Before It Breaks (40 page)

Mal Gross was having a smoke in the rear courtyard as Clement strode in.

‘Packo and Gartrell have pretty much done the Dingos. Zero,' offered Gross.

The information moved around Clement like air over the wings of a plane but he managed a nod. Inside everybody was working a phone or a file. Shepherd loomed.

‘How was Harry?'

Clement gave him thumbs up in preference to talking. Heart pumping he slipped into his office, pulled up the German police file on Kurt Donen again and found what he wanted. He was convinced he was right but needed expert confirmation. He called Keeble, told her what he wanted and asked her to come to his office. He then put in a call to Klendtwort but got only an answer machine.

‘It's Daniel Clement. I'd be grateful if you could call me as soon as possible.'

With perfect timing the knock on the door coincided with him ending the message.

‘Come in.' His mouth felt lopsided. Lisa Keeble entered but offered no sympathy.

‘What's up?'

‘You brought the copy of Gerd Osterlund's prints?'

She presented her iPad to him. He spun his computer towards her.

‘Look at these.'

She leaned in. He watched her mouth move as if she were talking to herself. Maybe she was, very quietly. She straightened.

‘They're identical. Where are they from?'

‘Hamburg, ninety seventy-nine, the Emperor's fingerprints. Gerd Osterlund is Kurt Donen.'

The apartment Gruen was renting was in a squalid concrete block on the opposite side of the city where Hilda took young Manfred to play on brightly coloured swings. The playground equipment here was broken and the smell of diesel seemed to cling to everything, even the washing strung optimistically on high balconies by women with a skerrick of house pride not yet extinguished. Only a few more days, he told himself. The apartment itself was sparse but he kept it reasonably clean, not so clean it may arouse suspicion if one of the Emperor's people suddenly turned up, which had happened twice. He had his small kitchen table and a black and white TV. His books he kept well out of sight in the drawers of a cheap dressing table in the bedroom. Ten months of this, the highlight being his once-monthly reunion with Hilda and the boy. She knew what he was doing and the danger involved but they could not risk explaining to the boy who regurgitated to his school friends the story fed him, his father was working oil rigs in the North Sea. Gruen was looking forward to shaving off his beard. Last night when he'd finished his rounds, his heroin supply at the tail, he'd headed to Freiheit for a beer but there was no sign of Wallen. A small flower of hope had bloomed. Could Wallen possibly have cleared out as he'd asked? There was another possibility, a darker one. He tried to dismiss it. He had been foolish to tell Wallen about the bust. It endangered him. He checked his watch. It was time to check in with Dieter.

He locked up the flat and took the rumbling elevator to the ground. Sometimes at night the skinheads would be around but not today. It was a ten-minute walk to the public phone and he timed it well. Dieter picked up on the first ring. Because of the secrecy of the operation he did not know where exactly Dieter had set up the safe house from which he operated.

‘Hamburg is going to win the whole fucking thing again this year,' said Dieter.

Football-mad Dieter, his one conduit to the normality of his old life.

‘Did you get the photo?' Gruen asked.

Last time they had communicated, two weeks ago now, Gruen had laid out a plan for Dieter to snap a photo of the Emperor. No one had ever managed it and it was impossible for Gruen to take a camera, even a spy camera, into the vault with him. He was routinely searched. He had worked out, however, by careful observation and the occasional chat with Klaus, that a chauffeur-driven old Mercedes was used to ferry the Emperor about the city. Over time he had gleaned some habits of the driver including his favourite bar. If Schaffer followed the driver, he might catch the Emperor. Perhaps it was unnecessary, there would be many mug shots of him soon enough but Gruen always thought of the worst situation, the Emperor getting away.

‘Of course I got the photo, a beauty. Everybody is rapt. Listen, we need to meet.'

The first thing Gruen thought was that Wallen had blown the operation.

‘What's up?'

‘Tell you when I see you.'

‘Everything is still go?'

‘Yes, it's all fine. Don't worry. There are just a couple of operational things to go over.'

‘Usual place?'

‘Yes. See you there in an hour.'

Gruen hung up. Thank God for Dieter. He missed the camaraderie of the guys, Heinrich especially. It would be so good to be back with them having a drink, telling them about the last crappy year. He zipped his jacket and walked towards the train station.

Dieter Schaffer felt hollow inside, worse than hollow, like it was no longer him at all. Yet what choice did he have now? Once he'd made contact with Donen via the chauffeur, his life as he'd known it was effectively over. Naively perhaps, he'd imagined it was enough to suggest faking the photograph. You can leave, he'd told the Emperor, and nobody will know it's you. He remembered well what the man sitting opposite him now had said.

‘You'll know, and so will whoever you have inside my operation.'

That's when he understood what the price was going to be. And
still he had not backed away. So here he was now. The room was small and musty. It crowded in on him.

The Emperor was flanked by two of his bodyguards waiting.

Schaffer hung up the phone and said, ‘It's done.'

The Emperor stood. Dieter felt a flash of panic.

‘What about the money I owe?'

