St Kilda Blues (Charlie Berlin #3)(80)

Sunderland laughed out loud, then winced and rubbed his jaw again. ‘Don’t kid yourself, Berlin, you don’t have any friends in at Russell Street and we both know it. People have sensed something is going on and they’re keeping their heads down. First thing tomorrow morning every bastard on the police force above the rank of sergeant will start jockeying for position and trying to figure out how to turn this little scandal to their own advantage. It’s just musical chairs, Charlie, we both know that, but we also bloody know how the game is played. When the music stops there most definitely will be one chair missing. Someone will get it in the neck and if he’s at all smart the poor bugger will cop it sweet and go quietly, for the good of the force, as they say. And right about now, Charlie, it looks like that poor bugger might just be you. You’ve got a wife and family, you ought to spend a bit of time thinking about that.’





THIRTY-EIGHT


‘It was smart of them sending Sunderland to lean on you. Just a reporter talking to a cop about a case.’ They were sitting at the kitchen table and Rebecca had her hand on Berlin’s.

‘So what do we do now, what do I do?’

Rebecca squeezed his hand. ‘It’s pretty simple really, isn’t it, Charlie? You have to tell the girl’s father what you know and what you don’t know, and if possible before they can get to him. If there’s even a remote chance the girl is still alive he should at least have that hope. If it means stepping on a few toes then that’s too bad.’

‘It might mean more than that, it might mean my job.’

‘You don’t like your job, Charlie, remember? At least not this part of it, the politics.’

He knew she was right about that.

‘And the studio is making enough money for us to live on if it comes down to that. And if there’s one thing we both know about you, Detective Sergeant Berlin, it’s that if you don’t do the right thing you’ll be hell to live with. I’m just looking out for myself.’

Berlin knew she was right about that too. He had bought an extra twenty-four hours from the girl’s father with a promise and a lie and now it was time for the truth. Hopefully the drive across the city to the Scheiner home in Brighton would give him time to figure out exactly what the truth was in a situation like this.

*

The police presence at the Scheiner’s Brighton residence had been reduced to one uniformed constable lounging by the front gate. The press presence was also reduced, down to a single cadet photographer snoozing in his car. The weather was starting to change, and quickly. There was a chill in the air and a smell that told Berlin there would be a storm soon. He hoped the photographer would be nice enough to give the copper some shelter when the rain came. He might be needing shelter himself soon, given what he was about to do.

The front door was opened before he could knock. Berlin guessed Scheiner must have been watching the street from the front window, and who could blame him? He was wearing a suit and had shaved, but hadn’t made a good job of it. There was a bloody nick on his chin and a dried patch of shaving soap on his jaw under his left ear. It was four nights now since Gudrun had gone missing and the black circles under her father’s bloodshot eyes said he hadn’t slept through any of them.

‘Is Vera about?’

Scheiner shook his head. ‘Oscar has had a heart attack and she went to the hospital to see how he is. They say it is touch and go; they say it is the stress.’

Scheiner’s eyes were on Berlin’s. ‘Should Vera be here, Detective Sergeant Berlin? Is that why you ask? Should Vera be here to give me comfort? Just tell me, good or bad – is my Gudrun found? Is she alive or …?’

Berlin heard his answer as an echo. His voice was distant, hollow sounding. ‘A man has confessed to abducting Gudrun, and to kidnapping a number of other young girls. He wrote a confession to the crimes and then took his own life.’

Scheiner reached out and grasped Berlin by both forearms, the grip of his right hand awkward, weaker because of the missing finger. ‘Where is she, where is my daughter?’

Berlin sensed another presence in the room. He didn’t look across at the mirror over the mantelpiece because he knew what he would see. He would see a hungry, haunted man on a country road on a freezing, sleeting morning in Poland; his younger self watching a younger SS man with a finger missing on his right hand put a pistol to the head of a woman who had chosen her time.

He heard a soft voice in his ear, a woman’s voice, her voice, and she was saying, This isn’t the time, not now, not now.

Berlin looked around the room. It was just the two of them. The silence, the distance, the voice were all gone and now he could hear cars outside, out on the street.

‘They’re coming to tell you Gudrun is dead, Mr Scheiner, but I’m not sure. I don’t think we can be certain.’

‘Who is coming? Why are you not certain? I don’t understand.’

Berlin walked across to the cocktail cabinet. He found cognac and glasses and poured a tumbler-full.

‘Drink this and I’ll tell you what we know.’

Scheiner did as he was told, downing the contents of the cut crystal tumbler.

‘Last night Sergeant Roberts and I found our best suspect dead with a written confession and evidence that he had the taken girls.’

‘My Gudrun also? Is she dead? What evidence? Show me.’