by Dave Warner
‘Do you have any suspects?’
‘There are various persons of interest and we are actively pursuing leads.’
‘Are the killings bikie-related?’
‘It is too early to say.’
‘But the second victim was a biker? Is that correct?’
‘He had links with an interstate motorcycle gang and we are investigating whether this may be relevant.’
‘If it isn’t, does that mean we have some axe-wielding psycho out there?’
This is what Clement hated: damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Appreciating his dilemma, Risely interceded. ‘At this stage there is no reason for the general public to be alarmed but they should remain vigilant until we have progressed the investigation, and identified a suspect or have somebody in custody.’
Tomlinson scrawled notes. ‘Your forensic people searched a house in Atwell Parade and removed clothes and a vehicle. Do we take it the resident is a person of interest in your investigation?’
Clement’s turn. ‘Yes, but as I said we have a number of such people on our radar.’
‘Did you find anything?’
‘We’re not at liberty to say.’
‘Is there any indication the two victims were known to one another?’
Clement thought on how to answer this. ‘We have some evidence that the two crossed paths but we do not know the nature or extent of the relationship yet. In a small place like Broome it is quite likely that there would be some interaction and this can’t necessarily be construed as a relationship.’
Tomlinson wrote this new information with undisguised relish. ‘Are the killings drug-related?’
‘It’s too early to say.’
‘Do you believe the killer or killers are still in the area?’
‘We are pursuing the investigation. That’s all we can say at this stage.’
Risely jumped in. ‘Kev, Inspector Clement needs to get back to work but I can answer questions of a general nature.’
Tomlinson clearly wanted to continue with Clement but he knew he was on a good thing with his exclusive one-on-one and did not want to push it. ‘Is there any appeal you want to make to the public at this stage?’
‘Obviously if anybody has any information they think relevant they should contact us.’
Risely inserted that a tip-line was being set up as they spoke. Clement gave the dates and times they were most interested in, including the theft of the axe from the Kelly house which up until now had been embargoed. Tomlinson wanted more information but Clement stood to indicate that was that.
‘I’m sorry but I do have to get back to it. Your help is appreciated.’
Clement made his getaway. Outside the office Clement headed straight for Earle who began talking as he approached. ‘We have the texts and numbers Lee called on his phone. Marchant is the only person he called here. The other calls are to his girlfriend and gang in Darwin, and an Adelaide go-between.’
‘Try the girlfriend. See what she has to say.’
‘And Manners has checked Karskine’s records. Seratono did call the house at six past ten on the night of Schaffer’s murder. The call concluded at ten eighteen.’
Which almost ruled him out. But not quite.
The haulage business where Bill Seratono worked was comprised of large hangar-like sheds on broken asphalt. In one of them a large semi was being unloaded of steel beams. Seratono came towards him drying his hands on a dirty rag. Clement could tell his presence was not celebrated.
‘This about Mitch?’
‘Yes.’
Seratono went to put the rag down but there was nowhere for it but the ground. He gestured to the shade of a gum. They ambled over. A forty-four gallon drum was the makeshift table, crushed packets of cigarettes and a paper cup with remnants of Coke or some other gooey drink for decoration.
‘I know you gotta do your job but he’s a good bloke.’
‘He bought grass off Schaffer.’
‘So did I. You gonna bust me too?’
‘He has a record.’
‘A long time ago. You wanted to ask me about him, you could have done it before you pulled his place apart.’
‘I understand he’s your mate but he had no alibi and he wouldn’t invite us in.’
‘He doesn’t trust cops. What do you want to know?’
‘You don’t think it’s possible he’d kill anybody?’
‘No. Not like that. I mean, maybe he could get into a fight, you know, accidentally hurt somebody but he’s not …’ He tried to find a word that wasn’t too damning but abandoned that. ‘Look, I know him better than I know you. You could be a killer, how would I know? Mitch, no, no way.’
‘Has he ever had any bikie connections?’
‘What? Like the Dingos or Hells Angels?’
‘Yes.’
Seratono smirked. ‘No. He’s a fisho not a biker.’
Clement pulled out a police photo of Arturo Lee. ‘You ever see him with this man?’
Seratono shook his head as he studied it.
‘You recognise the guy?’
Seratono continued to shake his head. ‘He a suspect?’
‘We’re trying to find out about him. Mitch ever do any harder drugs? Speed? Ice?’
‘Not that I know of. Hey, he’s a fisherman who smokes a bit a pot. That’s it. Why didn’t you speak to me yourself? Why did you send the other bloke?’
‘One, I couldn’t compromise the investigation. And I had to fly to Albany. My dad had a stroke.’
‘He okay?’
‘We think he’s coming good.’
‘I hope so.’
‘Thanks.’
Clement put the photo away. ‘I’m sorry about all this. He’s your friend, I know. You remember we used to ride our bikes all around bloody hours on end?’
Seratono chuckled. ‘How fit were we?’ The coil of old friendship still wrapped them despite the years. ‘When did you decide to become a cop? How did that happen? You were pretty smart at school.’
The implication being that nobody smart would want the job. Based on his experience since, that now seemed to Clement a reasonable sentiment.
