St Kilda Blues (Charlie Berlin #3)(48)
‘It’s unsalted. I am sorry, I’ve forgotten your name, Detective.’
‘That’s not a problem. It’s Berlin, but just call me Charlie.’ He took another bite of the scone and smiled at her.
‘My husband only likes unsalted butter, Mr Berlin. Charlie.’
Mr Marquet grunted again and looked at his wife, or rather, through her. Mr Marquet gets what he wants, Berlin decided. Was that anger there a long time before his daughter went missing, was murdered?
There was a photograph of the five Marquet girls on a sideboard beside Berlin. Melinda, the victim, was obviously the oldest. If it was a recent photograph, Berlin guessed the ages of the next two at perhaps thirteen and twelve, and then there was a gap to a child who looked around seven, and another, possibly aged five. Any other time he might have joked about a man surrounded by six women, but now wasn’t the time. In any case, Clive Marquet didn’t seem like the type who appreciated a joke.
There had been no sign of liquor in the living room but if he opened any of the kitchen cupboards Berlin wondered what he would find. Not beer – beer drinkers were usually convivial, and Clive Marquet looked like the kind of man who took his alcohol in private. But of course, it takes one to know one, Berlin thought.
Robert had his clipboard out and was asking questions. Mrs Marquet sat quietly and let her husband do the talking. The man grunted and snapped and said they were questions he’d answered before, for the uniformed men, and afterwards for the detectives, and then again when the body had been found.
Berlin watched and listened. Clive Marquet was a bully, he decided, and he didn’t like bullies.
Mrs Marquet refilled Berlin’s teacup and he suddenly realised he had to piss. He also remembered Constable O’Brian’s cryptic suggestion that he should have a look at the toilet.
Mrs Marquet pointed him to a doorway down the hall. He passed two doorways opening off the passageway. The one on the right was obviously the master bedroom, with a double bed and wardrobe taking up most of the space. The other bedroom had two bunk beds and a small dressing table painted pink. Each of the bunk beds had a jumbled assortment of dolls on the pillows. A two-bedroom house was a small space to raise five daughters, which was no doubt why the Marquets had installed the old schoolhouse out the back.
He walked into the bathroom and turned to lock the door behind him. There was no lock. On his left was a large bathtub with a showerhead suspended over it. The shower curtain was clear plastic. There was also a small washbasin and facing it a flush toilet with a wooden seat. A floor-to-ceiling window filled the wall next to the toilet. Berlin recognised the hand of an amateur carpenter in the construction and installation of the window frame. He unzipped and pissed into the toilet bowl. Outside in the yard, through the window, he could see the circle of bright green grass that indicated the presence of a septic tank. Was the window one-way glass, he wondered? Was it mirrored on the outside, reflecting the bush surroundings, while from inside you could sit in privacy and do your business looking out over the bushland?
He zipped up and flushed and washed his hands at the basin. Above the basin was a mirror and above the mirror was a light fitting. The bulb in the light fitting was one of those mirror-backed globes that threw a strong directional light. Berlin had installed a fitting like that above his back door years ago, after someone had tried to burn down a darkroom he had been building. When he first turned it on at night he hadn’t liked the effect, the harsh light reminding him of the lights along the barbed-wire perimeter fence of the prisoner of war camp in Poland. When the bulb burnt out six months later he hadn’t bothered to replace it.
At the bathroom door he stopped and looked back. The lamp fitting was angled down in a way that would illuminate whoever was sitting on the toilet. That was the moment when Berlin knew the glass in that tall window wasn’t mirrored on the outside.
Back in the kitchen, he studied Clive Marquet, trying to suss out what the man was about. While he had compassion for any father who had recently lost a child there was something definitely unsettling about the man. He decided to make the first approach to the mother.
‘Constable O’Brian told us your daughter Maud was home sick today.’
Mrs Marquet nodded. ‘That’s right, she’s in bed out in the sleepout, poor little dear. She and Melinda were so close.’
‘I understand but I’m afraid I need to have a quick word with her, if that’s okay.’
Mrs Marquet seemed confused at being asked her permission and turned to her husband.
Clive Marquet pushed his chair back from the table. ‘If it’s necessary I’ll go out with ya.’
Berlin kept his tone neutral, conversational, friendly. ‘If it’s all the same to you, Mr Marquet, I’d rather have a word in private. I have a daughter about Maud’s age myself and I know sometimes mum and dad can make them a bit uncomfortable. And I’m sure Detective Roberts here has a few more things to ask you both. I’ll only be a minute, I just have a couple of questions.’
Clive Marquet was on his feet now, short and gruff and aggressive. ‘I’m not sure I want a man talking to one of my girls outside my presence.’
Mrs Marquet put a hand on her husband’s arm. ‘But he’s a policeman, Clive, and he has a daughter.’
Marquet shook his arm free of her hand. ‘You shut your hole, woman.’ The comment was barely out of his mouth when he realised he might have gone too far. He softened his tone. ‘It’s my decision to make if a man talks to my child.’