Before It Breaks Read online

  ‘We’ve rigged lights. Jo and Nat are on their way back from Schaffer’s. They’re about a half-hour away.’

  ‘Ask Lisa how long she needs you, then get home, get some sleep and be back there first thing to search the creek for the murder weapon, the outboard and the rifle.’ He predicted Shepherd’s objection and cut it off at the pass. ‘I’ll call the boss and see if he can get us some Fisheries boys to help.’

  It seemed Risely was happy to organise Fisheries support. His concern was how they were going to handle the release of information to the media, the kind of stuff Clement tried to ignore.

  ‘Let’s keep it to ourselves as long as we can,’ said Clement.

  ‘That won’t be long. News travels fast in a small town.’

  They arranged to meet first thing in the morning for a briefing. If Clement came across anything else he was to call.

  Clement climbed back into his car and sat to reflect a moment on the interviews. When he was interviewing he tried to listen to the answers people gave rather than let his mind explode in a fever of possibilities. Often he wasn’t successful but today he’d done okay and now he’d afforded himself a moment to slow-roast scenarios.

  If the outboard, wallet and rifle were not sitting on the bottom of the creek then it could be a crime of opportunity: robbery-murder. Alternately somebody might have gone to the creek with the idea of killing Dieter Schaffer and disposing of his body there. In that case they must have known his movements, either because they were acquainted personally or following him. Or Schaffer could have gone with one or more companions, they argued about something and he was killed. Schaffer had told Bill Seratono he was expecting money. His bank account wasn’t showing anything just yet so either he was lying and it hadn’t arrived yet, or he’d been paid cash. What might Schaffer’s idea have been of ‘rolling in it’? He lived very modestly. Maybe he was going to sell the outboard or the boat to somebody. That person had decided it was cheaper to just do Schaffer in and take it.

  Plenty of questions without answers.

  In effect, Clement had been able to eliminate nothing. He simply did not know enough about the victim. Dammit, he’d have to go to Schaffer’s shack now and see what he could learn. He didn’t trust leaving it to the uniforms. In the city it would be simple. You’d drive across town, forty-five minutes at most. And there would be somebody who could back you up, keep on train A while you shot off to investigate B, C or D.

  Not here. He was more or less it. He fired up the car, consoling himself with one new fact learned. Presuming the girls were telling the truth, Dieter Schaffer had no inkling that within twenty-four hours of enjoying himself at the Cleopatra Tavern somebody was going to bury an axe in his head.

  7

  Clement drove north towards Schaffer’s place in a declining mood. It might be over with Marilyn but the encounter with Brian present rankled. He flashed to himself twenty years on as Dieter Schaffer, lonely and single, still here, using pot to befriend girls younger than Phoebe would be then. The thought of another woman in his life wasn’t on his radar, it was all too complicated.

  The highway was straight, the night black. This part of the world ate time. In a sense it was like you were already dead, a soul passing through dark space. Igniting in his brain out of nowhere, an image, circa late 70s, early 80s, his parents sitting in those uncomfortable aluminium deckchairs with the plastic strips that pinched your bare legs.

  It could have been any weekend in that span because it was their perennial occupation: a dainty wooden table between them, a large bottle of Swan Lager in a chill bucket, two frosted small glasses. Not like now with everything big, giant glasses, giant bottles of Coke. Only cars had gotten smaller. The way things were going, in a year or so a bottle of Coke would be too big to fit into the boot of your car. Back then people knew how to sip not gulp. His aunt used to do jigsaw puzzles or play Patience, soaking time. Life was cruise-liner speed compared to now, no internet, you wrote with a leaky Bic biro, you mailed, you watched for a postman, you contemplated. His parents in those uncomfortable chairs in their shorts, staring ahead into nothingness, relaxed, seemingly contented. No words. As one drained a glass the other would politely refill it. They could sit like that for hours. At the time he could not imagine how they survived these hours of flat nothing. Truth be told, he still couldn’t quite grasp it but he had an inkling that at some point in life you accepted, not its pointlessness, that would be too negative, the vastness of it perhaps, the volume of it that was out of your control. You began to assess your inability to make any difference not just to other people’s lives but your own.

  Up here, that revelation was focused by the lack of distraction. The blackfellas had evolved to this state well before white Australians. ‘Don’t sweat’ was the saying and how apt it was here. A hard day’s work had been done, this was sufficient in itself, anything else was futile bordering on posturing. His mother and father had appreciated all of this, knew it in the pores of their skin and what’s more needed no conversation to communicate this. Each was embedded in his or her own thoughts and yet at the same time aware of their partner, considerate. He marvelled now at such intimacy. Did he and Marilyn ever have that? Not that he could recall. They had to find events to entertain them, movies, dinner. Neither of them would have lasted five minutes in those deckchairs. Perhaps that was it, they just weren’t robust enough together in the first place, so when his work challenged him, seduced him, and the same for her, they really had nothing left except Phoebe.

