St Kilda Blues (Charlie Berlin #3)(92)
She had slipped the ropes somehow, despite her terror, pulled off the blindfold and gag, crawled up the stairs and pushed the unlocked trapdoor aside. In the darkness she had somehow found her way to the studio’s front door and smashed it open, not feeling or probably just ignoring the pain in her shattered shoulder. God knows she had already endured enough pain before that moment.
Had she stood where he was standing and hesitated? Berlin wondered. The street and the buildings around the studio would have been in darkness from the power failure. In the distance, past the park, Berlin could see the yellow glow that was Fitzroy Street and St Kilda. Did the glow of the street lights and neon signs remind her of the city lights on the horizon from the old schoolhouse in Melton? For whatever reason that was where she had headed, naked, running out of the darkness and towards the safety of the warm yellow light.
She must have followed the edge of the lake through the darkness, almost making it to that safety before stumbling into the path of a driver who had braked hard but hadn’t had time to swerve and miss her. For reasons they would never know he’d made the time to toss her into the water. In her nakedness had he perhaps taken her for just another St Kilda junkie whore on the run from a pimp or a punter or a dealer? Whoever it was they had callously dumped her in the lake like just so much of the rubbish that filled the St Kilda streets.
FORTY-SIX
Out on Albert Road a uniformed constable told him they had taken Rebecca and the girl over to the Alfred Hospital. The young copper kept looking away from Berlin’s battered face and his blood-matted clothes and hair. A repeated swallowing motion told Berlin the lad was working very hard at keeping his dinner down. The hospital was off St Kilda Road and a fair distance away, so Berlin organised a ride across in a divisional van. He threw Rebecca’s car keys to the young constable and told him to follow the van to the hospital. He didn’t want to get any of Egan’s blood on the Mini’s leather seats. The vinyl seats in the divvy van would be easier to clean, and thank God he wouldn’t be the one doing it.
Gerhardt Scheiner’s gold Cadillac was blocking the entrance driveway when they arrived at the hospital ten minutes later. The vehicle’s doors were open, headlights on, engine running. It was probably safe enough though, Berlin decided, given the number of uniformed coppers milling about. Eventually someone would wake up to themselves and move it out of the way. They must have phoned Scheiner as soon as it was confirmed that the girl had been found alive. It was a fair run in from Brighton but given the time of night and quite possibly a police escort, Scheiner had made excellent time. Berlin knew that if it had been his daughter he would have run every red light with his headlights on high beam and a hand pressed down hard on the horn.
His face was aching now, and the ache made him forget about how much he hated the look and the smell of hospitals. All he could smell was blood, the blood on his face and on his clothes. Casualty was full of small groups of doctors, nurses, coppers, ambulance officers and reporters and photographers. There was a low murmur of conversation that stopped dead as he walked in. One of the press pack lifted up a camera.
‘If anyone takes a photograph I swear to God I will f*cking kill them right here and now.’
His voice was soft, his tone conversational, the threat clear and succinct. The photographer lowered the camera down to his side very slowly, warily, as if afraid of suddenly spooking a wild animal. A young nurse was beside Berlin, her hand on his left elbow. She spoke very gently. Was she a country girl? he wondered. Lots of nurses were country girls, he knew, drawn to the city for a different sort of life, girls from big families who were raised to caring for younger siblings and used to the sight of blood because that was all part of country life. She guided him through the silent mob, down a fluorescent-lit corridor to an empty examination room with a bed hidden behind a curtain and Berlin knew he was finally safe.
He had stripped naked there, refusing to have the doctors come near him until he’d taken a shower. Blood came out of clothes best in cold water, and it might be the same for skin. He stood naked under an icy spray for five minutes, not feeling a thing. Then he ran the water hot and used a coarse-bristled scrubbing brush and a bar of soap with an antiseptic smell. He watched the water at his feet swirling round and round the drain until it ran clear and clean and then he washed himself some more.
After the shower he awkwardly towelled himself dry, feeling the pain in his torn and bruised muscles. He wiped the steam from the bathroom mirror and then wished he hadn’t. He needed a shave, the antiseptic soap had left his hair looking thick and matted and the nasty bruise under his left eye was spreading.
‘Finally seen the light have you, Charlie?’
Rebecca was in the doorway. While he was washing away the horror they had taken his bloodied suit and shirt and tie to the hospital incinerator. A male nurse had rummaged through enough staff lockers to find him a flannel shirt, some well-worn trousers, a pair of felt slippers and a St Kilda football jumper. St Kilda was Rebecca’s team.
‘It was this or Carlton and you know I wouldn’t be seen dead in Carlton colours.’
She smiled at his joke and beyond the smile he saw the pain and the tears welling in the corners of her eyes. She gently stroked his already swelling left cheek and waited by his side while the doctor examined him. The injury to the cheek was a worry but it was finally decided there was little chance of it actually being fractured, though they would investigate more in a few days. It didn’t need stitching up, which was good. He had almost certainly strained and possibly torn muscles and tendons in the struggle, the doctor said, and some heavy bruising was beginning to show. There would be more, and more pain, but apart from that he was in surprisingly good shape. Fighting fit, all things considered, was the doctor’s final pronouncement, but Berlin didn’t feel it. He didn’t feel anything.