Before It Breaks

by Dave Warner

  Clement had been turning over Earle’s first question. ‘I suppose I still want her.’

  ‘The ex?’

  ‘Marilyn, yeah. Not for sex, although there is that.’

  ‘You miss her.’

  ‘No. That’s the thing. I don’t miss her, I’m always aware of why it’s better we’re not together. And I don’t need her. But I want her, sometimes. There’s something there I don’t know if it can be repeated. Or if I’d want it repeated.’

  ‘You don’t, believe me. Chemistry is bad for relationships. You want total non-reaction. Inert elements or whatever the fuck they are called. That works best in the long run.’

  ‘You speaking from experience?’

  ‘Kind of. I learned my lesson back in high school but I’ve seen plenty of other guys like you. You don’t need the girl but you need what she gives you. Like junkies still chasing that perfect first high.’

  ‘I know what you’re saying but I don’t know that’s me.’

  ‘So why aren’t you together?’

  He’d thought about that a lot. ‘I think when we’re together we make each other realise how far we fall short of what we should be.’

  Earle didn’t pursue it after that and it elevated him in Clement’s estimation. Two guys who weren’t bullshitting but there’s a limit. It must have been a good twenty minutes before Earle broke the silence.

  ‘Who is this? He’s fucking good.’

  ‘Dr John the Night Tripper. You never heard him before?’

  ‘I’m a Led Zeppelin guy but I like this. I don’t think I’ve heard him on the radio.’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘How do you know about him?’

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘We’ve got time.’

  So Clement told him about the homicide ten years ago in Bayswater. A man about forty had been bashed to death in his house. No suspect, nothing to go on. The victim had a big old vinyl record collection. Clement had spent weeks in the murder house listening to all the records trying to understand the victim, thinking it might help find the killer.

  ‘Did it?’

  ‘No. We never got him. But I found Dr John.’

  18

  It was just after two when he dropped Earle at the station. Shepherd had called in en route. He had located Schaffer’s doctor but she had only treated him twice and had nothing of import to reveal.

  ‘I’m going up to Osterlund’s, see if he can help make me make this call to Germany. People should be awake there now.’

  Earle said he’d chase up the warrant for Karskine’s.

  It took Clement only ten minutes to drive to Osterlund’s. Osterlund’s wife was on the veranda using a large watering can on a bevy of colourful potted flowers. In a simple shift of bright batik design and wearing a pristine bonnet, she had that elegance Clement associated with Japanese women.

  She smiled in recognition. ‘Do you have news on Dieter?’

  ‘Not yet. I need help in translating something from German. Is your husband in?’

  ‘He is walking along the beach.’

  ‘I can come back.’

  ‘I might be able to help.’ Her accent elongated the vowels.

  ‘No it’s okay. Actually I need somebody to call Germany for me and speak in German.’

  ‘He won’t be long. Come in. You want a drink?’

  ‘Thanks, I’m fine.’

  He followed her into the house. She turned left towards the large kitchen area and indicated he take a seat at a kitchen table big enough for six. It was made of a type of marble stuff that cost more than he could afford. He knew this because years before it was what Marilyn had wanted for their kitchen. Geraldine had insisted her daughter have it and had paid for it herself, so that even over breakfast or a quiet glass of wine she had a presence mocking her son-in-law for his inadequacy.

  ‘Please.’

  He sat down.

  ‘So you haven’t found the person who killed him?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  She pursed her lips and shook her head.

  Clement said. ‘Did you know him well?’

  ‘He used to telephone my husband, a couple of times a week. We saw him sometimes in town. He was always friendly but her nose wrinkled, ‘he smelled of beer, a bit drunk, you know?’

  Having seen the Pajero, Clement could well imagine that.

  ‘We believe he grew his own marijuana.’

  ‘Really? Dieter?’ She clearly disapproved. ‘I did not know that.’

  ‘Did he talk about his friends at all, whether he was worried about anything?’

  ‘Not to me.’

  A scuffing of soft shoes in the hallway advised of Osterlund’s arrival.