‘I kind of fell into it I suppose. We left here right after I finished high school, went back to Perth. I wanted to do engineering but I didn’t get the marks. I was living at home. Everybody else I knew had moved out of home. I felt, you know, pathetic and my old man was on at me all the time, “Don’t think you’re going to lounge around here.” I was playing indoor cricket and a few of the guys in my team were cops. I wanted to get away, that was it.’
That was the answer, convenience really. All he knew for sure was he had no epiphany moment, no burning vocational call to fight on the side of good against evil.
‘You marry a local girl?’ Clement said.
‘Abigail. From Queensland. You did alright for yourself I heard.’
Clement put on a half-smile. ‘Marilyn and I aren’t together.’
‘Oh. Shit happens.’
‘Yeah. We’ve got a daughter. I came back to see more of her. Marilyn moved back here with her mum.’
Bill looked him up and down, nodding slowly like he got it. ‘I better get back to it.’
‘Sure.’
‘What I said before. If you want to come out on the boat someday, the offer’s there.’
‘Thanks.’
Seratono walked slowly back towards the semi.
Clement drove wondering if he had any real friends and decided he wasn’t sure. Colleagues, yes, but not like Bill and he had been back then, lying in the dirt staring up into the sky, saying what you would do if you won a million dollars, arguing the merits of a Polly Waffle over a Kit Kat, modifying bikes, testing how far you could walk in bare feet over hot sand. That stuff you never found again, you thought you would, that it was just a matter of getting to know somebody, but it wasn’t.
It was never that easy with women, at least for Clement it hadn’t been. If you were yourself,
you got crushed. You learned early you had to be a schematic only, give a hint of something within, the music you liked, or what kind of dog. Then you might test the water with a bit more, ready to retract at the first sign of trouble. A word he had heard all the time growing up had been ‘détente’. Clement couldn’t think of the last time he heard it but he thought now that successful marriages were those that employed détente. By learning to withhold so much through those late teens and twenties he had effectively become a kind of clone of himself with all the interesting bits of the original trimmed away. So actually Marilyn had never fallen out of love with him because she’d never been in love with the true him. He supposed he could have opened himself further to her but the risk … rejection would have obliterated him. Anyway by then neither of them wanted détente, just unconditional victory.
Only as a homicide cop was the original Dan Clement unsullied. He looked at clues the way he’d studied birds, listened to the cadence of a voice and in it heard truth or lies just as he used to be able to tell how high gums were from nothing but the rustle of their leaves.
Maybe he should have given everything to Marilyn but he didn’t trust himself, and yes, he didn’t trust her. And here’s the wicked thing, he still didn’t because he knew she had done the same thing, was still doing the same thing. The Marilyn with Brian, come on, was that Marilyn? He didn’t believe so.
But maybe he was wrong and there was no real me or real you. Maybe, he surmised, we reflect the qualities our partners desire in us. As we change partner we shed one skin and grow another; different but not a fake, just a different truth. Your life was therefore a series of different yous. The young Daniel Clement who rode with Bill Seratono was no more true than the older one with Marilyn, simply the first; and the Marilyn he’d come to know no more or less genuine than the one now with Brian.
He walked into the detective room to news from Earle that there were no matches between Karskine’s time in jail and any of the Dingos.
‘I think it’s a dead-end,’ Clement told Earle.
‘There’s Darwin and Adelaide still.’
But Clement was sure as he could be that Karskine was not their guy, nor for that matter any of the Dingos, though Mal Gross had arranged for every single member to present himself for interview. That was something Clement would divvy up between the team.
In his office he stared at the board looking for inspiration, feeling the pressure build like a wave behind him. Now he had done the local paper it was inevitable Perth would get involved, television especially. With a second murder now, Eastern States media would inevitably follow. It irked that he still hadn’t spoken to Schaffer’s sister. He was about to call Perth HQ and ask for a translator. Bugger it. He may as well give it a go himself. Hamburg was six or seven hours behind, breakfast time, a good time to find people home. He called the number for the sister’s former neighbour, Frau Gerlanger. It rang for a few seconds and a woman answered, in German naturally. She sounded elderly.
‘I’m Australian. Do you speak English by any chance? I’m trying to reach Christiane Hohlmann.’
‘Moment.’
The single word was heavily accented. There were sounds in the background. A man came on. He sounded youngish. His English was excellent.
‘Can I help?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
Clement repeated what he had just said, explained who he was and where he was calling from. ‘I believe Frau Gerlanger might know how to reach Frau Hohlmann. Her brother has died and we’re trying to notify her.’
‘I’ll ask my grandmother.’
Clement waited during the exchange. The grandson came back on.
‘My grandmother says Frau Hohlmann died two months ago.’
Clement felt a pang of frustration, then immediate guilt for it.
‘Could you ask your grandmother if Frau Hohlmann was in touch with her brother much?’
Again the action played off stage.
‘She says they hardly had anything to do with one another. Christiane left Hamburg when she was young and settled here.’
