Before It Breaks

by Dave Warner

  One group of photos always caught his attention though. It was well before his sister was born, his mother and father at a tennis club New Year’s Eve fancy-dress party. His mum was Little Red Riding Hood, his dad a musketeer. The table was littered with large bottles of Swan Lager, the only beer available then. The snap that particularly intrigued him showed his father lunging with a foil—it looked like real one with a button on the end—at a jolly friar. In his father’s eye was a gleam and his youthful body was taut with a theatrical hand caught in a mid-air twirl. The friar was doing a good job affecting wide-eyed surprise at his own ‘death’. This was a side of his father Clement could not recall in the flesh. In that split-second there was a man dashing, theatrical, full of life. Was it simply the booze talking? Or was it a moment where his father’s spirit broke to the surface and ran?

  This same man could be on his deathbed and Clement still had no idea of who he was underneath the shellac of fatherhood. There had been times he’d attempted to get closer, inquiring about his dad’s schooldays, his mates, their holidays, the first car he owned, but his father would make a one sentence comment and turn his attention to something practical like unblocking the septic tank or fixing a window. Clement understood the barrier. Parents want to live every aspect of their children’s lives but don’t want their children to know them. He didn’t want Phoebe to know how he felt about himself. Hell, he wasn’t even sure how he did feel about himself. You could say there was a sense of failure and a little guilt, like the draft prospect who never delivered big-time, but that wasn’t quite right. There were moments he was proud of his work, proud even of the fact that at some point Marilyn had been in love with him, proud to be Phoebe’s father, yet that did not mean he wanted Phoebe in on this. Ultimately he assumed the real him would be a disappointment and yet he did not attempt to cultivate a ‘fake’ him, he simply chose to restrict aspects of his old self, to present what he wanted. He was sure that in this he was following a family tradition.

  The plane touched down in Perth. Even though the sun clung to the sky only by its fingernails it was still hot, the Doctor thin and wan today as its patients. He had to scoot over to a separate terminal for the flight to Albany. En route he called Earle and listened to his report.

  ‘I’m at Karskine’s now. Nothing yet but we’ve only been here forty-five minutes or so.’

  ‘How was he?’

  ‘Not too bad. Told us we were wasting our time and was not impressed we were impounding the vehicle. Apparently Mathias Klendtwort called the station and left a contact number, sounds like he speaks good English. You want me to follow up?’

  ‘You’re busy, I’ll do that.’

  Earle gave him the phone number and Clement wrote it on his hand.

  ‘Shep have any luck with those vehicles in the CCTV?’

  ‘No. Three of them belonged to people working in the shops. Nobody saw the biker.’

  The Albany plane was boarding by the time Clement reached the terminal. It was a smaller craft but most of the twenty-odd seats were claimed. The passenger list this time was more homogeneous, ninety percent locals heading home. He edged down the narrow aisle and squeezed in next to a man with ruddy cheeks and nose, and a full crop of snow-white hair, probably in his sixties. The remnants of skin cancers burned off the man’s face suggested outdoor occupation. Odds on he was a farmer. They nodded politely to each other and that was it.

  On this leg, Clement dwelt only on whether his father would survive. He had long steeled himself for the death of his parents so he was not shocked to find himself in this situation but he did not want his father to die, not now, not ever. Practical considerations began to pepper him. If his father did survive would he be mobile? Would he have to go to a home? Could his mother cope? No highlights announced themselves, just varying degrees of unpleasant realities that other people were dealing with every day and once more he felt vaguely guilty. Had he earned more money maybe he would have been able to afford nurses and private facilities. He had settled for an acceptable existence, not a good one.

  The female flight attendants barely had time to scoop up the tea and coffee cups before informing them they would soon be landing. Clement had taken a sip of his tea, felt his tooth twinge and decided not to tempt fate further. He pressed his face to the porthole and through gloom saw thick forests below. The contrast between where he had come from and here could only have been more powerful with snow on the ground. They landed and deplaned, as the Americans like to say. It was dark and much cooler than Perth, but mild not cold. Whereas the north air was full of desert dust, down here it was clean and invigorating, something to do with negative ions from the Great Southern Ocean, Clement had heard, though he could not remember where. Albany had been a whaling port into the 1970s but a century earlier had been more internationally famous than Perth, for besides the whaling it acted as a gateway to the Kalgoorlie goldfields.

  The taxi driver was overweight, with a form guide folded on the dash, simple pleasures. Clement thought of cautioning him on the dangers of stroke but held his tongue. Before entering the hospital he called Earle again. They had finished up at Karskine’s. No axe, surprise, surprise. Mal Gross had been overseeing the biker lead, getting the uniforms to do the legwork. Nothing had turned up yet and they were sending patrols by regularly to keep an eye on Marchant.

  Hospitals might offer a small degree of variance on the outside but Clement found once inside they were of a type, almost interchangeable, the same cool air with the faint smell of heated meals, the same church hush. His father had been shifted to a private room. Clement found him on his back, seemingly asleep among a tangle of monitoring devices. His mother sat in the chair beside the bed gazing into space. It took her an instant to come back. She stood up and hugged her son. Clement dragged over the remaining chair in the room.

