St Kilda Blues (Charlie Berlin #3)(78)
THIRTY-SEVEN
‘Good Morning, Rebecca. My my, twenty years, a husband and two kids and you haven’t changed a bit.’
‘Actually I have, Warren. I’ve developed even less tolerance for dickheads than I once had.’
Rebecca had gone to the front door in response to brisk knocking and Berlin heard the exchange from the kitchen. He was rereading the file on the Marquet girl while waiting for a pot of tea to brew. Time was getting away from them and had to be quickly running out for Gudrun Scheiner if she was still alive. The Jones suicide provided a neat set of answers but no matter how he looked at it things didn’t add up.
He put the file down and walked out into the hallway. There was a strong smell of cigar smoke. At the front door he put his hand on Rebecca’s shoulder.
‘Look what the cat dragged in, Charlie. I knew we should have had that damn animal put down.’
The red Jaguar Berlin has seen on Honeysuckle Drive in Brighton was parked across the street. Warren Sunderland was wearing a different suit to their last encounter but the quality was the same. This went for the shirt and tie as well. The same puffy, pinkish face topped it all off, and he had a thick cigar clenched in the corner of his mouth.
‘You look live you’re living well, Warren,’ Rebecca commented, ‘not like the old copyboy days at The Argus. I remember you used to steal sandwiches out of the secretary’s handbags when they weren’t looking.’
Sunderland smiled. ‘That’s right, you were the one who blew the whistle on me, weren’t you? I always said you were wasted on the social rounds, Rebecca. Investigative journalism was where you should have been with a nose for hard news like that. Too bad the girlies didn’t get a go at the big stories.’ He took the cigar from his mouth and turned away momentarily to flick ash into the garden next to the porch. ‘Nice garden, good to see someone getting the flowers in early.’
The garden comment was all that stopped Sunderland getting a smack in the mouth. Did the man have a sense for when he might have pushed things too far, Berlin wondered.
‘Was there something you wanted, Warren,’ Rebecca asked, ‘or are you just going door-to-door lowering the tone of the neighbourhood?’
Sunderland drew back on his cigar, took it from his mouth again and blew a shimmering blue smoke ring. ‘As it happens I need a quick word with your better half. In private. Men’s business, you understand.’
‘And you’ll understand if I don’t invite you inside ... that dickhead business I mentioned.’
The Jaguar’s red leather seats were soft and very, very comfortable. Berlin settled into the passenger side and glanced towards the front of the vehicle. British carmakers certainly had a thing about burled wood-grain veneers for their dashboards, he decided. Was it always burled walnut they used? Legroom was a hell of a lot better than the Triumph, though. He glanced at the clock on the dashboard and then at his own watch. How many days and hours was it now that the Scheiner girl had been missing?
‘Japanese, I see.’
Berlin looked across at Sunderland who nodded towards his left wrist.
‘The timepiece, your watch. Very reliable, I believe, for the price.’
The watch on Sunderland’s wrist was gold, as was the cufflink next to it, securing a starched and neatly pressed French cuff. Berlin’s everyday shirts came from the local Coles with plastic buttons already sewn onto the cuffs.
‘My daughter bought me this, for my birthday last year. She saved up for quite a long time.’ He ran his index finger gently over the face of the watch.
‘Then I suppose that it’s actually of immense value, whatever it may have cost.’
Berlin couldn’t quite pick the tone in Sunderland’s voice. Was he being sincere? From what he knew of the man it seemed highly unlikely.
‘By coincidence I’m actually here this morning for a bit of a chat about someone’s daughter.’
‘If you mean Gudrun Scheiner then, like I said last time we met, I’m not talking to the press and I’m especially not talking to you.’
‘Fine, I’ll do the talking then. A little bird tells me you and your mate Roberts solved the case last night, turned up the killer, found a deathbed confession and conclusive evidence of the crimes. But for some strange reason you don’t seem too keen on spreading the good news.’
Sunderland did have good sources, Berlin had to admit, not that he’d ever say it to the man’s face. ‘I don’t want the story getting out prematurely. I don’t think the case is really solved, not yet. And if I have to tell a father his only daughter is dead I want to do it only once and I want to be 100 per cent certain it’s true. We don’t have hard evidence or a body or bodies yet, which is something that concerns me.’
Sunderland flicked ash from his cigar into an already overflowing dashboard ashtray. ‘Come on, sometimes bodies are never found, we both know that. Plenty of blokes have had their necks stretched at Pentridge without the actual murder weapon or a mouldering corpse being dragged in front of the jury.’
‘That might be so but it’s not happening in this case if I can help it.’
Sunderland shook his head. ‘Well I’m afraid that’s out of your hands which is why I’m here. Later today Gerhardt Scheiner will be informed by senior police that his daughter is deceased, as will the parents of the other missing girls. The squad investigating the disappearance of the Scheiner girl, the official squad I mean, Tony Selden’s team, has recently obtained a confession and irrefutable photographic evidence.’