Before It Breaks (16 page)

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 half-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.'

‘I can work through.'

‘No need. Get a break, get fresh, we've got a bit to knock over.'

By now it was a little after six. A thought occurred. Clement rang Marilyn's house and his stomach tightened at the thought of her mother answering. He was in luck though. It was Phoebe. He apologised right off.

‘I'm really sorry about the weekend.'

‘That's okay.'

‘You're going away on your friend's boat.'

‘Mmm. It should be fun.'

‘Have you had dinner?'

‘Not yet.'

‘Would you like to have dinner with me?'

The slightest hesitation. ‘Okay.'

He was not going to offer her the chance to reconsider. ‘I'm on my way. Tell Mum I'll have you back by eight.'

He hung up and grabbed his keys before Marilyn could intervene. On the way out he passed Mal Gross hunched over his desk demolishing a hamburger. Gross waved as Clement took the back door through to the yard where Keeble was getting started on the car with Jared Taylor and a mechanic. He felt guilty he was deserting them but did not consider hanging around.

‘I'll be on my mobile if you need me.' He threw the comment like a chip to a seagull and hurried to his car.

The drive to Marilyn's house took around thirty minutes, a lot less than it legally should have. He turned up the familiar driveway that snaked over a magnificent bluff. The sun was red pink in its last throes of the day, the ocean a mirror. Old Nick had been at the game a long time. In the glory days of Broome, before the cultured pearl farm operations, the oysters of the region had yielded many pearls and Nick had claimed his share. During the 80s the Japanese had moved in, paying full-tote odds for existing businesses and generous incentives to keep the former proprietors involved. That was one reason the driveway was smoother than any you'd likely find in town. The residence came into view. Clement could query how Geraldine raised her daughter but not her garden. It was lush and bright with pinks and violets. This time of night it glowed. Tall palms gave it
majesty. At least one gardener was employed full time but it looked like he had headed home, for the only cars visible in the carport near the house were those of Geraldine and Marilyn. Brian lived in Perth and used Marilyn's car when here so this didn't mean he wasn't in situ. The driveway culminated in a loop where you could park within easy walking distance of a typical big homestead-style house circa 1920 that would not have been out of place on a horse-breeding property. Crimson bougainvilleas and frangipanis followed the line of the veranda. Vines offering small pink and yellow flowers twirled around the poles which, like the rest of the house, were white and seemingly always freshly painted. Nick had done extensions back in the 80s but retained the single level. People who made their living from the sea didn't need a bedroom view of the ocean. Nick figured he could smell and hear it from his porch. If he wanted the view he could walk five hundred metres and enjoy a beer looking out over the ocean that stretched as far as the eye could see. Paths led to a small gazebo and old stables dating from the 30s. Clement remembered kissing Marilyn in that gazebo, reaching up under her skirt. He tossed the memory. It wasn't helpful. He climbed the steps and was about to rattle the oval-shaped flywire door when it sprang open on Phoebe, with a smile bright as the kind of globes that burned in ceilings before environmental prefects hushed them.

‘I'm ready.'

Clement tried to see any of himself in her but as usual failed. Mind you there wasn't much of Marilyn either except the shape of her eyes. Unfortunately that characteristic was shared by Geraldine, who loomed out of the grey interior. She was a traditionalist so he guessed the glass in her hand contained gin and soda.

‘Eight at the latest.'

‘Marilyn and Brian here?'

‘Brian's overseas on business. Marilyn is having a bath.'

Dismissing him as a maid might.

‘Thanks, Geraldine. I'll see you later.'

He enjoyed opening the door for Phoebe and watching her wriggle into the passenger seat, a big girl now, the baby seat probably expunged from her memory. As a special treat, he told her, he was taking her to the Mimosa.

‘I love the Mimosa. The lasagne is so yum. We go there every Tuesday.'

Not so special then, he guessed, but it didn't matter. This was enough, having her beside him, her pretty shoes not quite touching the floor.

