St Kilda Blues (Charlie Berlin #3)(43)
At first he thought the fire hadn’t taken and then he realised that the methylated spirits produced almost invisible flames. When the tow rope caught and then the cardboard packaging on the film supplies, smoke began to form. Wanting to watch what happened next from a safe distance, he found a small patch of soft dirt under some spinifex about a hundred yards from the burning vehicle. Squatting on his haunches, naked, with his kitbag and water bottles beside him he waited.
He began to worry the fire was going to burn itself out without doing the amount of damage he needed, but then the jerry can of petrol ignited and after that the vehicle’s half-full fuel tank. The smell was quite disgusting. He wondered what would have happened if he had put the Abo into the vehicle still alive. The heat radiating from the conflagration was hot on his skin and then he realised there was something hotter than the burning car, something lower down on his body.
The fire mostly burned itself out after thirty minutes, though the rubber tyres took longer. The plume of black smoke had been broken up quickly by the wind and fortunately didn’t seem to attract any attention. The shell of the vehicle was still red hot, too hot to approach, but even from a distance he could see the shrivelled and blackened corpses in the front seat and knew that identification would be impossible.
He got dressed and ate another of his sandwiches, ignoring the smell from the vehicle. He would sleep here tonight under the spinifex with the dagger in his hand. In the morning he would cut some brush and use it to remove his footprints from around the vehicle just in case they brought in black trackers after he and Brother Brian were reported missing and the vehicle was discovered. He would drag the brush behind him on his way back to the road and, if there was wind, any sign of him would soon be gone. But just in case, he decided he would walk in a wide circle through the bush, coming out at least a mile further down the road in the direction of Adelaide.
He had enough water for a couple days as long as he didn’t exert himself too much. The remaining sandwiches were already shrivelling up in the heat but should last him through breakfast tomorrow, then lunch and tea. After that he might have to look for snakes or a goanna. He probably should have kept the spear, he realised. If a truck or a car didn’t come by within two or three days he would die. But of course he was dead already, burned up in a car that had somehow wandered from the track. It would be dark soon and in the fading light he looked at his new life. He had Fatso’s birth certificate, Brother Brian’s wristwatch and six pounds, five shillings and sixpence. And he had his lovely, lovely dagger.
He sat under the shelter of the spinifex and methodically sharpened the dagger. As he worked the blade back and forth across the stone he decided that he and the blade were brothers. They were about to start on a journey together and the thought both cheered and warmed him. The memory of Brother Brian’s blood washing hot and wet over his hand on the dagger and the metallic taste and sticky feel of it on his tongue warmed him even more.
EIGHTEEN
Roberts had forgotten to fill the Triumph’s petrol tank so they stopped at an Ampol service station out on Pascoe Vale Road. Berlin re-read the Marquet file while Roberts smoked and an attendant in a dark blue boiler suit filled the tank with petrol and then lifted the bonnet to check the oil and water. Full driveway service was becoming a bit of a rarity these days.
The Triumph’s radio was up high with someone singing about going up, up and away in a beautiful balloon. Berlin reached across and turned it off. He’d like to be somewhere far away right now but he had his doubts about getting there by balloon, even a beautiful one.
Roberts dropped his cigarette butt on the service station’s concrete driveway. ‘So why Melton, Charlie? Not that I mind a nice drive in the country.’ He turned to the service station attendant who had just closed the bonnet on the sports car and winked. ‘Don’t forget the windscreen, eh, sport.’
Berlin looked up from the folder. ‘I went through all the reports last night. Every one of the girls was reported missing from a dance or a discotheque except for Melinda Marquet.’
‘Okay, that’s what the report said. According to her mum and dad, Melinda was all tucked up in bed by nine in the evening like a good little girl and was gone the next morning. How’s that going to help us with finding Gudrun?’
‘If the missing girls are all connected then we need to find a break in the pattern, Bob. If it’s the same bloke doing all this then he deviated from his normal pattern. And that deviation might give us a clue. And there’s something else.’ Berlin opened the folder to the notepaper clipped to the back cover. ‘It says here that one of the Melton coppers, a probationary constable named O’Brian, got a slightly different story out of Melinda’s sister Maud when he first questioned her. She said something about Melinda having a boyfriend and sneaking out to go to a dance. But when the detectives questioned her about it in front of her parents she just clammed up. After they found Melinda’s body the girl refused to talk to anyone. And so far it looks like the blokes officially on the murder case haven’t bothered to look into that angle.’
‘And what did she tell the Melton copper, exactly?’
Berlin closed the folder. ‘That’s what I want to find out. We’ll have a chat with this Constable O’Brian first and then a word with young Maud. Melton won’t take us too long given the way you drive and the girl should be in school so we can see her without the parents present. So fix the bloke up for the petrol and let’s go.’