St Kilda Blues (Charlie Berlin #3)(87)
‘I don’t have a rose-coloured view, Charlie, believe you me. I’m a good copper, like I said, and that’s because I was taught by a good copper way back when. You do the job and you do what’s right, for better or for worse.’
From somewhere behind them there was the low-pitched growl of a police siren quickly flicked on and off.
‘And here come the boys in blue, just in time too. I think I felt a spot of rain.’ Roberts stood up as the St Kilda divisional van rolled up to the kerb and parked behind the Triumph. ‘Finest police force money can buy – that’s how the saying goes, right?’
Two police officers climbed out of the van and again Berlin was struck by how young they looked. Roberts gave them a friendly wave and pointed to the trunk on the footpath.
‘The youngsters can take care of the trunk, Charlie. You want to give me a hand to get this soft top up?’
FORTY-TWO
The images on the contact sheet were small and Berlin quickly realised just how bad his eyes were getting. He found a magnifying glass next to a lamp on the old roll-top desk that Rebecca used for her accounts. There were thirty-six pictures on each of the contact sheets and even with the magnifying glass it was difficult to clearly identify people in the photographs. He pulled the desk lamp down closer.
Rebecca came into the room five minutes later. ‘What are you looking at?’
‘These are proof sheets from Derek’s job shooting at dances over the past few months. I’ve got no idea of what I’m looking for but if he didn’t make the prints of the missing girls there must be something in here that I’m missing. But I’m buggered if I can see what it is.’
‘Want me to help? Those negatives of Lauren need another ten minutes so just tell me what we’re looking for.’
‘For something I missed, I suppose.’ He passed the pile of contact sheets over to her, along with the magnifying glass.
Rebecca worked her way through the contact sheets. She stopped and went back a couple of times, using the magnifying glass on several of the images. Berlin smiled when he realised she was humming softly. One sheet seemed to hold her attention. After a minute of careful study it was put to the side and she continued through the rest. When she was done she picked up the sheet she had isolated and studied it carefully with the magnifying glass. She stopped humming and held up the page of photographs.
‘Who took these pictures, Charlie?’
Berlin leaned across and looked at the contact sheet. ‘Derek, like I said. He took all of these.’
Rebecca shook her head slowly. ‘No, I don’t think so. Someone else took these, this sheet of pictures, I mean. It definitely wasn’t Derek.’
Berlin looked more carefully at the contact print. To him it looked just like all the others. ‘How can you be sure?’
Rebecca picked up a second contact sheet from the pile on the desk. ‘Okay, first of all the other films were Kodak Tri-X, you can see the brand name and code number on the top edge of the negatives here. Now, this other one was shot on Ilford HP5. Similar films but photographers tend to go for one or the other – it’s a sort of a Holden versus Ford thing. Whichever one you choose to use, the other is considered to be garbage.’
‘Maybe Derek ran out of Tri-X and used a roll of the Ilford stuff.’
‘That could have happened, but not in this case. In all the Tri-X shots the flash is mounted on top of the camera, you can tell by the shadows. On that other sheet it’s mounted on the side. Also, Derek was using a wide-angle lens, maybe a 28, and whoever shot this was using a standard 50 mm focal length by the look of things.’
‘Are you sure?’ Berlin tried to see the differences that she had pointed out. They were fairly subtle.
‘Hold the sheet up in front of the desk lamp,’ Rebecca suggested. ‘You might be able see a little bit more clearly when it’s lit from behind. I’ll be back in a tick, I just want to check on those negatives of Lauren.’
Rebecca was right about having the lamp behind the contact print – light coming through the paper did make it easier to see. He ran the magnifying glass slowly across the rows of images, examining each of them. On the second last row he stopped. He held his breath. He put the proof sheet down and walked across to the telephone. There was no need for his address book, he knew the number for the South Melbourne cop shop by heart. Peter had been taken there after he was arrested and charged with breaking and entering.
The boy had been in the cells for four hours before the desk sergeant made the connection with the Berlin name and put a phone call through. There was a lot of back and forth over the next week, with Berlin trying desperately to stop the case going to court. The station’s senior officer wasn’t having any of it, even if the desk sergeant was on Berlin’s side. The sergeant liked the fact that Peter hadn’t tried to use his father’s name to get special treatment.
The phone was answered after just three rings. It must have been a quiet night in South Melbourne. The desk sergeant recognised Berlin’s voice immediately.
‘G’day Charlie, a little dickie bird tells me you’re in a bit of grief at Russell Street. They reckon you’re suspended.’
Even the police D24 radio network couldn’t spread news as quickly as the rumour mill. ‘Nothing to fret about, Sarge, just a bit of a misunderstanding.’