Before It Breaks

by Dave Warner

  Still, he was left with an overhanging question. Somebody had sliced Dieter Schaffer’s head open like a melon, then kicked and beaten him before changing his bloodied shirt for a clean one. Who would do that and why?

  12

  The peppery smell of eucalypts hovered over him as he drifted into a zone that verged on sleep yet was not, for he was aware of hot dirt beneath his back, and above, blue sky through whispering gum leaves. His senses were on high alert and yet there was an overwhelming inertia about him. He had read of curare, the poison certain natives used to immobilise their prey, and supposed it could induce a sensation close to this. The police investigation neither deterred nor stimulated him. He was curious yes, but it ran in parallel to him and could not stop him. Nothing could. The axe he’d leave here until needed again. If it were found, unlikely but not impossible, the police would stake out the place. As a precaution he had left a number of safeguards starting with the broken branch in the shrub that blocked the narrow track into here. If anybody pushed through, the branch would fall to the ground.

  He was, he admitted, disappointed a croc had not eaten Schaffer. That would have made his day. Still, there was a lot to enjoy: Schaffer’s skull cracking, the feel of his boot in his chest. Any fool who watched TV these days knew how much ‘trace’ boots carried in their grooves so they had been the first things discarded, a long way from here.

  He felt a burning pinch in his hand and sat up. Something had nipped him. He searched, found an ant, red. He crushed it between his fingers.

  Things were in hand. Protected by higher powers, he had been led, had he not, or more correctly carried like Moses in that basket, downstream by a flowing source that existed outside of him, to his destiny. The task had seemed impossible at the outset but everything had fallen into place. If he wanted he could act right now but he would rather wait. For so long he had lived as if he were made of cardboard. There had been momentary glimpses of a much better existence but now every new second his heart pumped life. Yet this was how it could have been all along. This was how it should have been, how it would be from here on.

  His preparations had been extensive. Had he missed anything? Was there anything to give him up before he was ready?

  He picked through his precautions and could find nothing lacking. He stood and brushed off the dirt. It was as if he had been immersed in the land, part of the landscape. That was a joyous sensation, this feeling of wholeness, permanence.

  In the beginning, what would happen to him after had not been a consideration. If he were caught, so be it. If not, he had accomplished his task. Care for his own safety had seemed mean-spirited and self-serving but now he was beginning to feel a shift within, as if this new state, this aliveness, could be permanent. Wouldn’t that be apt: in the blood of his enemies, he would actually be reborn?

  He kept the thought at bay. It was dangerous to get ahead of himself. He had sworn to do this without contemplation of his own future. He mustn’t complicate things. The stones must fall wherever.

  And yet…

  He remembered the ceremony he had witnessed in the flicker of campfire. The men painted like ghosts, the drone of the didgeridoo, the clap and stomp of flesh, so like a more familiar theology, the spirit was both God and man. He had committed to memory the dance. He found his limbs moving now as if of their own accord, given life by a force outside of him. The words didn’t matter. The drone of the didgeridoos lived in his memory. He swung right foot down, left foot down, shifted weight, turned, scooped dirt and threw it into the air, and as he did so felt even more power, like he was drawing it from the very heart of this great earth.

  13

  At five o’clock Clement’s team, including Lisa Keeble, was assembled in the main area of the Major Crime unit. Risely slipped out of his office and propped himself against the wall. Clement had wheeled in a whiteboard and written up the most important points. Manners poked his head in to inform Clement he was printing off the contact list from the phone. Clement studied the group which sat facing him over chairs and desks. It was now around thirty hours since he’d found the body and though he felt time slipping by, he refused to let that hurry him.

  ‘Okay, anything new, before we begin?’

  Lisa Keeble stuck a finger in the air and spoke at the same time.

  ‘Perth Coroner has checked the body over and confirmed death was caused by blood loss and the blow to the head. The other trauma was inflicted while the victim was still alive, definitely some after the head trauma but we can’t be certain there wasn’t also a beating beforehand. Also spoke to Rhino who checked fingerprints from the drawers. Two sets: yours and Schaffer’s.’

  She made nothing of having already identified Schaffer’s prints herself. Clement supplied the conclusion.

  ‘So either Schaffer removed the computer himself or somebody was careful and probably wore gloves.’

  ‘Rhino also believes the murder weapon is an axe not a machete.’

  Clement wrote AXE on the board, alongside time of death which he had written as BETWEEN 9 PM WEDNESDAY AND 1AM THURSDAY.

  ‘How about the Kelly yard, anything?’

  ‘Briony has processed it but we have no analysis yet as to whether any trace matches the Jasper Creek crime scene; ditto where you were attacked. But I did find a few traces of gravel near where you were hit and also where I think the bike was parked, that didn’t seem to be anywhere else on Schaffer’s property.’

  ‘You think the attacker may have transferred it?’ Clement said.

  ‘It’s possible. I didn’t find it on your shoes for example and it would make sense that if it came from boots it might be where the bike was parked.’

