St Kilda Blues (Charlie Berlin #3)(62)
Berlin turned back to Egan. ‘Your mate there is a bit of a charmer, Mr Egan.’
Egan was looking down towards the studio, to where Derek had gone. His jaw was still set, still tight. He turned to face Berlin and smiled. ‘Call me Tim, please, and Derek is no mate of mine, believe you me.’
Berlin put out his hand. ‘My name is Charlie Berlin, Tim, and the gentleman yonder is Bob Roberts. And we are police.’
Roberts was bent over the light box studying the transparencies of the Monaro again. Berlin knew he would have taken them back out of the envelope just to show Derek he could, and who was going to stop him? He looked up at Egan and nodded.
Egan smiled and shook Berlin’s hand after wiping his own on the dustcoat. ‘Mr Berlin, Mr Roberts, pleased to meet you both.’ It was a good firm grip and Berlin felt calluses on Egan’s palm and fingers.
‘What’s this all about, Mr Berlin, if I can ask? You said something about a dead girl, that sounds terrible. You don’t think Derek might have something to do with it do you? He’s not a very nice person but I can’t believe he’d be mixed up in something like that.’
Egan seemed to be genuinely concerned and Berlin smiled to reassure him. ‘We’re looking at all sorts of people right now, Tim. It’s how we do things. The dead girl disappeared from a dance and some others have also gone missing from dances. We thought there might be some useful information in some of the recent photographs Derek took for GEAR magazine. Do you think you could get those negatives and proof sheets he mentioned together for us? We don’t have a lot of time’.
‘Of course, I’ll do it straightaway, should only take me five minutes. I imagine it’s terrible for the parents of these girls, they must all be heartbroken.’
Berlin nodded. It was the only response possible though heartbroken didn’t even begin to describe what the parents of the missing girls would have been feeling
At the back of the processing area a row of shelves held quarto-size cardboard spring binders. Egan took down about a dozen and Berlin opened the first one Egan handed to him. It was crammed full of the same sort of filing pages that Rebecca used to keep track of her 35 mm negatives. Behind each page of negatives and punched to fit the two-ring binder was a black and white proof sheet, a series of same-size positive images of the negatives in the sleeve above. A number written on the proof sheet matched the number on the corresponding negative page. It was going to take a fair amount of time to go through all these pictures.
‘I can put these into a file box if you want, Mr Berlin, make them easier to carry.’
‘Thanks, Tim’
‘No worries. Anything I can do to help, you just have to ask me. It’s a terrible thing.’
Egan emptied copies of Queen, Honey and British Vogue out of a box, replacing the magazines with Derek’s file folders. ‘Do you want me to carry it down to your car?’
Roberts shook his head and picked up the box. ‘She’ll be apples, mate, but thanks for the offer.’
Berlin followed Roberts down the corridor towards the studio where the flashlights were popping. The music volume was suddenly back up and he almost missed Tim Egan’s voice when he called out after them.
‘Good luck, Mr Berlin, Mr Roberts. I’ll say a prayer for you both, and for those poor girls.’
TWENTY-NINE
Tim Egan’s prayers didn’t help Berlin a whole lot with his search through the pile of proof sheets. Some of the faces were so small that it was hard to make out who was who. After an hour of looking he found Gudrun in the picture taken at Opus. He also found her in a shot taken at Bertie’s. The location was easy to identify by the marble staircase and art deco furnishings and he wondered if her being photographed by Derek more than once was a coincidence. Tim Egan was right, Derek Jones wasn’t a very nice person. But just how far did that go?
After several hours of searching through the proof sheets his head started to ache and when Rebecca telephoned to say she was on her way back from the city and offered to pick up fish and chips he decided to take a break. When she arrived home he accepted a kiss and a hot newspaper-wrapped parcel. She also dropped an envelope on top of the jumble of negative files and proof sheets in the living room. It was from Lazlo and had been delivered to her studio on Collins Street in the city by someone she described as an Amazon on a Norton Commando. Trust Lazlo to have a glamorous girl on a motor-bike making his deliveries; he knew how to leave an impression.
Berlin picked up Lazlo’s envelope when dinner was done and the dishes were washed and put away. Lazlo had thoughtfully included a carbon copy of one of his own recent inquiries to the Wehrmacht records office, with the name and information concerning the person he had been inquiring about carefully inked out. Berlin would be able to copy the format of the letter, inserting the personal details he had been able to gather on Gerhardt Scheiner during a quick visit to the library in the city on his way home.
Mid-evening Rebecca had decided to take a bath and as these sometimes lasted an hour or more, Berlin used the opportunity to have a go at writing his letter. It would be good to get it out of the way. There was typing paper in a hallway cupboard along with a small Olivetti typewriter. Rebecca’s old ex-Argus newspaper typewriter had been replaced by a much more compact Olivetti Lettera 22, its incongruous tartan dust cover made less so given it had been manufactured in Glasgow. Just like my old granddad, Berlin had mused when Rebecca had first brought the typewriter home.