St Kilda Blues (Charlie Berlin #3)(51)
Clive Marquet’s jaw was working rhythmically, moving left to right, and his eye twitched. ‘I don’t see what bloody business it is of yours, what a man does in his own home, puts up curtains or doesn’t. Puts in locks.’
Only Berlin’s years of practice in suppressing his feelings, his anger, saved Clive Marquet from a broken jaw or something worse.
‘You’re absolutely right, it’s none of my business. Did you serve in the war, by any chance, Mr Marquet?’
Marquet shook his head. ‘I did my time in the CMF. Korea was over by then so I didn’t get the chance to go overseas. I was done before the Malaya business started up.’
‘Then you were bloody lucky, believe me. I was in the war, a prisoner of war in fact, over in Germany. In Poland, actually, but I don’t want to split hairs.’
Berlin knew what he really wanted was to split Clive Marquet’s ugly face wide open. It was hard to believe the bastard couldn’t sense the rage in him but Clive Marquet appeared to be just confused.
‘I don’t follow you.’
Berlin picked up a handful of gravel from the pathway and began tossing stones into the bush, one by one.
‘Let’s see if I can make it a bit clearer, then. I was locked up for a while and a lot of blokes who got locked up like that, behind barbed-wire, found that when they got back home they needed to be in the open. They needed to walk, to feel that they could go anywhere, to clear their heads, I suppose, get the bad memories out. I was like that. I actually still go walking, mostly at night.’ He bent down and scooped up more gravel.
‘I go walking at night to forget about the awful things I’ve seen and done and sometimes I come across things that are even worse.’ He scattered the remaining gravel into the scrub in one throw, hearing it hit leaves and branches and then tumble down into the ground litter. ‘Funny thing is – maybe not so funny, I suppose – a bloke can get confused. Sometimes I don’t even know where I am when I’m out wandering, sometimes I wind up a suburb or two away. Who knows, I might even find myself wandering round out this way one night.’
Marquet was smart enough to keep his mouth shut now, which Berlin appreciated.
‘Way too easy for a bloke to lose his bearings at night, Clive, easy to lose track of time and place. I sometimes worry I might be wandering through the bush somewhere at night and bump into somebody and maybe get confused and think they’re a German guard out to kill me. Before I can stop myself I might find myself beating up some poor bastard just out for an innocent walk, smashing him to a bloody pulp. Makes you think a bloke might be wise to start keeping himself indoors after dark, so nothing untoward happens to him, nothing nasty, if you see what I’m saying.’
Berlin turned away from the bush and looked up at the back of the house, at the clear-glass bathroom window.
‘Put that in yourself, didn’t you? Not a bad job. My brother was a carpenter, carpenter’s apprentice, really, and he’d probably reckon that was a pretty decent bit of joinery. Now, if it were me I would’ve gone for frosted glass or maybe white perspex. Still lets the light in but softens it off a bit. Cuts down on the fading of the towels and what have you as well.’ He reached down and picked up stone about the size of an apricot. ‘You might want to take a step back, Clive.’
It was a good throw, the stone hitting the pane of glass about a third of the way up. Shards of glass tumbled out of the frame and down onto the path. Berlin thought of the sparkles of glass on the asphalt on Lakeside Drive where Melinda Marquet had been struck by the car.
He heard the bathroom door open and then Mrs Marquet was standing in the bathroom, looking down through the shattered glass at the two men on the pathway. Berlin waved.
‘We’ve had a bit of an accident, I’m afraid, Mrs Marquet. I was just telling your husband that if it was me, I’d fill her in with three-ply or masonite till you can get a glazier out here. Nice bit of frosted glass shouldn’t cost too much, probably get mates rates given he’s in business locally. You’d better watch your feet up there, Mrs Marquet. We wouldn’t want you getting yourself hurt. And don’t worry yourself about your hubby down here. I’ve already warned him he needs to watch himself.’
January 1967
The soundproofing was the longest part of the job but it was important to get it right. Testing was done by running his stereo at maximum amplification with the Rolling Stones ‘Paint It Black’ on the turntable. Inside the small room the noise was deafening but from the outside he couldn’t hear a thing. A young girl’s screams could have a different, higher pitch, of course, so he still might have to use a gag, which was somewhat disappointing. There were certain advantages to the isolation of the bush but in the big city he had better access to guests and it was so much easier to blend in on the crowded streets. Looking and sounding and seeming innocuous took a huge amount of effort, but it was worth it.
Setting the room up had taken longer than he had anticipated but it was necessary to get it exactly right. He had stuck by his decision to avoid pleasure until it was complete, until he could do his work in safety and privacy, and it was a wise move, he now realised. The first after such a long period of abstinence would be so much sweeter. Besides, the time had been put to good use and his skill with the ropes had improved immensely. The Japanese magazines bought under the counter from the creepy bookseller in St Kilda had been very useful with that. While he had admired the delicate kimonos and intricate binding of the half-naked women in the black and white photographs, and their suspension from the beams of what looked liked ancient farmhouses or rooms with paper walls, he was looking for something else. He would make his binding both artistic and secure and he planned to photograph his better efforts. But once the girls were secured it was what would come after that was of much more importance.