  ‘But none in the house?’

  ‘No.’

  Nat Restoff looked around to his colleagues. ‘You being attacked has to be related, doesn’t it?’

  Clement could have given him a lecture on jumping to conclusions but he restrained himself.

  ‘We need to let the facts tell us what is and isn’t related.’ He looked over at Shepherd to prompt his report.

  ‘I’ve done all around McDougall. Nobody saw anything or heard anything unusual except Mrs Kelly. At the creek there’s no sign of the weapon, in the creek or the bush.’

  ‘So our murderer may have taken it with him. Mal? Any gambling history with Schaffer?’

  Gross shook his head. ‘None of the bookies I know had dealings with him. But these days there’s so much online gambling…’

  He threw his hands up to emphasise the vastness of possibility.

  ‘We need that computer.’

  Clement wrote COMPUTER on the board and underscored it.

  It was Graeme Earle’s turn. He had checked with Schaffer’s neighbours. They were a kilometre away from him on either side so they rarely had much to do with Schaffer except to borrow or return a tool, or pass each other on the highway. No alarm bells rang for him when interviewing them. Neither of the neighbours recalled seeing regular visitors to Dieter Schaffer’s. They described him as a bit of a hermit. None of them saw motorcycles around. None of them rode motorcycles.

  ‘Schaffer owned his place outright, two hectares, paid cash three years ago. Three years ago he opened his savings account with a transfer of around twelve thousand dollars from a German bank and for the last year his balance has remained steady around eight thousand. He pulls a few hundred out now and again and deposits a few hundred, always cash. I’ve gone through all the documents we found and sorted them into receipts and so forth. There is only one letter, in German. I’ve got a friend who is German, Ellie. She is translating it as we speak.’

  ‘You can use the computer to translate.’ Having scattered this wisdom, Shepherd sat back, superior.

  ‘Really?’ Mal Gross was as surprised as Earle.

  ‘Yeah, most languages.’

  Gross was working his way through it. ‘But you’d have to scan it or type it first.’

  ‘Anyway …’ Clement urged the story on.

/>   Earle continued. The letter writer was a ‘Mathias’, no surname, dated three months ago. The other stuff was various computer printouts from Google pages, a lot of them to do with Hamburg, especially the football club.

  ‘Maybe he was homesick?’ offered Gross.

  ‘There were these from German newspaper websites.’ Earle held up the pages Clement had spied among the football stuff. ‘Ellie’s having a go at them for me too.’

  ‘Looks like a crime scene.’ Lisa Keeble was craning forward to check out the page Clement had noted.

  ‘He was an ex-cop,’ offered Gross. He didn’t extrapolate but they got the point, Schaffer’s interest might be natural.

  Earle held up the old newspaper clipping showing a young Dieter Schaffer in uniform.

  ‘Back in seventy-three he got a citation for bravery. Knife-wielding loony was holding a mother and kid hostage, Schaffer got called in off the street, and tackled the guy unarmed, alone.’

  And now on the other side of the world he gets an axe buried in his head, thought Clement.

  ‘Anything on the sister?’

  ‘I’ve asked Immigration to get back to us with next of kin address but haven’t had a chance to follow it up.’

  Manners pushed into the room and, over the heads of those seated, handed a printout to Clement. ‘Three of them have records, two for possession of cannabis, one for assault.’

  Clement addressed his team as he digested this and scanned the page.

  ‘Phone contacts off Schaffer’s mobile. Gerd Osterlund, a businessman, I’ve interviewed him. A Mitchell Karskine. Looks like he had some form years ago, petty stuff, pissing in public, and an assault that had him placed on a good behaviour bond.’

  Clement suspected this would be the Mitch he’d met at The Anglers. The assault meant he had to be considered somebody of interest.

  ‘Jenny Messiano, Rory Clipsall, possession of cannabis. Then Trent Jaffner, Sally Nightcliff and Romano Grigio.’

  The uniforms were smirking from local knowledge.

  ‘Potheads,’ explained Jo di Rivi.

  Clement turned and wrote MOTIVE on the board and, under that, POT. ‘So the people in his contacts are most likely his clients. We can’t rule out that one of them was into him and wouldn’t or couldn’t pay, so took him out; or was just greedy for that matter. How big was his crop?’

  ‘About as big as a one-man operation would allow,’ said Graham Earle.

  ‘We have to ask what Nat mentioned before: is the break-in at Schaffer’s house related to his killing or not? Was the assault on me related? If related, is this about the pot or the missing computer or both? Was the same person responsible or different people? We need to look for facts, people, that will tell us what the right direction is.’

  Shepherd stuck a hand up.

  ‘Yes, Shep.’

  ‘It could have been a crime of opportunity at the creek. But then the kids show up and the killer has to take off before he can take anything. But he knows where Schaffer lives so he goes back to score what he can there.’

  The kids hadn’t mentioned hearing anything but, in their state, who knew?

  ‘True.’ It was a sound point.

  Shepherd sat back, chuffed.

