Black Wattle Creek (Charlie Berlin #2)(67)
This is the bad part of the dream, the really bad part. Berlin hates this part the most and desperately wants to wake up. A figure in the silently shuffling column opposite Berlin’s group stops and stares across at the POWs. She looks like she has just woken from a deep sleep and her eyes lock onto Berlin’s. He can’t look away. She is beautiful, despite the filthy striped tunic, the cropped hair and drawn face, her lips blue from hunger and cold.
They continue to stare at each other, the young woman standing quietly as the column of Jews moves slowly past her. An SS officer, not more than twenty, is suddenly at her side, screaming at her. Berlin has enough Kriegie Deutsche from the camp to understand the words ‘Move your arse, you filthy Jew cunt.’ The SS officer takes his pistol from its holster and places it against the woman’s temple. This is not a dream.
Please, oh please keep moving, Berlin begs her silently. Behind her, in the distance, he sees a raven circling. Closer, in painful detail, he sees the silver death’s-head insignia on the officer’s cap, the silver SS flashes on his jacket collar, and a small scar on the corner of his angry mouth. The third finger on his right hand, the hand holding the pistol, is missing above the second knuckle.
Please just keep moving, keep going. Berlin is mentally willing her to move with every ounce of strength he has. She just smiles at him, a wondrous smile, deep and serene. ‘I choose the moment of my going and you are my witness,’ she whispers to him.
Sometimes the dream is different, worse, if such a thing is possible. This is one of those times. ‘I know you,’ he says to the woman, and sees it is Rebecca. He hears her say, ‘Take care of the kids for me, Charlie.’
Berlin sees the officer’s finger tighten on the trigger, the slide move back, and then the empty shell casing eject, tumbling end over end away from the pistol. There is no sound, and the woman is gone.
He continues to stare at the place where her face has been. The puff of smoke from the muzzle is whisked away instantly by the chill wind.
‘Rebecca. ’ He screams her name, and that too is whipped away in the wind.
‘I’m here, Charlie, I’m here.’
Berlin feels her hand brushing his temple and he opens his eyes.
‘You’re still here.’
‘Always and forever, Charlie. Always and forever.’
He drifts away again and then she is back, just for a moment, standing over him. She is angry now and in her hand he sees she has a gun.
FORTY-ONE
His mouth was dry, his throat scratchy, irritated. The bucket beside the bed had pine-scented disinfectant splashed in the bottom but the room still smelled of vomit. Rebecca stood at the end of the bed watching him. She had a copy of the Herald in her hand, so he knew it had to be the afternoon.
‘What time is it?’ His voice was a croak.
‘Around four. I thought it was better to let you sleep it off. You left the car parked in the middle of the front lawn with the headlights on. How you made it home in one piece I’ll never know.’
I made it home twenty-nine times in one piece, he though to himself, but somehow he was smart enough not to say it. He couldn’t pick the tone in her voice. Was she angry? Sad? Disappointed? Or did she just not care? Not caring would be the worst thing, he realised. His head was pounding and he wished he was dead.
‘I’m sorry, Rebecca.’
She nodded. ‘Yes, me too.’
The house was quiet. If it was around four, then school would be over. ‘Where are the kids?’
‘Next door, they’ll be staying there for dinner. Sophia is making those pizza things they love. They were a bit boisterous when they got back from school and I didn’t want them to wake you.’
He tried to sit up. Even the most gentle movement of his head made it throb.
‘Actually that’s not completely true, Charlie. I didn’t want them to see their dad like this.’
He knew she was right and he was ashamed. ‘And it’s time we had a talk. I want to know what’s going on.’
He tried to clear his fuzzy head. What was going on? What did he need to remember?
‘You worked with a policewoman named Deborah Millikin, didn’t you? I remember you mentioning her once after a case. It was a while back, a kidnapping I think.’
Once was all it usually took. Rebecca seemed to remember everything.
She handed him the copy of the evening newspaper paper she was holding. The front-page headline read: ‘SHOCKING ST KILDA DOUBLE MURDER’.
Under the headline were two photographs. The pictures made his stomach heave and he gasped for air. One was Deborah Millikin. It looked like some sort of ID photograph and she wasn’t smiling. The other was Peter Chapman. Berlin had learned enough about photography, from Rebecca and from his police work, to pick the shot of Chapman as a grainy surveillance photo – telephoto lens, probably taken through a window. Chapman was holding a curtain aside and talking to someone just out of sight. Berlin saw the doors of the wall bed in the background.
Berlin had trouble focusing on the smaller text so Rebecca read the story to him. According to the Heralds crime reporter, local police had gone to a St Kilda flat around ten the previous evening, following an anonymous tip-off. Drugs had been found on the premises, along with two bodies. Peter Chapman was identified as a former RAF pilot, dishonourably discharged recently over drug use. Deborah Millikin was described as a policewoman who was under suspension at the time of her death for consorting with criminals. Each of the victims had been shot once in the head. Police inquiries were continuing and a third man, who had been seen in the vicinity, was being sought for questioning. The description of the third man was Berlin to a tee.