St Kilda Blues (Charlie Berlin #3)(110)

‘Need a ride anywhere, buddy? Call it professional courtesy.’

‘Not if you’re in a Military Police jeep. I think my ears are going to snap off so I want something a bit less draughty.’

Karl grinned. ‘You do have your wits about you.’ He tossed Berlin his knitted cap. ‘Here, take this, it’s getting colder out there. I’ve got a spare in the jeep.’ He put out his hand. ‘Just doing my job earlier, Charlie, no offence meant. You should be able to grab a cab down the end of the street.’

The knitted cap made all the difference when he walked back out of the café and past the MP jeep parked on the next block. He hailed a taxi with a young English-speaking driver and more importantly a very efficient heater. It was getting dark when the taxi dropped him off outside Eichborndamm 179. Inside the reception area the clerk was waiting with a grey envelope on the counter in front of him.





FIFTY-SIX


Rebecca turned around from the window when he opened the door.

‘I was starting to get worried. The snow is really coming down.’

In the mirror over the desk he saw himself: a tired man in a heavy overcoat with the last remnants of snow caught in the folds of the khaki watch cap. He had shaken most of the snow off himself before entering the hotel lobby and what remained on his shoulders had melted on the ride up in the hotel elevator.

He tossed the envelope onto the bed along with the cap and his gloves before taking off his overcoat and scarf and hanging them in the small cupboard in the hallway. He walked across the room and gave Rebecca a soft kiss.

‘Sorry I had you worried. I decided it was quicker to just take a taxi than try to call. Do you think we can order some coffee from room service? And a sandwich. I missed lunch and I’m starving. And right now I really need to take a shower to warm up.’

Rebecca picked up the telephone as he walked into the bathroom and he heard her asking for coffee and chicken sandwiches for two. He smiled when she added a slice of chocolate cake to the order. There were several hand towels on the rack over the bath and he used one to carefully wipe his shoes dry. He felt a pang of guilt for getting dirt on the fresh white towel. Should he hang his suit up in here and let the steam from the shower smooth out the wrinkles? he wondered as he undressed and turned on the shower. As the hot water hit him he decided to stop worrying and wondering about things until he was warm again. There was clean underwear neatly folded on the washbasin when he turned off the shower and pulled back the plastic curtain. He dried himself, combed his hair and dressed. The room service waiter had set up their coffee and sandwiches on the small table by the window. The carpet was soft under his bare feet, the room warm enough for him not to shiver even though he was wearing just his suit trousers and a singlet. Rebecca poured coffee out of an insulated silver pot and he sat at the table, picking up the coffee cup with both hands, letting the warmth seep into his palms. He took a sandwich and bit into it. The filling was small pieces of celery and chunks of diced chicken breast bound together with mayonnaise. Rebecca hated celery. She put the plate with her sandwich to one side and cut the large slice of chocolate cake into two pieces.

He stared out into the black Berlin night as he ate. After eating his sandwich he finished off Rebecca’s. The coffee pot was empty and all the chocolate cake had disappeared before he finally told her what he had discovered at the records office.

‘Their files show Scheiner is exactly who he says. They have him serving in the Luftwaffe as an anti-aircraft gunner in Berlin. He was stationed at the Flakturme Tiergarten, the Zoo flak tower, from early 1943. His rank at the end of the war was Obergefreiter, a sort of Lance Corporal, I think. He was admitted to a Lazarette, that’s a military hospital, right before the Germans surrendered, with extensive burns to the left side of his body from a Russian flamethrower.’

Berlin crossed to the bed and opened the envelope. ‘It’s all here, the record-keeping is quite meticulous.’ He put a dozen photocopied pages on the bed.

Rebecca leafed through the copies. ‘I suppose this is one ghost put to bed then, Charlie.’

‘I suppose it is.’

He put the room service tray with their cups and plates out in the hallway while Rebecca booked them two airline seats out of West Berlin. They would fly back to Frankfurt in the morning, stay overnight in a hotel there and then they had two seats on a Qantas flight home. The Pan Am flight to Frankfurt was an early departure so Rebecca started packing their suitcase and then took a shower. Berlin looked at the overcoat and scarf on the hanger in the hallway cupboard. He would need it over the next few days and after that they would be back in a Melbourne summer, or what was left of it.

He was in bed when Rebecca came out of the bathroom. She spent ten minutes tidying up a few remaining items then took off the white hotel bathrobe, turned out the light and slipped into bed next to him. She was warm and smelled of talcum and soap and toothpaste and then of desire, and the tip of her tongue on his lips told him she wanted love and the tips of her fingers on the buttons of his pyjama top confirmed it. He had started wearing pyjamas when Sarah was born in case the child ever needed him in the night and now he realised that would never ever happen again.

Afterwards he didn’t want to sleep, to dream again, even if he dreamt of Sarah, because when he woke up he knew she would still be gone. The second cup of coffee he’d had with the chocolate cake helped with that. He felt for his dressing gown, got out of bed slowly so as not to disturb Rebecca but she was sleeping soundly. A notice on the desk in the room said shoes left outside in the corridor would be taken away and returned polished but that wasn’t Berlin’s way, not with brushes and a tin of Kiwi black nugget tucked away in a corner of his suitcase.