St Kilda Blues by Geoffrey McGeachin Page B

them. There’s probably more than enough people out beating the bushes for young Gudrun right at the moment.’
    In the cramped space of the passenger seat the Triumph’s door pressed against Berlin’s hip and he could feel the bulk of the envelope in his pocket. In his twenty some years on the force he’d seen enough unmarked buff envelopes changing hands to know what was going on. He really hadn’t wanted to believe the rumours about Bob Roberts and he really didn’t want to ask about the envelope and hear the lie or open it up and see the truth.
    He looked at his watch. Sarah had saved up and bought it for him after his old air force–issue watch had finally given up the ghost. Usually the watch made him think of her and that always made him smile. Right now all the watch did was tell him that it was just past midday on a Monday and he was already exhausted. And Gudrun Scheiner had been gone for forty hours.

THE MISSION
 
    Brother Brian’s table was nearer to the front. Beyond it another half-dozen tables were occupied by men in the same brown robes, and a raised stage at the far end of the room held two smaller tables with tablecloths and chairs rather than benches. The brothers at the tables up on the stage were older and they were laughing amongst themselves. The boy saw wine bottles on the table and there were glasses and plates – real glasses and plates rather than the chipped enamel mugs and rough wooden bowls that sat in front of each occupant of the lower tables.
    There were two empty spaces at Brother Brian’s table. Brother Brian took one and the boy took the space next to him. The other boys at the table were all about the same age. The greetings were sombre, mostly nods from the others as he was introduced. They all seemed very tired, and though they must have washed their hands at the sinks outside the dining room, there was dirt in most of the creases of their knuckles and under their fingernails. Several boys were fidgeting and rubbing their bottoms against the hard wood of the benches.
    Brother Brian smiled at him and patted his hand. ‘You will be at my table here for meals from now on and I feel we are going to be the best of pals. At least, I hope so.’
    There was a murmur as the doors to the kitchen opened and a voice from the top table ordered silence. A line of dark-skinned girls came out of the kitchen, each with a galvanised iron bucket in either hand. They were wearing short shift dresses and their feet were bare. A girl stopped at the end of each table and one of the older boys helped lift the buckets up and place them in front of the brother who was supervising. Steam was coming from one of the buckets on his table and water lapped over the edge of the other when it was bumped. He followed the example of the other boys, passing his mug to be filled with water by Brother Brian and then passed his wooden bowl to have some sort of stew ladled into it.
    When the bowl was returned to him he reached for his spoon but put it down again when his eye caught the shaking head of the boy opposite him. It was some hours since they had last stopped on the road for sandwiches and he was hungry. So were those around him, judging from the stomachs he could hear rumbling and the mouths that hung open with tongues flicking or tracing their way around flaky, dried lips. All eyes at the table were on the stew in the bowls – chunks of grey meat in a runny gravy that already seemed to be congealing despite the heat of the dining room.
    At the head table up on the stage several somewhat older Aboriginal girls had brought in covered bowls that were placed on the table, and then a larger platter holding a roasted leg of lamb. The boy knew what a leg of lamb looked like and how it tasted. When the farmer’s paratrooper son had come home on leave after Arnhem the two men had slaughtered a sheep, breaking the rationing regulations. They’d kept the leg for a