‘So tell me about the boat.'

Phoebe couldn't tell him much at all. Only that it was big with sails but an engine too in case there was a problem: Mummy had checked. Of course she had, Marilyn missed her vocation by fifty years, she should have been of those wartime code-breakers; nothing would have escaped her. He tried to elicit something about Phoebe's friend Ashleigh.

‘She has problems with her teeth.'

That was about all he learned by the time they reached the resort. A feature of resorts here was the outdoor dining setting, Tahitian lamps, cobbled walkways, tables that sat square on the ground. The dining area was a quarter full. They had beaten the rush but only just.

‘You want a Coke?'

‘Mango and orange please.'

Everything made him aware of the growing distance between them, despite his efforts. The same Irishman took their orders. Clement followed his daughter's lead and asked for two juices. He ordered the lasagne for her and a chicken salad for himself.

‘Not the barista tonight?'

From the waiter's face, Clement realised he hadn't been recognised. The waiter did a good job of covering.

‘Oh no, only till five.'

Clement and Phoebe sat in silence waiting for their drinks. It reminded Clement of so many evenings like this with her mother. Phoebe stared out into the growing gloom. That look like she was off thinking her own undisturbed thoughts, maybe that was how he'd seemed to Marilyn, impenetrable. Much as he was curious about Brian and Marilyn, he avoided that subject.

‘And are you going diving?'

‘I don't know. I think Ashleigh has a wetsuit.'

He had taught Phoebe to swim and an image hit him: water wings inflated with his breath encircling her tiny arms, goggles making her face laugh-out-loud cute.

‘Ashleigh's dad fishes but I don't want to kill any fish.'

He lit upon an attractive young woman just arriving with a similarly good-looking young man. It was only when her eyes widened too in recognition that he clicked it was the young woman
from the Honky Nut, dressed up for the night. She said something to her partner and started towards him. Twenty-four hours earlier Marilyn had advanced on him almost in this exact spot. Hoping for a better reception he rose from his chair.

‘It's incredible,' she said with a kind of wonder in her voice that he associated with yoga and activities alien to him. ‘I was only just thinking I have to contact you.'

She smiled at Phoebe. ‘Hi, I'm Selina.'

He hadn't even taken her name before, more proof he was on the way out.

‘My daughter,' Clement threw a hand out in her direction. ‘Phoebe.'

‘Nice to meet you, Phoebe. What are you having?'

‘Lasagne.'

Selina made her finger into a gun. ‘Good choice.' She turned to Clement. ‘I remembered something … about that man.'

It took Clement a moment to orient himself and realise she was talking about Schaffer, trying to avoid mentioning murder victims in front of Phoebe.

‘Oh, right. Excuse us for a minute, sweetie. You okay?'

‘Yes.'

He envied her easy assurance, mother's girl there. Clement indicated Selina should move to the terrace cocktail bar which was about twenty metres away.

‘It was only on the way in with my boyfriend. A motorcycle passed us going the other way and I suddenly remembered about that man, the German.'

Clement's curiosity was whetted. He threw a glance at Phoebe who seemed unperturbed, balancing a fork over the stem of her spoon.

Selina continued, ‘It could be nothing, but around the last time I saw him, it might have even been the last time, I was putting the bins out at the back of the café, there's a carpark there, you know it?'

Clement was aware of it, a flat area of bitumen. Businesses from parallel streets backed onto it so customers could park and enter via back entrances.

‘I heard some kind of argument, not exact words but you know, like … an argument, and when I looked up I saw the German man arguing with a biker.'

‘You mean a man on a motorcycle?'

‘Yes. Like a bikie, you know, big muscles and tatts but I didn't see any colours. I'm so stupid I forgot all about it.'

‘It's not stupid. You didn't recognise the biker?'

‘No. We get them in the café sometimes. The Dingos, I think they are called? But I don't know if he was one of them. He wasn't wearing colours and I hadn't seen him before. He was Maori, I'm pretty sure.'