  ‘Good morning, Detective. Any news?’

  If he was annoyed at finding Clement cosy with his wife he didn’t show it.

  ‘Not really. A few leads we’re following.’

  ‘He says Dieter smoked pot.’

  ‘Grew it actually,’ Clement said.

  Osterlund pulled a face. ‘I smelled it on him sometimes.’

  ‘He never offered you any?’

  ‘He may have, early on. I don’t take drugs except for cholesterol.’

  Clement wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth. ‘I came to ask a favour. I’m trying to track his sister and I need somebody who can speak German.’

  ‘No problem.’

  Osterlund spoke to his wife in German, requesting a coffee, Clement thought. She was off the stool with alacrity.

  ‘Tuthi is making me a coffee. Anything for you?’

  ‘Thanks, I just had one. I have a phone number on his sister.’

  He handed across the number Earle had given him. There was a telephone number and the name Christiane Hohlmann. Osterlund pulled reading glasses from his pocket and studied it.

  ‘This is a Munich number. You want me to call for you?’

  ‘If you don’t mind.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  Clement offered his phone. ‘I think this will work.’

  Osterlund waved him away. ‘I have an all-in-one deal.’

  He swung the laptop towards him and dialled the number as the espresso machine roared into life in the background. Osterlund called out for his wife to stop and waited as the phone rang on the other end. Clement was not used to people using computers for phone calling, well, Skype; he’d tried a few times but it looked like Osterlund did this every day. A woman answered. Clement deciphered Osterlund’s enquiry in German, was it Christiane Hohlmann to whom he was speaking? He understood the reply ‘nein.’

  Osterlund followed up in rapid-fire German. Clement lost track then. Osterlund fired off a few more questions, typed something on his computer, thanked whoever it was on the phone and hung up. The espresso machine recommenced its gasping.

  ‘Christiane Hohlmann left that apartment two years ago for a retirement home. She doesn’t know the name of it but one of her neighbours might, a woman who was friends with Christiane Hohlmann, a Frau Gerlanger. She gave me her number. Want me to try it?’

  ‘Could you?’

  ‘No problem.’

  Astuthi Osterlund arrived on cue with his coffee, black. She slid quietly into a seat. Osterlund sipped as he dialled. The phone rang out the other end.

  ‘I’ll try it again. Are you sure you won’t have a drink? I have beer if you prefer?’

  ‘No, I’m fine thank you.’

  Once again the phone rang out.

  ‘No answer machine even. She must be elderly.’

  ‘I’ll try later.’

  ‘You can come here anytime.’

  ‘Thank you. Did Dieter by any chance mention to you he was coming into money?’

  Osterlund infused a snort with a sense of comedy. ‘But I didn’t know him that well. Maybe one of his bets paid off. You think that’s why he was killed?’

  ‘We can’t discuss cases.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Clement noted that Astuthi Osterlund
did not attempt to answer questions when her husband was present so he directed his question specifically to her. ‘To you? Did he say anything about coming into money?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do either of you know what he did after leaving the police?’

  A quick calculation told Clement that Dieter Schaffer had been out of the police force for around twenty years before coming to live here. Osterlund spun his coffee cup.

  ‘He talked about working the docks one time. I can’t remember the context. It didn’t sound like it was for that long.’

  ‘He told me he wanted to go to South America but had never been.’

  Osterlund looked at his wife as if this was some revelation. ‘See, my wife knows more than me about him.’

  She blushed. ‘No, he just asked me one day if I had ever been to South America. I haven’t. He said all his life he had wanted to and maybe one day soon he would. But he didn’t mention money. I just thought it was a dream.’

  ‘Ja, that was Dieter, the dreamer.’

  Clement stood and thanked them both again.

