St Kilda Blues (Charlie Berlin #3)(42)
‘Okay, but you do lose and now you have a tattoo that gives the game away. What can you do?’
‘I’ve heard stories of people trying to burn the tattoo off with a hot iron or using acid or sometimes trying to disguise it to look like a scar from a bullet wound.’
Berlin wasn’t sure how he could go about getting Gudrun’s father to take his shirt off. In any case, if the Russian flamethrower burn went right down his left side as he suspected, any evidence might be gone.
‘Would there be records of SS membership in Germany?’
‘You bombed the shit out of Germany, remember? Did I ever say thank you, by the way?’
‘Some records might have survived.’
Lazlo shrugged. ‘That’s very true, and you know how the Germans are with records. In fact, I myself have made several successful inquiries on such matters through contacts I have, but it takes time, you understand. For you, a good place to perhaps start might be the Deutsche Dienststelle in West Berlin.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It is the Wehrmacht Information Office for War Losses and POWs. They still hold extensive records on people who served in the armed forces from ’39 to ‘45. You may have some success there but for the SS, this is a more tricky area. When they saw which way the war was going the Shutzstaffel made a priority of destroying everything incriminating. ’
‘So you think it’s not possible?’
Lazlo shook his head slowly. ‘Not impossible, Charlie, but very, very difficult.’
‘I think I still have to try.’
‘Of course, but you need to remember that names can be changed. And in the confusion after the war, many were. People who had nothing to go back to or a past they wanted to avoid found it very easy to create a new identity. If you go to Hungary and search for Lazlo Horvay, journalist, for instance, you will find no records that pre-date 1946, and yet here I am in all my glory.’
Berlin stared into his drink. He could feel Lazlo’s eyes studying him.
‘Give me a name, Charlie. I’ll see what I can do.’
Berlin shook his head. ‘It’s just a hunch and I’m probably wrong. Any chance you can tell me exactly who to approach and how to go about it? I can say it’s police business.’
‘That I can do, Charlie, but official channels can take a long time on this sort of thing. Unofficial is sometimes better.’
‘This bloke’s not going anywhere.’
‘Perhaps not but in matters such as this some, shall we say, distance can be useful. Sometimes such inquiries as these can set events in motion, producing unexpected outcomes. Sometimes such inquiries can be like lighting a fuse.’ Lazlo leaned across the table and put his hand on top of Berlin’s. ‘You always want to make your fuse long enough, Charlie, you want to keep some separation. Too short a fuse, too close a connection and a man can sometimes be caught up in whatever follows after he lights it.’
Berlin smiled. ‘You sound like me talking to Peter about fireworks on cracker night, Lazlo, trying to stop him blowing a finger off or burning down someone’s back shed. I think I can handle this.’
Lazlo sat back in his chair. ‘As you wish then. I’ll have my secretary put the address details together first thing. They can be dropped off at Russell Street or, if you prefer, at Rebecca’s studio tomorrow by noon.’ The steaks were put in front of them and Lazlo smiled. The plates were large and needed to be. Besides glistening steaks charred with a criss-cross pattern from the grill, there were mounds of red cabbage, potato salad and bright green creamed spinach.
Lazlo picked up his knife and fork. ‘One last thing, Charlie, about your SS man.’
Berlin looked up from his plate. ‘I said I wasn’t certain, Lazlo, remember?’
‘Sure, okay, about your possible SS man, who may or may not be. In the Snowy I met a lot of people who like me hold no love for the Nazis, and amongst them people with certain skills should they be needed.’
Berlin waited. Lazlo leaned towards him across the table and lowered his voice.
‘I know a man, a Czechoslovak who the British SOE trained to blow up trains and bridges and is now using his talents blasting nice, neat holes into mountains. A man like that has always access to certain useful items, items that would also be very hard to trace.’
Berlin didn’t much care for the direction their conversation was taking. ‘I don’t have any proof and I might be dead wrong about my suspicions. And I’m a policeman, I can’t go around having people blown up even if I wanted too.’
Lazlo nodded and sat back. ‘I take your point. But if things are confirmed by your investigations and certain steps need to be taken you can always call on me. But for right now, Charlie, I have my suspicions that this steak will be the most tender piece of meat that you have ever tasted. I think perhaps we should investigate that.’
Lazlo was right about the steak. But Berlin remembered the photograph of Melinda Marquet’s scrawny body in the morgue and thought about young Gudrun Scheiner missing for almost two days now. He surprised Lazlo and himself by pushing the plate away with his dinner only half finished.
THE DESERT, Dusk
He rummaged through the pile of supplies in the back of the Dodge until he found a silver one-gallon metal container with a screw top. The label indicated that the tin contained methylated spirits and there was also a warning that the contents were highly flammable. He unscrewed the cap and laid the container on its side so the contents poured out over the back of the car and over the hemp tow rope. He was about to toss the match into the vehicle when he remembered he would need a hat. His was already soaked with the methylated spirits so he took Brother Brian’s.