  ‘They say he’s serious but stable. His body is functioning normally but they don’t know what damage there might have been.’

  ‘You want something to eat?’

  ‘I’m alright. They brought me a roll, they’re angels. What about you? You must be starving?’

  Actually he was. He asked again about what had happened and listened to the same details in more or less the same order. Since they’d last spoken there had been more doctor visits but his mother knew nothing substantial although they had said he was stabilised. Clement excused himself, found a dispenser machine up the corridor fumbled in his pockets for coins as he read instructions without taking them in and selected Mexican-flavoured corn chips. His fingers felt stiff and awkward as he fed coins. He managed to work it all somehow, came back and resumed his seat.

  ‘Tess called. She’s booked to fly in Wednesday.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  He said it even though he was neutral on whether Tess would be much help. Had it been his father having to cope she could have done the basic — cook a meal, clean, wash—but his mum was capable of fending for herself in that regard. Decoding the medical half-truths was where she needed assistance and he doubted his sister would be much use. Tess had never been able to pick up an inference, she had to be hit over the head with directness and her manner could seem brusque for the same reason. Still, he supposed it would be company for his mum, and if his dad was not showing signs of recovery by Wednesday she might need a lot of support.

  ‘How’s he been?’

  ‘Fine. Really good. He’s been on blood pressure tablets for a few years now but he’s usually good.’

  ‘Not stressed about anything?’

  The slightest hesitation. ‘No.’

  Clement realised the stress was probably to do with him. He was a forty-two year old man whose life had at best stalled, at worst fallen apart.

  ‘You’re on a murder case?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll have to head back tomorrow.’

  His mother understood. She still had vivacity in her eyes but the price for those days in the deck chair was written over her skin. Like a sheet washed and left to
dry too many times it was thin and fragile. She wore cream slacks and a light-knit long-sleeved top.

  He’d already reached the end of the corn chips and licked his fingers as he asked, ‘How have you been?’

  ‘Good. Your father and I have both been really very good. The garden looks beautiful.’

  She glanced over at her husband. A smile played on her lips. ‘Like he’s sleeping. How’s Phoebe?’

  ‘She’s off sailing with a friend of hers.’

  ‘He would have loved that.’

  ‘He likes sailing?’

  ‘Oh yes. Well, he likes the idea of it.’

  ‘And yet he went to Broome. Did he fancy himself as a lugger captain or pearl diver?’

  It was never too late to try and learn more about him.

  ‘No. He did what he had to for the family. He couldn’t see much of a future at Roads. Those days you had to wait for somebody above you to retire or die. And somebody did retire but then one of the other blokes got the job and he thought, “that’s that”. He could see himself waiting another twenty years for his next chance so he said we’re going north, that’s where the future is.’

  ‘I bumped into Bill Seratono. He’s still up there. You remember him?’

  Her small eyes narrowed as she tried to fish his name out of a deep memory.

  ‘Small, dark hair?’

  ‘Tall, dark hair.’

  The conversation petered out. Neither of them wanted to go to unpleasant places but he had not travelled this far for nothing, things had to be said.

  ‘Have you thought what you might do if he doesn’t come back he tried to find a good way to say it, ‘… how he was?’

  ‘There’s a good chance he’s going to be fine.’

  ‘But if he’s not. We have to … I’ll help. I’ll get time off.’

  ‘I can manage. We have a good circle of friends here.’

  ‘You’re not as young as you were, Mum. Neither are your friends, right? Tess won’t be able to stay for long. I’ll be there to help.’

  She reached across and held his hand and they sat there like that for some time. Eventually they began to talk about small things, her friends and their various health ailments, Broome and what had changed and what had not. And Phoebe. Her disappointment her only grandchild was more an idea now than a reality manifested itself in every mannerism she adopted to disguise it. Clement realised he would have to tell Phoebe about her grandfather; Marilyn too. One advantage in Phoebe being away on the boat was he could postpone that. His mother was too polite to enquire about Marilyn and probably had no need because they remained in touch. He wondered if she knew about Brian, reasoned she most likely did but was not keen to go there with his mother.

  ‘I’ll bring Phoebe down in the holidays,’ he said, knowing it would be a promise difficult to keep.

  ‘We’d love that.’

  We, his mother was not affecting the royal plural, she was including his father, refusing to concede an inch on his prospects. By now Clement had adjusted to the air-conditioning and found it almost too cool. A nurse entered and checked the monitors. She was mid-twenties and considerate. She said if they were hungry they were welcome to make some toast in the nurses’ kitchen. There was coffee and tea also.

  Around eleven o’clock, after two or three nurses’ visits, he suggested his mother go home, have something to eat and a decent sleep.

  ‘I’m here. I’ll call you if anything important happens.’