  The garden was fragrant and made him feel relaxed. Living here would be like permanent holiday. He supposed he should talk to the neighbours to confirm the Osterlunds’ alibi but on second thoughts decided that was something that could be delegated. Osterlund did not strike him as the kind of man who would make a stupid alibi in the hope that it would not be checked, and Astuthi Osterlund had a kind of innocence about her that reminded him of the Balinese people he’d met when he’d holidayed there twenty years ago. Everybody was going there these days, especially from up around here. A lot of the fly-in fly-out mine workers were actually living there. Maybe he should take Phoebe for a week or so? It was inexpensive, they could have fun getting rough ‘massages’ on the beach. Geraldine would be against it of course, ‘too dangerous’. That negative image pulled him back down.

  For the time being he was grounded on Schaffer’s identity, who he was, how he ticked. He was keen to talk to the sister and try to discern a little more of the elusive ex-cop. What he had learned was intriguing but far from solid evidence. There may be a pattern though. Schaffer worked Vice and Narcotics. He comes thousands of miles away, grows his own dope and distributes it, albeit to no obvious profit. But, he is seen arguing with a biker and somebody who rides a bike turns up at Schaffer’s the night after his murder and clobbers a cop. It was suggestive at the very least.

  When Clement re-entered the station and saw the look on Graeme Earle’s face he knew something was wrong. His immediate thought was of Phoebe. Some disaster had befallen the boat. He should never…

  ‘Your mum rang. Your father has had a stroke. He’s in Albany Regional.’

  19

  ‘Hello, love.’ His mother sounded like she was holding it together but just.

  ‘How is he? Can he move? Can he talk?’

  ‘I don’t know. They’ve been running tests. He’s in a coma. They said he was fortunate I was there and called the ambulance straight away.’

  When Earle had told him the news Clement had first off entered some weird state where objects seemed stagey, props without substance. He half expected the computer to be light as cardboard but it wasn’t and he momentarily forgot why he had sat down at it, then remembered he was after the number for Albany Hospital. His fingers felt like somebody else’s as he typed on the prop computer, picked up the prop phone and dialled. His mother and father were just shy of eighty and neither used the mobile phone he had bought them. It had taken him two receptionists to locate his mother at the ICU. At least by that time he was returning to something normal. She ran through what had happened. A typical Saturday morning, they both liked to rise early and walk. His father had emerged from the bathroom dressed and ready to go. She’d turned to get her scarf and when she looked back he was on the floor. She called the ambulance straight away. The paramedics came quickly and said his heart was beating strongly which was a relief, for her first fear had been a massive heart attack.

  ‘I’ve been here since and they’ve run lots of tests on him. The main doctor said it was a stroke. He is in a coma. He could come out of it soon or never.’

  He felt for her, alone, trying to hold it together. ‘I’ll come down today.’ He was wondering if he’d be able to get seats on the various planes required to get from here to there.

  ‘You don’t need to.’

  Of course he did. His sister Tess lived in New Zealand with her family.

  ‘Does Tess know?’

  ‘Yes, I rang her. I told her to wait until things became clearer but she said she’ll make some arrangements.’

  ‘Do you need anything?’

  ‘Jess Granger is being an angel. You don’t need to come, really.’

  ‘I’ll be there. Take care.’

  He went online and searched for a flight to Perth. A flight was leaving in an hour. A connecting flight to Albany was leaving within forty minutes of his arrival in Perth. He booked seats at full-tote odds, mindful that that put an end to any hope of flying somewhere for a holiday with Phoebe. Western Australia was a big state and he’d be covering most of its length but he estimated he could make the hospital by eight thirty p.m.

  As for the case, he didn’t think there was anything he could do at this point that Graeme Earle couldn’t. He called Scott Risely and found him on the golf course. Risely gave him his blessing to go, his one concern being the warrant for Karskine’s house and car. He expected to have it within the hour.

  ‘Graeme can handle that. Basically we’re looking for an axe, clothes, shoes, blood in the car.’

  Risely wished him luck.

  Clement filled in Earle. ‘The boss will have the warrant ready soon. You can handle that with the techs. I’ll call you between flights. If I can organise Rhino, I’ll stop off in Perth on the way back to catch up about the case but whatever happens I will be back tomorrow evening ready to go Monday.’

  Earle wished him all the best. Clement shrugged hopelessly.

