but he was old, like you, with a nicer suit. Someone had scribbled a note in the deputy commissioner’s diary in the outer office saying the bloke was named Smith and he was from the Health Department.’

‘Big bloke, maybe six foot? Fortyish, with a goatee beard?’

Millikin nodded. ‘Close enough. Pommy accent too. You know, very hoity toity, that stick-up-your-bum way of speaking.’

That was a turn-up for the books. Jessop and the deputy commissioner having tea. And tossing Berlin’s file back and forth for good measure. ‘Anything else?’ he asked.

‘Smith’s driver.’

‘What about him?’

‘Heavyset bloke, nasty-looking. He was sniffing about downstairs while they were having the meeting. Seemed to recognise one or two of the older coppers on duty, and he knew his way around.’

That had to be Stansfield, Berlin guessed. An ex-cop, he’d said, and still probably owed the odd favour, so it would have been easy enough for him to track down Bob Roberts as the policeman who’d done the licence-plate search. And Roberts had paid a very high price for doing Berlin that favour.