Black Wattle Creek (Charlie Berlin #2)(72)
‘That’s too bad, Lazlo, that was a nice-looking hearse. And now Callahan won’t even get to ride in it.’
‘True, Charlie, and I suppose somewhat ironic. And in fact Mr Callahan’s demise in this manner is even more ironic.’
‘How so?’
‘On more than one occasion Mr Callahan had commented to me that no matter how his life ended he was most adamant that he not be cremated. He did not wish to arrive in the after life as a pile of ashes.’
‘From what I know of the bloke, Lazlo, he was always going to wind up some place hot and fiery anyway.’ Berlin stood up and put out his hand. ‘The Snowy scheme is dangerous work, you should be careful.’
‘That is my intention. You should be careful too. If I had a God I would ask him to watch over you.’ Lazlo stood up to shake hands and then put his arms around Berlin in a tight embrace. ‘Travel well, Charlie, and tell your Rebecca if she ever needs a friend I am there.’
Berlin pulled on his overcoat and walked across the room. He stopped at the door with his hand on the doorknob and turned back to face Lazlo. ‘Remember when I asked you the other night if you were a spy? You didn’t exactly give me an answer.’
There was a pause before Lazlo answered. ‘No,’ he said.
‘No, you’re not a spy?’
‘No, you are correct, I didn’t exactly give you an answer.’
The two men looked at each other across the room and then Charlie Berlin walked away, pulling the door closed behind him.
FORTY-FOUR
A full moon was rising, a giant yellow orb against the horizon. A bomber’s moon, Berlin noted wryly. He had chosen the back way again, turning off the main road at the bridge. Had he taken the right turn? he wondered after a few minutes. The windmill should have appeared by now. And the abandoned farmhouse and the sheds where he’d found the truck with the missing licence plate.
A half-mile on he pulled over next to a peppercorn tree that looked familiar and cut the engine. The wire fencing bordering the track was new, unbroken by gates. Beyond it, all Berlin could see in the moonlight were freshly ploughed paddocks. The edge of his headlight beam washed over a shiny painted metal sign tied to the fence with loops of thin wire. The sign told him he was looking at an experimental lucerne crop sown by the CSIRO, with the added advice that unauthorised persons should keep out.
There was no sign of the oil-drum letterbox or the house or the sheds or the windmill. The Studebaker’s headlight beams bouncing off the tin sign reflected up into the branches of the tree. He half opened the driver’s side door. Dammit, why hadn’t he remembered to squirt some WD40 on that hinge. He leaned out to look up. Remnants of frayed rope that had once held a tyre swing were wrapped around a thick branch.
So the farm was gone, and with it any physical link to the dicky licence plate that had started all this. Len Manning was dead, so were Peter Chapman and Deborah Millikin. And now Callahan. These bastards were good at tying up loose ends, much too good. What would happen if Berlin turned back now? he wondered. What if he pulled his head in, went back to work, forgot about the whole damn thing? Would they leave him be? Leave him to his life with Rebecca and the kids, let sleeping dogs lie?
He thought about the fire and Pip squealing in terror, and Sarah shouting for him to save her doggie, and his family standing in the aftermath in the moonlight, Peter crying, Sarah on Rebecca’s hip. He was responsible for keeping them out of danger. And there was something else, something Lazlo had said an hour ago in that St Kilda knocking shop. For better or for worse, he realised that Lazlo was right: Charlie Berlin was, very sadly, a policeman.
He also thought of Rebecca waving on the front porch earlier tonight and remembered Gwen, the WAAF. He saw her standing by the crew bus beside the runway in the long English twilight, waving the crew goodbye while young Gary the navigator watched her through the plexiglass window in the fuselage. His Lancaster was nicknamed the Berlin Express for a reason and back then, a lifetime ago, Berlin had been a rule-breaker. He had lived by what his crew called the Three Gs – get there, get it done and get the f*ck out. And Charlie Berlin’s Three Gs had worked for them twenty-nine times.
He pulled his door dosed and started the Studebaker’s engine, turning the wheel in the direction of the Blackwattle Creek Asylum. ‘Get there and get it done,’ he said out loud, surprised at the sound of his own voice. ‘And then get home,’ he added. He pushed the accelerator pedal hard to the floor and the big car surged forward, firing on all cylinders, gathering speed, rushing towards the rising moon and the target for tonight.
Berlin cut the lights and engine just before he topped the last rise. He coasted downhill as far as he could, finally rolling the Studebaker into a shadowy dip to the right of the track. Rather than risk the noise of the handbrake, he left the vehicle in gear. He slid across the seat and climbed out the passenger side. From the floor behind the seat he retrieved a piece of water pipe with a taped handgrip, along with a towrope and his torch, which now held a fresh set of batteries. The temperature was dropping quickly but he left his overcoat in the car, along with his hat. It was a five-minute walk and that would warm him up. He’d need free movement with his arms very soon in any case.
Smoke was wafting out of the tall brick chimney, backlit by moonlight. As he got closer Berlin could smell burning flesh and he almost retched. What sort of awful memories had that smell brought back to Len? Once in the car park, he walked more carefully, trying not to make noise on the gravel. When he reached the iron door in the rear wall he dropped the rope on the ground in front of the steps. Using the end of the water pipe he hammered on the door three times and then stepped back into the shadows. He heard the peephole cover open then close, and he waited. The bolts slid across, the door opened and Stansfield put his head out, peering into the darkness.