  It took a little while but eventually he convinced her that she would be a lot better off continuing her vigil in the morning as he would have to return to Broome. She was worried about him not eating but he said he would check out the nurses’ kitchen. He organised the cab and waited with her until, with the vulnerability of the elderly in a foreign land, she stepped into the taxi. It may well have been the very one that had delivered him. Before returning to the room he wandered along the hushed corridor to the toilet and peed, thinking of his father showing him how to piss standing up. He guessed he must have been four. On the way back he passed the small kitchen and after a momentary debate, diverted to it. Initially he was going to just make himself an instant coffee, as if to eat would have been disrespectful of his father’s condition but hunger won out and he wound up consuming two slices of toast and vegemite. It was then he saw the number written on his arm and on the spur of the moment called Mathias Klendtwort in Hamburg. The phone rang for some time and he was about to hang up when a man answered.

  ‘Ja?’

  ‘Mr Klendtwort? This is Detective Daniel Clement in Western Australia.’

  ‘Oh yes, you got my message. The Hamburg police gave me the number to call.’ His English was better than good. ‘Poor Dieter. He’s dead eh?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry. You were a friend of his?’

  ‘We worked together, quite a long time ago. How did he die?’

  ‘He was murdered. At a remote fishing area.’

  Klendtwort uttered a curse in German. Clement thought he heard a soft sigh. He imagined the German gathering himself. ‘Sorry. He seemed so happy there. Finally. Shit. You have the person?’

  ‘No, we don’t, no clear suspect and we really don’t know very much about Dieter. Did you speak to him often?’

  ‘We wrote, usually longhand. I tried emails but they have no personality. I’m sixty-three, I like the old ways. And if you’re going to ask me if he told me of anybody he was worried about, the answer is no. He seemed to enjoy his life there. He loved the heat, being in the open. He had become a hermit I think.’

  ‘He had no lover?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘He wasn’t gay?’

  ‘Dieter? No. He was married before. When that fell apart he was really cut up.’

  ‘How long ago was that?’

  ‘Twenty, thirty years.’

  ‘Is there any possibility, however remote, some criminal from his past might have held a grudge and killed him?’

  ‘It’s a long way to go for that.’

  He thought he heard a match striking.

  ‘I need a cigarette. My ex used to nag at me but now I’m on my own I can smoke indoors. Pardon, I don’t mean … it’s a bit of a shock.’

  ‘That’s okay, take your time.’

  All the time Clement was acutely aware of his own father battling for survival in a room down the corridor. The German came back on.

  ‘We had some hard customers, mind, but none who were that angry. And it’s so long ago.’

  ‘You did Narcotics with him?’

  ‘We started around the same time with another guy, Heinrich, working out of the station at the Reeperbahn, mainly what you call Vice then. But heroin became a huge problem real quick in the late seventies and they formed us into a narcotics unit around seventy-seven, I think.’

  ‘We know that Dieter was growing cannabis plants here but so far it seems just for himself and a few mates.’

  ‘It doesn’t surprise me. We smoked a little reefer back then. Who didn’t? No hard drugs though. Anybody dealt hard drugs, we fucked them over. Dieter was a good cop. He drank too much and he gambled too much but it goes with the territory, right?’

  ‘Did anybody hold a grudge against him?’

  ‘From those days? No, it’s too long ago. I mean we made enemies but no, I can’t see somebody travelling halfway around the world to kill an old cop.’

  ‘Did he have any problems with his gambling?’

  ‘He gambled a lot but only small stakes.’

  ‘Do you know where his ex is?’

  ‘No, I lost track of her years ago. She remarried.’

  ‘I found a download of German news. There was an article about a man, Klaus Edershen, who was killed, shot through the neck by an arrow. Do you know why he would have that?’

  ‘Edershen?’

  Clement could feel the German trawling.

  ‘The name does not seem familiar but, shit, it’s so much harder nowadays, the brain just leaks. Killed by
an arrow?’

  ‘In a park in Dortmund, I think the case is still unsolved.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘September two thousand and twelve.’

  ‘I was away with my younger daughter in Spain from August to October then. I must have missed it.’

  ‘How about a seventies drug czar who got away?’

  ‘The Emperor.’ There was bitterness in Klendtwort’s inflection. ‘We worked that together. We lost a colleague. None of us forget that.’

  That would explain why Schaffer had downloaded that. Clement carefully gave Klendtwort his details. ‘I might need to speak to you again.’

  ‘Feel free. I hope you get your guy.’

  Before he ended the call Clement had the urge for one more question. ‘Do you miss it?’

  ‘It screwed my life up but then maybe it would have screwed up anyway. I’ve got a girlfriend, my kids and I are fine. You bet your arse I miss it. Enjoy it while you can.’

  Clement had long finished the toast and his coffee grown cold. He dwelled on what he had learned of Dieter Schaffer and once again had the uncomfortable feeling that Schaffer might be an early prototype of where he himself was headed. Maybe Klendtwort was a closer fit but even that didn’t inspire him with confidence.

  Back in the room he sat in the armchair in the dim light and studied his father’s features. Truth be told he didn’t see that much physical similarity but he knew there were mannerisms they shared, a way of phrasing sentences, something he did with his neck.