St Kilda Blues (25 page)

There were several taxis waiting at the rank outside Flinders Street Station. Berlin slid into the front seat of the first in line.

‘St Kilda, Burnett Street and I'm in a hurry, so just do a U-turn.'

The driver looked at his passenger. ‘Fair go, mate, what about the cops?'

‘Don't worry about it, I am the cops, so just get on with it.'

When Berlin reached the flat the front door was open and there was a pile of Derek's belongings out on the landing, including the TV and stereo. He walked inside and bumped into a man coming out of the bedroom. The man had a bundle of clothes in his arms and he looked at Berlin over the top of the pile.

‘Who the fuck are you? The place is let anyway.'

‘I'm the copper in charge of investigating a murder that took place on these premises and to me it looks like you're removing evidence.'

The man was about fifty with falling hair, bad teeth and a five o'clock shadow. He was wearing khaki King Gee overalls over a plaid shirt and a pair of battered, elastic-sided riding boots.

‘That's bullshit. I own this building and no bugger said nothing about a murder, they said Derek killed himself. He could have blown up the whole street, leaving the gas on like that, the stupid idiot. And if you're a cop you should be able to tell me who's going to pay me back the cost of putting in that new front door and lock.'

‘You probably got off lightly – I'll bet you don't carry insurance on this rat hole of a place. Or maybe you do and you're sorry Derek didn't blow it up.'

‘I'm not here to be insulted, even by a copper, and I'm busy. I have to get the place cleaned out. I've got a new tenant moving in tomorrow.'

Derek's posters had been torn down and the water damage on the walls was more visible than before, making the place seem even more squalid.

‘I guess you'll be up all night painting and recarpeting this palace.'

‘Very funny. You get what you pay for and if people want freshly painted walls I've got no objections to them having a bash themselves. Now, can you get out of my way? That TV and stereo will disappear off the landing quick smart if I don't keep an eye on them. Derek owed me close to a month's rent so they're mine to sell.'

‘I guess you get what you pay for in the way of tenants too. But as I said, this is the scene of a crime so you're going to have to buzz off until I finish.'

‘Why should I?'

The answer came from behind Berlin, a voice over his shoulder. ‘Because a broken nose isn't going to improve that ugly mug of yours but I reckon I can arrange one for you in the next sixty seconds.'

Bob Roberts was leaning against the front door with a cigarette in his left hand. It might have been his tone of voice, the languid pose or the scar on his face, but something made the landlord decide to take Roberts at his word. He dropped the bundle of clothes on the floor. Berlin heard the word ‘arseholes' muttered as he fronted Roberts in the doorway.

Berlin called out after him. ‘There were three milk bottles in the bathroom. Did you move them?'

The landlord stopped. ‘Milk bottles?

‘Three of them. They were empty, clean.'

‘Jesus, what do you want with milk bottles? I chucked them in the sink in the kitchen.'

‘Thanks. Do you want to leave a number we can call when we finish?'

‘I'll just wait outside if it's all the same to you. Derek owed that rent so I own everything he left behind. I wanna make 100 per cent sure nothing gets bloody nicked.'

Roberts stopped the man with a hand on his chest. ‘I think your sixty seconds are up, sunshine, so why don't you take a nice long walk. Maybe go down to the Esplanade and see if you can find yourself a short pier. We'll close the door behind us when we get done, I promise. Scout's honour.'

The landlord finally got the message. Berlin saw him keeping his chin up and his eyes fixed on Roberts as he moved past him, working hard on giving the impression he was leaving because he chose to, not because he had to.

‘This is a bit of a turn-up, Bob, considering last time we met you were in handcuffs.'

‘I told you she'd be apples, Charlie. Friends in high places, like I said.'

‘Rebecca telephoned you, right? Said where I was going.'

‘That's right. Bit of a surprise hearing from her but we both know she'll do whatever it takes to make sure you're okay. She's a good one, Charlie, you should keep her.'

