St Kilda Blues (Charlie Berlin #3)(12)
‘Something the child bride taught you?’ Berlin regretted the comment the moment it was out of his mouth. ‘Sorry, I’ll try to stop doing that.’
Roberts acknowledged the apology with a nod. ‘There are certain people who seem to think I might have a promising future in the police force. People who look at that sort of thing longer term.’
Did these people look at Roberts as a good copper who caught the crims, or as someone who was reliable and flexible and who knew how the system worked and how the real game was played?
‘You mean people with enough pull at the top to organise a parallel investigation?’
‘People like that, yes, and I suppose a parallel investigation is what we’re doing. And since I’m the one who brought you in on this, for appearances’ sake I should probably look like I’m in charge of what we do. Officially you’re still with the fraud squad, remember?’
‘It’s hard to forget.’
‘But for right now I’m happy just to follow your lead. And if we pull this off, manage to find the girl and she’s still alive, I’m fine with sharing the credit.’
If that was true then Roberts was in the wrong bloody job. Berlin knew how it would go without having to think about it too much. Find the girl safe and the person who appointed the person who appointed Roberts would be photographed smiling next to an also-smiling police commissioner and a very relieved Scheiner. If they didn’t find the girl, or they found her dead, fingers would almost certainly be pointed in someone’s direction, quite possibly his, and if there was any job lower than paper shuffling in the fraud squad it was London to a brick he’d wind up doing it.
‘One last thing, Bob. If we’re doing it my way then it’s got to be done my way, slow and steady. If Selden’s people are under pressure then they’ll go at it like bulls at a gate. I know the girl is missing and hopefully she’s still alive, but when you rush things you miss things. You okay with that?’
Roberts nodded. ‘Fair enough, Charlie, you’re the boss.’ He reached for the ignition key then hesitated. Berlin waited. When people hesitated you always waited.
‘Scheiner was in the military in Germany, back in the war. Just so you know, he’s got a few scars.’
‘No surprises there, it was a war.’
‘Just thought you should be aware, in case it made a difference.’ Roberts rubbed the side of his face. ‘The German thing, I meant, not the scars. You know, a couple of old soldiers on different sides.’
‘I was an airman and the war’s been over a long time, over for me too.’ It was a lie but Berlin knew that was the way most people wanted to hear it. ‘Besides, it was a bomb from a German Stuka that got your old man in the Middle East, wasn’t it? That make a difference to you and how you dealt with Scheiner?’
Roberts shook his head. ‘I suppose not. Anyway, whoever dropped that bomb on the nasty bastard did me and mum and the world a favour.’ He restarted the Triumph’s engine. ‘Righto then, I suppose we should get on with it.’ As he turned the sports car back out onto the roadway he leaned hard on the horn.
The police constable lounging against the parked divisional van straightened up and walked across the footpath to a tall brick pillar set into a high stone wall. He spoke into a metallic silver grille and by the time the Triumph turned left into the driveway a heavy steel gate was already sliding slowly open. The stone wall surrounding the house was broken only by the gate across the driveway. The wall was about seven feet high, Berlin judged, not like a prison but still high enough.
They drove up a slight incline onto a paved parking area in front of a double garage. The garage on the left side contained a very wide gold Cadillac with a left-hand drive warning sticker pasted on the rear chrome bumper bar. The right side of the garage held an E-Type Jaguar, the hard-top model in British racing green. Robert switched off the Triumph’s engine and the two men climbed out of the car. Roberts walked across to the Jaguar and bent down to peer in the driver’s side window. He looked back towards Berlin.
‘A bloke can dream, eh?’
Berlin studied the Scheiner residence. The house itself was two storeys, cream brick, and a wee bit too modern for his taste but he knew Rebecca would like it. The floor-to-ceiling front windows on the ground floor looked out onto a small, neat garden with a fountain surrounded by a well-kept lawn. Smoke was coming from a chimney at the side of the house. Did they burn money to keep warm? From the look of the place they could afford it. A bloke could dream about places like this too.
A uniformed constable was standing beside the front door. The two detectives crossed a portico and went in through the unlocked door, Berlin carefully wiping his shoes on a thick coir doormat before stepping inside. The interior of the house was just as modern as the outside. There was light-coloured, almost white, wood panelling and the pale beige carpet made Berlin glad he had wiped his feet. In the living room two detectives he vaguely recognised were sitting on a leather sofa. A coffee pot and cups were on the glass coffee table in front of them. Berlin could smell the coffee and it smelled good.
He turned around as a woman came into the living room carrying a plate of biscuits. Maybe forty, Berlin judged, with close-cropped hair, dark once but now patchy with flecks of grey. She was tall and slim, with a pale face and eyes red-rimmed from crying. Her neat, grey, tunic-style dress Berlin guessed was a uniform designed not to look too much like a uniform, and she was wearing flat, nicely polished shoes. She put the plate of biscuits on the coffee table in front of the detectives and turned to Berlin.