With more to and fro Clement filled in a picture of Christiane Hohlmann. She had been single till quite late in life, at least for that generation. As Christiane Schaffer, she married Bernard Hohlmann in her late thirties but had no children. Her husband died quite a long time ago and she had lived at the apartment complex until health issues had made her move to a retirement village with medical staff. Her brother would occasionally ring her or write to her but they were not close. She had liked her brother’s wife but the marriage had not lasted long and Christiane Hohlmann had sounded like she was not surprised, she blamed Dieter. According to her he had a gambling problem and had nearly lost the family home at one point. As far as Frau Gerlanger knew, her late friend was comfortably off without being wealthy. She had owned her apartment and sold it when she moved but was worried the money would not be enough to last her the rest of her days. Sadly it had been more than sufficient.
‘Could you ask your grandmother the name of Dieter’s ex-wife and whether there were any children?’
Dieter’s ex-wife was Maria. Frau Gerlanger believed she had remarried but still lived in Hamburg, she did not know her new name. There had been no children with Dieter but Frau Gerlanger did not know if Maria had children of her own with her second husband or stepchildren. Clement obtained the address of the retirement village. Before he hung up he tried another pot shot.
‘Frau Gerlanger wouldn’t know the executor of the estate would she?’ He had to elaborate and expand on ‘executor’ before the grandson understood.
‘Yes. Christiane left a favourite painting of hers to my grandmother.’
‘Would she have the contact number?’
‘I have it here.’
The grandson read off the contact number and address for a Munich solicitor. Clement thanked him profusely and rang off. Feeling pumped, he tried the solicitor’s number fully expecting to strike out but once again fortune favoured him.
‘Do you speak English by any chance?’ he asked of the pleasant sounding young woman.
‘A little bit.’
Her English turned out to be perfectly adequate. Clement explained the situation. He was hoping somebody might be able to tell him if the late Dieter Schaffer was to inherit something. The young woman cautiously told him he would need to talk to her superior Herr Broden. He was currently with a client. Clement gave her his numbers and said he would greatly appreciate Broden calling at his earliest opportunity.
‘Does he speak English?’
‘Yes very well, much better than me.’
They laughed. Clement imagined the young woman way across the other side of the world, her conditioned hair bouncing, nice perfume, a tight turtleneck—why he imagined a turtleneck he wasn’t sure, some sort of cultural stereotype. A lifetime ago it would have been inconceivable they could have had this conversation. Now it was possible that they could be on a date in thirty-six hours; earlier, if Skype counted as a date.
‘Thank you again.’
‘My pleasure.’
The buoyancy he felt after the conversation with the pleasant girl and his information from the Gerlangers was quickly punctured by his tooth suddenly aching again but he sidelined the pain and called Shepherd for an update. He and Taylor had done every shop in town and the Roebuck Hotel. Nobody had seen Schaffer and Lee together. They had re-canvassed most of Dieter’s former customers for another duck egg. None were admitting to having supplied Lee with a joint but Shepherd thought they were all shady.
‘I reckon they’re worried about dobbing on bikers.’
‘Try the Cleo.’
Shepherd rang off with a grunt.
Just when Clement had hoped that there might be new momentum from Lee’s murder, it was developing into a grind again. He wanted a coffee but wondered if that would exacerbate the toothache. He poked his head outside. Earle was yawning and stretching.
‘Lee’s so-called girlfriend turns out
to be an occasional bonk,’ he informed Clement. ‘She didn’t have anything useful on him.’
The phone in Clement’s office was ringing again. He moved back inside swiftly.
‘Detective Clement, Kimberley Police.’
‘This is August Broden. You telephoned me about Christiane Hohlmann.’
‘Yes, I did. Thank you for returning my call. Do you want me to call you back?’
‘Will it take long?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Then please, proceed.’
Clement told him the basics. Broden was suitably alarmed to hear his client’s brother had been killed, possibly murdered.
‘You think it could be for the estate?’
‘That’s my question, was her brother a beneficiary?’
Christiane Hohlmann had left her brother virtually all her estate, over one hundred and sixty thousand euros.
‘And you had communicated this to him?’
He had. He had sent Schaffer an email at first and then Dieter Schaffer had called him. All the relevant forms had been emailed. Schaffer had signed them and posted them back.
‘You don’t know this? There is no record?’
The German seemed offended by the slackness of Clement and his cohorts.
‘His computer was stolen and we found no paperwork.’
Clement ascertained that Dieter’s payday was scheduled for about four months hence. The last time Broden and Schaffer had spoken was about three weeks earlier.
‘What happens now?’ he asked the solicitor.
‘If Dieter Schaffer left a will, it would go to whoever he nominated.’
‘We found no will.’
‘Then if he has no family I suppose it gets put in trust until somebody claims it, a cousin, a relative somewhere.’
‘Dieter Schaffer had an ex-wife. Was she mentioned in the will at all? Her name is Maria but she has remarried.’
Broden said the only other person receiving anything was Frau Gerlanger. She had been left a painting.
‘And Frau Hohlmann’s personal effects?’
Disposed of by the retirement home.
Clement thanked him for his assistance and mentioned it was possible he might need to speak to him again. Broden said that was fine and wished him well.