  Even though Clement was prepared for the turn-off to Schaffer’s, he nearly missed it. It was not bitumenised, just a wide dirt entranceway between bending trees. About twenty metres in, the trees thinned and he found himself on a rutted dirt track between scrub the height of the car. The shack nestled ahead under gums. Built on low stumps it was made of wood and tin, and had the look of a log cabin except that the roof was of shallow pitch and extended out over a simple veranda. Clement pulled up about twenty metres short and climbed out, taking his torch. The cabin was in darkness, which he expected. There was no electricity service out this way. Clement switched on his powerful torch and stepped from the ground straight up onto the veranda. A cable and light globe was slung over the open doorway on a hook, suggestive of a generator somewhere. A well-worn cane swinging chair was hooked to a beam under the veranda roof. Also hanging from the beam was a hodge-podge of old iron implements, dingo traps, farm tools. The mix of jagged teeth and prongs was malevolently artistic. Clement’s beam traced the cable leading from the light bulb. It headed inside the shack. There was no door, just a permanent space for entrance and exit, about double the width of a normal door.

  Stepping inside, Clement was surprised. Going on the condition of the Pajero he’d expected to find a dump, a mess of empty bottles and wheezing furniture but while it was rough and simply decorated, the place was well-ordered. It might have been one single room but it was a home. Large canvases of aboriginal art lay propped against the walls or hung. Good stuff by the looks, not the quick jobs dashed off to flog to a tourist coach. A gritty rug of what might have been South American design covered about a third of the floor. To the left as you walked in was a kitchen of sorts. A rectangular wood table, some odd kitchen chairs and stools. In the city it may have passed as a chic, inner city café. From the kitchen a window space without a window gave onto the bush. The electric cable continued its route and snaked out of it. Clement walked over and shone the torch. The cable ended at what may have been a converted dog kennel housing the generator. A rainwater tank was outside to the right. It looked relatively new. One tap was fixed near the window above the bench but no sink. An old washing machine, its power cord cut, sat on the floor, its outlet hose hooked over the window sill to deliver water to a small garden. Clement smiled at Schaffer’s economy, presumably he hand-washed his clothes in the tub and then used that water on his garden. Beside the washing machine squatted a plastic tub which may have been used as a portable sink. Naile
d up on the wall was a framed poster of a soccer team, HSV, 1978–79. It appeared to be from the same session as the t-shirt Schaffer had been wearing when Clement hauled out his body, though this looked older, an original. The players were grinning and holding some trophy. Premiers he guessed. HSV? Clement wasn’t a soccer nut but Hamburg rang a faint bell. Had Osterlund mentioned Dieter Schaffer was from Hamburg? Could explain it, local team wins. Fixed to the wall were hand-made wooden shelves which held the basics; a few tins and jars, coffee, biscuits, sugar. No sign of a fridge. On the kitchen table was one of those plastic dish racks sporting a few odd plates, cups and saucers, all clean. A toolbox did for the cutlery drawer, neatly arranged in forks, spoons, knives.

  The central part of the room offered an old sofa and coffee table, a standard lamp on sentry duty beside them. It looked a comfortable enough set up. The far end of the room served as the bedroom. A queen size bed covered in mosquito net, practical, as was the open rack beside it on which was hung a few shirts and pants. Lighting was apparently from battery driven lamps. There was one either side of the bed, neither switched on. No sign of a toilet so that was presumably outside. The cabin was wider than it was deep. It only took half a dozen paces to reach the back wall from the front door. A rough wooden bench here held ornaments, old jars, a few novels. There were also two smallish photos in frames. One showed a smiling young woman in a skivvy. She had a pleasant face with dark, wavy hair. It was hard to date but faded, clearly not recent. The other showed a group of five young men and given the moustaches, sideburns and style of leather jackets, was much easier to place as 1970s. Though it was shot close it looked like they were in some kind of office, an old photocopier could be seen behind them. If one of them hadn’t been wearing a uniform, Clement would not necessarily have picked them as cops. That uniform made all the difference. Those comradely arms around each other’s shoulders, the gleam of triumph in their eyes, the cockiness; he’d been part of a hundred such photos every year. Second from the left, with chubby face and handlebar moustache, was a young Dieter Schaffer. So, he had been a cop after all.

  It was as he glanced at the photo that Clement noticed for the first time a small set of wooden drawers to the right. The top drawer was half-open, papers swimming unevenly, while the lower drawers looked like they’d been quickly shoved closed, jamming papers in there. On the floor more papers. It was out of character with the rest of the place. He picked up the documents on the floor, old invoices, nothing exceptional, then began checking the drawers. The top one yielded a bank passbook, ruler, pencils, pens, some official looking certificates in German; one of which, from what he could decipher, was the death certificate of Schaffer’s mother, Adele. The second drawer was almost empty. Curious, considering the other drawers were also crammed. One drawer was full of printouts from web pages mostly in German but some in English. Featuring prominently was HSV, confirming them to be the Hamburg football team, as he’d supposed. Travel tips to South America were also well represented, and cultivation of cannabis. Jammed in between the football printouts were some news items. The first featured what seemed to be a photo of a crime scene at a park with the inset photo of a man about sixty. The next was an article which showed a grainy photo, surveillance style, of a balding man with low forehead reading a newspaper. It had been blown up from a smaller original. Both of these printouts were from web downloads. There was also a real and yellowing newspaper clipping which showed a photo of a young Dieter Schaffer in police uniform.

