St Kilda Blues (Charlie Berlin #3)(30)
The boy quickly learned the procedures for moving the paper through the soapy-slick developer, the vinegar-smelling acetic acid stop bath and then the acrid hypo fixer, used to make the images permanent. He also quickly picked up on the special signals indicating it was the right moment for him to reach under Brother Brian’s robe and tug rhythmically at the skinny penis, aiming it carefully when the moment was right into the bin under the bench that held any badly made prints.
Brother Brian would groan and whimper and jerk his hips forwards then catch his breath in great gasps and finally slump exhausted against the darkroom sink. Sometimes he would weep afterwards and always quietly beg God’s forgiveness while ignoring the boy, who went back to his assigned task at the darkroom sink. The boy didn’t find that part of his job too onerous and it seemed to ensure that the nightly visitors with the lamp never stopped by his bed.
THIRTEEN
Neither man spoke on the ride back out to Berlin’s place. It had already been a very long day. After the Buddha’s Belly they had visited a half-dozen other dance venues.
All they had to show for it was the knowledge that what might be a cool and groovy and happening scene on a weekend night was pretty damn depressing on a weekday afternoon. Without the loud music, a packed dance floor and a lightshow pulsing through a mist of sweat, cheap perfume, Old Spice aftershave and cigarette smoke, ‘sad’ was the first word that came to mind for Charlie Berlin.
Roberts carried the bundle of newspapers and the files into the house and dumped them on the kitchen table. Berlin filled the kettle and put it on the gas.
‘You want tea, Bob? You can have coffee if you like, if you can figure out how to use that bloody percolator.’
‘Tea’s good.’ Berlin took down the tea caddy from the shelf and put two scoops into the pot. He was using a smaller teapot now that it was just him and Rebecca.
‘It’s a hell of a lot easier with just one.’ Berlin leaned back against the kitchen bench by the sink, watching the kettle on the flickering gas. ‘Just one what, Bob?’
‘Just one victim. Makes it easier for us, that was what you taught me a long time back, remember? Mostly it’s someone they know, someone they trust. If it’s totally random and there’s no connection between the girls it’s going to be harder.’
‘You ever hear any of the older blokes talk about Arnold Sodeman?’
Roberts shook his head.
‘Arnold Karl Sodeman, also known as the Schoolgirl Strangler. It was back before the war, must have been in the early ’30s. I remember hearing my grandad talk about the case. Sodeman abducted and strangled four girls. I think the oldest was fifteen and the youngest around six. Took them four years to catch him because the first two were total strangers. The last pair were actually kids of family friends and that’s how they eventually nabbed him, not too long after he killed them.’
‘Did he get the long drop?’
Berlin nodded. ‘Didn’t appeal the death sentence, said he was sick in the head and when he had a skinful he lost control. They did an autopsy after he swung and he was right, he actually had something in his brain that was apparently aggravated by grog.’
‘Not an excuse though, is it?’
‘That’s not for us to say, Bob.’ He poured boiling water into the teapot. ‘But you’re right, even if it’s the same bloke doing these abductions, if the victims are all total strangers taken at random then finding Gudrun isn’t going to be easy.’
‘The Yanks seem to get a lot of it.’
Berlin was looking for the tea cosy but gave up. ‘A lot of what?’
‘This kind of thing – multiple abductions, murders. I was just reading a book by a bloke named Brophy who calls the people who do this stuff serial murderers. He reckons there’s always a pattern to it and they mostly choose people they don’t know, which makes it hard to track them down. Been going on for years over there, apparently.’
Berlin picked up a strainer. Jesus, just what a man wanted to hear with a half-dozen or more girls missing. Was Melbourne’s very own serial murderer targeting dances and discotheques hunting for teenage victims? He poured the tea.
‘I thought Zane Gray was your preferred reading material, Bob.’
‘They’ve got a good library at the uni and my girl spends a lot of her days and nights there. Their Zane Gray collection is a bit limited and a bloke has to fill in his time somehow. Wouldn’t have any biscuits or fruitcake, would you?’
Berlin hunted around and found a tin of assorted sweet biscuits but no fruitcake. Roberts took a couple of coconut-flecked Iced VoVos, which were Sarah’s favourites.
‘I don’t recall you ever having a Doberman, Charlie, just Pip the terrier.’
Berlin decided he would have an Iced VoVo too. ‘Never did, it was just a story. Stupid bugger was always going to talk, I didn’t want to beat around the bush till he decided to do it. I just nudged him along a bit, that was all.’
‘You learn that in the fraud squad?’
Berlin shook his head. ‘Funny thing about the fraud squad is, on our cases, people are just dying to come clean, confess. It’s not really investigating. You generally just have to show up and chat for a bit, wait till they’re ready to confess.’
Roberts had finished the last of the Iced VoVos and searched through the biscuit tin till he found an Orange Slice. He dipped it halfway into his tea. ‘Funny that – you and Scheiner maybe crossing paths during the war, him taking pot shots at your bomber.’