Would Sunshine stick by Bob through whatever was coming?
Berlin wondered. ‘Come and take a squiz in the bathroom, Bob. Let's see if I'm right about what I'm thinking.'

The landlord had already cleaned all of Derek's things out of the bathroom and the windows on either side of the mirrored medicine cabinet were wide open. There was a hard-bristled broom, a tin of Bon Ami scouring powder and a bottle of White King bleach sitting in the filthy bathtub. Roberts stood in the doorway and whistled.

‘Christ, what a pigsty. I reckon a bloke would be dirtier getting out of that tub than he was getting in. Bloody landlord is going to need something stronger than bleach.'

Berlin leaned over the tub, trying not to brush against anything. ‘I should have put two and two together a lot earlier with the stains in the bathtub and those empty milk bottles.'

‘Slow down a bit, I'm not following.'

‘When we first met Tim back at the studio he told us Derek was a thief, remember? That stain in the tub, by the plughole, that's the sort of mark you get if you pour developing chemicals down a drain or wash prints in your bath. I reckon Derek was pinching developer and stop bath and fixer from the studio for a home darkroom.'

‘But we didn't find a home darkroom anywhere here.'

‘Maybe that's because we just didn't look hard enough.'

They walked back into the living room and Berlin looked in the direction of the steamer trunk under the window.

‘Tell me what you see, Bob.'

Roberts followed Berlin's gaze in the direction of the trunk and the window. After a moment he smiled. ‘Brown stains on the matting round the trunk, similar to the ones in the bathtub.'

‘That's right.' Berlin walked across the room and ran his hand over the window frame. ‘Notice anything here?'

Roberts joined him and leaned in close to the window.

‘I can see a lot of little holes. Like from drawing pins.'

‘Exactly. Now, let's have a look inside this trunk, shall we?'

The trunk was locked so Roberts got a knife from the kitchen. The blade bent but eventually the lock gave and they lifted the lid. Inside the trunk there was a layer of 12-inch records then some photography magazines. Next was a piece of neatly folded, heavy black fabric, which Berlin pulled out and shook open. A couple of brass drawing pins tumbled out and fell back into the trunk. He stood up and held the fabric over the living room window frame. It was a nice fit, covering the entire frame. He tossed the fabric over to the couch. Next he found a stainless steel 35 mm film developing tank, three plastic developing trays and an orange light globe. Underneath it all was a smallish, rectangular fibreboard suitcase covered in a brown plastic material embossed to make it look like crocodile skin.

Berlin set the case down on the floor and opened it. Inside was a short, chromed column, a white light bulb with a screw-in base, a number of grey-painted metal pieces and a length of electrical cord with a three-pin power plug on one end.

Roberts got down on his knees next to Berlin. ‘What the hell is that, Charlie?'

‘It's a Russian portable photographic enlarger, a Zenit. Breaks down into a dozen pieces and fits inside the case all nice and neat, as you can see. Derek pins that black material over the window frame, waits till it's dark outside and then he can develop film safely. And when he sticks that orange bulb into his ceiling light socket he can make prints to his heart's content with no one being any the wiser.'

On the bottom of the trunk were two orange 8x10 inch Agfa photographic paper boxes. The first box contained unexposed photographic paper in heavy black lightproof paper and the second held the pictures. Berlin could hear Roberts' shallow breathing over his shoulder as they looked through the photographs.

‘Jesus, Charlie, if the bastard wasn't dead already I'd fucking kill him.'

‘Someone did it for you, Bob, but I don't think it was someone who knew these pictures existed.'

Charlene was the oldest of the girls in the photographs and the only one with developed breasts and any sign of pubic hair. Berlin wondered if she had been used to lure the younger ones in, to make them feel it was okay. He recognised a couple of the others from the gaggle outside the recording studio but the rest were unknowns. Some were sitting, some standing, and a couple had attempted what he guessed were supposed to be sexy poses. In most of the shots, discarded clothing was piled up near the edge of the frame and Berlin thought that was the saddest part of the pictures. Stained seagrass matting and peeling wallpaper confirmed the location used for the photographs was Derek's living room, right where they were standing.