  Clement looked carefully but could see no printer. It was unlikely there would be any internet reception out here but the empty space in that second drawer would fit a laptop perfectly. He’d have to see if anybody knew whether Dieter Schaffer owned one. Maybe somebody had heard about Schaffer’s death and come out here to steal what they could. It must have happened since di Rivi and Restoff had come by, they would have noticed this mess, surely. Clement made a note to check just in case. He shone his torch on the doorless portal that led out the back. This space was narrower than the front entrance.

  He stepped out onto a back veranda about the same dimensions as the one out front. No sign of any outboard or rifle. A bar fridge was to his left but without the generator running, it was inert. He checked inside: beer, eggs, cheese, bread, part of a lettuce. Presumably Dieter Schaffer would turn on the generator when he was there and turn it off when he was away fishing. Clement stepped off the veranda shone the torch beam outwards and immediately saw thriving marijuana plants laced in with virgin bush. It was no plantation but it was enough to keep Dieter supplied for his own use with plenty left over to trade or sell.

  Clement headed towards it for closer examination. A sound made him turn to his right. Something swung through the air and slammed into his skull.

  8

  Clement blinked open his eyes. His head throbbed. The part of the world that was not dark was blurred. Almost at the same instant he realised he was lying in dirt, he heard the faint but distinct sound of a motorcycle peeling away. He sat on his haunches a long minute, the smell of earth assuring him he was alive. Unsteadily he climbed to his feet and touched the side of his head cautiously. His fingers felt the stickiness of blood. A rivulet was trickling down his temple onto his cheek. His torch, still on, had tumbled a metre away. Beside it was a long handled shovel. He guessed that may have been what hit him. He picked up the torch and staggered back inside, his head throbbing.

  In the kitchen beside a brush, shaving cream and a packet of disposable razors, he found a mirror the size of an A4 sheet of paper. It was tricky angling the torch to check his scalp but as far as he could tell the wounds were superficial. He contemplated what he should do next. This wasn’t the city with shifts coming on and off. All his people were already knackered or likely in bed, but his head ached and it was a long drive back in the dark. He made his way to the back veranda, pulled a warm beer from the bar fridge, cracked it and gulped. The throb began to ease. He drained the can looking up at the stars; the only sound the fluid in the can and his own breath, and all at once he understood how seductive this life must have been for Dieter Schaffer. When everything was stripped back, what did we really need, but a knife and fork in a tool box, water, a bed, a beer?

  He finished the can, walked back inside and over to the bed. He sat down on it and pulled off his shoes dimly aware that his socks had been far too long on his feet. The mattress was soft. Strange that a man who lived so frugally had preferred such a soft mattress. Or maybe he just found one discarded on the street and took it, somebody else’s preference automatically becoming his. By now the pulsing throb had become a more chronic, less intense ache. Fatigue had hit him quickly like the shovel. No chance he was driving anywhere now. Clement lay back on the bed and pulled the mosquito net around him. That took him back many, many moons, to open verandas and the sound of the Gloucester Park trots on a radio. His thoughts drifted to Phoebe sleeping in the same bedroom her mother had as a child, on the cliff far above a green ocean.

  Then he slept.

  Daylight and the smell of morning woke him. He was surprised how lucid he was. He remembered everything. Well, he thought he remembered everything, he supposed he might not realise if he didn’t. He touched his matted hair. The blood had congealed. He sat upright and his confidence evaporated. His head began to throb again, he felt nauseous. He slowed his breathing and gradually began to feel a bit better. He pulled out his phone and with it the card from Dieter Schaffer’s phone. Shit, he should have been onto that already, valuable time had been lost. He popped it back in his pocket, slid off the bed, saw he’d bloodied up the pillow but that was all, and walked towards the kitchen end of the house, thirsty. Halfway across, he stopped and flopped on the sofa. He stared at his phone, saw it was five fifty a.m. This time the man with the hammer was in his own head. He dialled Graeme Earle.

  Seventy minutes later Earle pulled into the area in front of Dieter Schaffer’s shack and parked beside Clement’s four-wheel drive. Clement watched him fr
om the swinging cane chair on the veranda. He’d been enjoying the sun’s early rays and was feeling much better. Earle spotted him and hustled over. He was clutching a brown paper bag.

  Clement said, ‘I could get used to this.’

  Once he was on the veranda, Earle gave the boss’s head the once-over.

  ‘I’ve had worse falling off a bar stool.’

  ‘Bloody high bar stool.’

  Earle handed over the paper bag. Clement dug inside, pleased to find fresh current buns. He raised an eyebrow to show he was impressed. ‘How many for me?’