  ‘There’s nothing I can do really. Keep trying to find that bikie, get some eyes on Marchant, he knows something. If you find a blood-stained axe at Karskine’s, leave a message.’

  Forty minutes later, the shimmering heat from the tarmac barely registering, Clement trundled behind an eclectic bunch, Asian tourists, a few families, kids bent over electronic handsets, elderly couples, young mining bods. The wealthier tourists wore new akubra hats, the mining rats workboots and singlets. This is fun for you, he thought watching tourists cram bags into overhead lockers. This journey is about all the good things you will discover. He considered how often he’d flown and how many times there must have been somebody on the plane feeling like he was now, apprehensive, alone.

  The flight was full and he found himself beside a couple of young miners. They put us single men together where we can only offend each other, he speculated, but wasn’t sure if airline staff really were that thorough in their planning.

  It was twenty minutes into the flight, after the miners had ordered some can mix of spirits and coke and the various children were immersed in their computer games, before his thoughts bore down and focused on his father. Who ever knew their father? Sure he knew his habits, hobbies. He’d been a pretty fair tennis player in his day and had continued playing competitively well into his sixties. Wimbledon on tele was the highlight of his year. He preferred beer to wine, liked hot English mustard on his steak, cooked medium. So far as Clement was aware his father had always loved his mother. There had been squabbles but no huge domestic where somebody had moved out or run off with the neighbour for a fortnight. But what did he know of his dreams as a young man? Did he play jokes on his friends, was he a wag? Was he a studious, serious kid?

  Clement hadn’t really seen any of that in him but you changed when you were a father, you lost individuality and you morphed into the status. Clement had, anyway. Once Phoebe came along his life reduced to only two modes, work and family, and this he saw as a continuation of h
is father’s modus operandi. As a kid Clement had not been exposed to many of his parents’ friends, who were all left in Perth when they’d come up here to run the caravan park. Very occasionally some old pal would drive up and spend a few days at the park. There’d be laughter, beers, but no stories he could recall. His father was one of five kids and had grown up in the wheatbelt. He should check with Mal Gross, see if they were from around the same neck of the woods. Clement did not remember his grandfather who ran a store and died of a heart attack in his fifties when Clement was two. Clement imagined his father, Alan, driving back to the hometown for the funeral in the old Kingswood, reliving his childhood. Alan Clement had finished high school, not all that common in those days, especially in those parts, and had found a job in the public service somewhere for a few years before joining the Roads department. His parents had met, married, Tess born first, then Dan and then that life had ended for whatever reason, presumably opportunity, and they’d headed north when Dan was six. As a boy in that wheatbelt town, what had been his father’s dream? To play in the Davis Cup, sail the high seas, feel the spray, the wind, chasing down the America’s Cup, to own his own pub, to fly high over the flat brown earth as Clement was now? Surely it can’t have been to run a caravan park in the Never Never. On occasion as a kid, Clement would flip through black and white photos in the family photo album. A handful were of his father’s childhood. They were small with serrated edges and Clement could still remember his thrall as he sat on the floor, or the grass under a shady tree, confronted by these strange physical things that represented a mysterious and foreign world. He pictured them now, farm life, his father with his brothers and a sister all standing against a water tank or propped against a farm ute. Clement’s uncles he couldn’t even name he’d seen them so infrequently but his aunt Meg he knew, being the only girl. She was the only one besides his father still alive. There were only a few photos, maybe a dozen in all. In the 1940s and 50s, cameras and printing a luxury; they didn’t own a fridge until his father was fifteen. The frugality had continued after his parents married and very few snaps chronicled the years before Tess and he came along. Most of those that did exist, a youthful Clement had committed to memory, flipping through the creaking album up here on hot oppressive days with no television and a surfeit of boredom. The courting years of his mum and dad featured group shots of people he had never met, holiday snaps, a wedding or christening. There was little of everyday life. In attempting to capture what they thought was extraordinary, all people had done was replicate the same uninspiring scenes of smiling faces looking at a camera. There was no photo of his parents sitting on their chairs gazing into a strand of distant trees, a solitary bottle of beer between them.