‘Whoever killed Derek wanted to throw us off the scent but didn't know about the nasty little hobby hidden away under his TV. If you were going to knock yourself off for being a kidnapper, torturer and murderer it doesn't seem to make sense that you'd be shy about some snaps of a bunch of naked ten- and twelve-year-olds.'

‘You think Derek was just into taking pictures?'

Berlin didn't know and he really didn't want to know. He started packing the enlarger and the other items back into the trunk.

‘Suspended or not, I suppose we should impound this lot as evidence, just to stop the landlord from flogging it down the pub. I'll hang on to the photographs, though.'

They hauled the trunk and its contents down to Roberts' car but it was too big to fit in the boot. Berlin walked down to Fitzroy Street and found a phone. The constable who answered the phone at the St Kilda cop shop took down the address, repeated it and said they'd have a van round in five minutes.

Roberts was sitting on the Triumph's front mudguard smoking when Berlin got back. He looked up at the sky then down at his wristwatch. ‘How long, you reckon? I can smell rain. You want a smoke? I know you've given up but I reckon a bloke could use one after seeing those pictures. Or a stiff drink.'

Roberts was right on both points but Berlin shook his head. ‘They said five minutes. Did you lock the front door of the flat?'

Roberts smiled. ‘You know what, I completely forgot. Must be all the stuff I have on my mind right now. But then I remembered and asked a passing druggie to pop up and do it for me. Told him not to pinch anything, though.' He grinned. ‘Bloke looked like the honest type.'

Berlin ran through a checklist in his head. Hopefully they'd taken all they needed from Derek's flat because it would almost certainly be picked clean well before the landlord got back.

‘Speaking of honest types, Bob, did you happen to see
This Day Tonight
on the ABC on Tuesday last week? They covered the press conference about the progress of the inquiry, you know the one, into police corruption.'

‘Missed it, I'm afraid, and I'm devastated. How is it progressing – three months now, is it? No doubt it will find we have a police force that is squeaky clean and the envy of Scotland Yard and the Sûreté. That's how these things usually go, right?'

‘Maybe, maybe not. But at the end of the report they had all the investigators and lawyers lined up for the cameras.'

‘That must have been a bit ugly for the press photographer boys, they're not a handsome bunch down at the inquiry, I've heard. They reckon you can see better looking heads on ice down at the fish­mongers.'

‘Piss about if you like, but I'm being serious here. One of the lawyer types was hard to miss. Tall bugger, six-footer, maybe more, bit gangly and bald on top. Had a nose on him a feller could trip over if he wasn't paying attention. Kind of bloke who's a bit hard to miss, even at a distance.'

‘I'm sure his mother loves him, though, Charlie, big beak and all, and despite him being a lawyer, or whatever.'

‘I saw him again just recently, twice as it happens.'

‘That so? It's a small world, Charlie.'

‘Not that small. The first time was when we stopped at that pub you were so anxious to get to on the way back from Melton – to meet that informant, remember? The fizz with no useful information. The lawyer bloke wandered into the pub a couple of minutes after you arrived and left a couple of minutes before you came back out. Funny that. Or shouldn't I be laughing, Bob?'

Roberts flicked his cigarette butt into the gutter. ‘Just a coincidence, nothing to fret about. I'd put it right out of my mind if I was you.'

‘Can't do that, Bob, not when people are talking about you maybe doing a stretch in Pentridge for being bent, being someone's bagman.'

Roberts winked at Berlin. ‘It's early days yet, nothing to fret about, like I said. I've got people keeping an eye on me, looking out for me if push comes to shove.'

‘These people happen to hang out in a terrace in Parkville?'

‘I told you before, Charlie. I'm a good copper, I'm going to be fine.'

‘Because you think good conquers evil, right is might? You really have to stop hanging around with those hippy uni students, mate. They're giving you a rose-coloured view of the world, and where we are right now is pretty much just black and white, winners and losers.'

‘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?'