  ‘Are we sure it’s not the kids?’ Angus Parker was a large constable, early thirties, used to being on the front line. Clement glanced at Risely, whose look suggested he was asking the same question.

  ‘It’s not them kids.’ Jared Taylor twisted around in his chair to address Parker. ‘They’re not going to go out in the middle of a creek when they think there’s a croc around. They’d just leave him. Maybe drag him to the edge.’

  Clement spoke in support. ‘I’m confident they’re telling the truth. There was an area about fifty metres back where a vehicle had recently been parked. That could have been the killer.’

  ‘Any decent forensic evidence from there?’ Risely asked from the back.

  Keeble explained she had paid particular attention to the area but there was no litter, no blood. ‘There was part impression of a boot in the sand. I made a cast.’

  Shepherd tried his hand again. ‘So it could have been anybody parked there, not necessarily anything to do with this case.’

  ‘It could have,’ said Lisa, ‘but virtually every car that parks in the bush here leaves some kind of litter. Beer cans, cigarette stubs, chip packets, tissues. They’re all slobs. This one left nothing, like somebody was being careful.’

  Clement had been thinking about Schaffer’s drug operation.

  ‘The way Schaffer lived was extremely frugal. Even with only a dozen regular clients he would have made surplus cash which he probably wouldn’t put in a bank. People involved in drugs sniff that kind of thing out.’

  ‘So maybe somebody figured he had a stash and killed him for it?’ Lisa Keeble was following the reasoning.

  Earle had a habit of chewing his pen. He pulled one from his mouth to point out that the shack had been thoroughly searched and nothing had turned up.

  ‘Two hectares, that’s a lot of land to dig a hole,’ said Mal Gross.

  Clement cautioned he was just floating theories but laid out some scenarios. ‘The reason the killer didn’t take the wallet might have been he didn’t need it. He could have stolen Schaffer’s stash then killed him; or beaten him, found where he’d hidden it, killed him, then stolen the cash.’

  Risely eased himself off the wall, liking this train of thought. ‘Schaffer could even have carried it on him, or in his car. I’ve seen it before.’

  Everybody was nodding like this could make sense. The change of shirt still nagged at Clement but he wrote STASH? on the board anyway.

  ‘Has anybody had any bright ideas on why the killer would change Schaffer’s shirt?’

  Shepherd had a stab. ‘DNA? Trying to degrade it.’

  Keeble couldn’t see it. ‘Why leave the bloodied original shirt?’

  Clement sensed they were running out of steam. ‘Okay, there are promising lines of enquiry here. Also we can’t ignore the fact Schaffer was a policeman. However unlikely, we need to consider some criminal may have caught up with him. I’ll ring Hamburg and see if they can tell me anything of interest. In the meantime, Graeme, you and I will go through his phone list and interview each of the people on it. Shep, you, Angus and Jared search every inch of that property for a stash. The rest of you, I want you looking for the computer and any whisper Dieter Schaffer had a stash. Even if he didn’t, somebody may have thought he did.’

  He warned them all they would be working through the weekend but there was no need to start a search of the property until light tomorrow.

  ‘And the car, can we make sure there’s no stash hidden anywhere in it?’

  Keeble announced it was in the compound out the back of the station and she would get onto it right away.

  Risely stayed behind after the rest had shuffled out. ‘There could be something in this business of a stash. The killer could have gone back to take the plants too but you got in the way. I’ll tell the media we are pursuing several lines of enquiry. Perth is all over it now so it’s going to get hectic.’

  ‘Well, let them get their pictures at the creek and we’ll follow the leads up.’

  Risely disappeared into his office. Clement looked up the time in Hamburg on his computer and saw it was morning, a suitable time to call. It was only as he checked for a telephone number it occurred to him he might need to speak German. It wasn’t like he hadn’t pursued overseas lines of inquiry before, but it had been a while, and he’d gotten rusty. Things that had been second nature were leaving him. His work was the one compartment of his life he had been able to take as a given—if that went, what was he? Could he really afford to stay so far away from the action in this backwater? And what was the point? Either there was no work or a case presented that drew him away from the only reason he was there in the first place. Clement tried the number indicated. He wasn’t even sure he had the country code correct and was hal
f-surprised that he’d got it right. He was answered in German and did his best to communicate his needs. Eventually he was passed onto some English-speaking young woman and tried again. The young woman explained she understood he was a ‘police’ in Australia but he should put his request in writing.

  Of course this was what he should have done in the first place. In Perth he would have had translators or other support staff to get this in train.

  He hung up having achieved nothing except an email address. He wrote a short letter requesting to speak to any current or former police about Dieter Schaffer, and asking if somebody from Hamburg police might visit ‘Mathias’ and get him to contact him direct. He ran it through the translator and sent it off.

  Earle was checking his computer screen and looked up as Clement emerged.

  ‘Why don’t you go home and have dinner?’ said Clement. ‘I’ll pick you up at nine and we’ll pay a few visits.’