His home was on the line. How could he have lost? He still couldn't fathom it. Hamburg were champions and yet they'd lost at Dortmund, and again when he'd doubled up, at Schalke. Surely they would beat Munich at home? But they had lost yet again and so his team would be champions yet he would be without a home to celebrate in and no doubt a wife.

‘You don't owe anything now. The bookmaker understands. Of course, if you displease me …' He let it hang.

Schaffer's legs felt rubbery as he got to his feet. He left, knowing his soul had been abandoned forever in that cramped room reeking of damp, knowing the ghost of Pieter Gruen would haunt him, and one day, somewhere, rain a terrible justice upon him.

The news crew camped outside Osterlund's filmed Clement as he entered, on the phone to Earle who was just arriving in Derby. The crew looked tired already, unshaven and untidy and like angry scammers caught on a current affairs show; the wind buffeted their cameras. One seemed to be a woman but the sexes of news crews tended to merge, only the anchors retained an individual identity. Daryl Hagan and Beck Lalor patrolled the gate and acknowledged him as he passed. Clement parked where he had the first day and walked to the door carrying the Donen file. Jo di Rivi saw who it was. Her eyes couldn't help asking the obvious question: had Osterlund been found?

‘Not yet. How is she?'

‘She's barely slept. She won't take anything.'

The air was crushingly humid now. Before he entered, reflexively, Clement looked up at the sky but it had nothing to offer him.

Astuthi Osterlund was sitting by the kitchen bench. She looked at him with a mix of intense fear and frail hope. The question was the same as di Rivi's.

‘Have you found him?'

And he knew she feared the answer was yes.

‘Not yet.'

Her body lost some tension. The vast glass window reverberated in the powerful wind. It was unsettling, ominous. Lucky the cyclone has been downgraded, thought Clement, a four and the glass would have to be covered though he supposed Osterlund had special protective shutters if needed. Clement sat on the stool beside Astuthi Osterlund and placed the file beside him. The techs had all long gone and the place felt lonely, like a coastal guest house out of season.

‘Your husband's real name is Kurt Donen. He was involved in pornography and drugs in Hamburg in the nineteen seventies and he is a suspect in the murder of at least six people including an undercover policeman. The policeman's controller was Dieter Schaffer. It seems likely Schaffer protected your husband.'

She did not throw her hands to her face, nor call him a liar, nor protest her own innocence. Some part of her seemed already resigned to such news. Outside the ocean rippled like a fat man's belly.

‘I want him back.'

‘You don't seem surprised?'

‘I don't know who he was before. He is, Gerd Osterlund, my husband.'

But something was tormenting her, he could see it. Her hands twisted. ‘Is he married to somebody else?'

‘Not that we know.'

She seemed to weigh that.

‘He told me he was never married and had no children. He didn't lie to me.' She said this as if it exonerated him from murder.

Clement said. ‘His whole life was a lie.'

‘You could say that about many people.'

‘But they're not all covering up murders.'

‘It's not my job to convict my husband.'

She did not add, ‘And it's not yours either.' She would have been right. His job right now was to find him, alive if possible. Sand was whipping off the beach below. He chose his words carefully.

‘We have to assume that somebody found out about this, somebody who is out for revenge.'

‘They want to kill him?'

‘That would seem likely. Gerd is not some intermediary. Your husband may be the end of the line, the one they are after.'

‘Maybe they want money?' It was a feeble hope and she couldn't sell it any better with her eyes than her voice.

‘They haven't called. This person is very thorough. They prepare. At some point they may have trailed you or your husband, or called at the house on some pretext. Have you seen any strange vehicles?'

‘I don't think so.'

‘Think hard.' He found an image of a white SUV on his phone and showed it. ‘Any car like this?'

She continued to shake her head.

‘Like I said before, I don't remember. One of my friends has a silver car like that but she is away in Sydney.'

‘Your husband never gave any indication he was previously acquainted with Schaffer?'

‘Not at all.'

‘The first time he met him here in Broome, were you present?'

She thought back.

‘No. I can't have been. The first time Gerd introduced me to Dieter Schaffer it was at a restaurant in town. He said this man is a German from Hamburg.'

Clement wondered how Schaffer had found Donen. Had they been in touch over the years, part of the same operation, or had they ceased to have contact after Gruen's murder?

For the next ten minutes Clement canvassed the same ground with slightly different questions but Mrs Osterlund could give him nothing that pointed to who they might be looking for. The Germans they had met up here were a mere handful, nearly all passing through. Clement took whatever names and details she could remember. Feeling there was nothing more he could achieve here, he announced he had to get back to the station.

‘Are you going to keep looking for Gerd?' she asked, demanding the truth.

It was a pertinent question. Was he going to spend every ounce of his energy trying to save the life of a multiple murderer and drug lord? He was not proud of the answer.

‘Of course.'

After the blotting of light came the heavy thud of earth being shovelled on top. Was this the plan, to bury him alive? Osterlund fought his panic back down. Levering with his elbows, ignoring the pain in his knee, he dragged himself up from the earthen floor. With hands bound he had to use his head to push up into the tin above him, standing on his toes for leverage. He mustered all his fading strength but he could not budge it. In pitch darkness, he slumped back down. He could not call for help, he could not dig without threatening collapse.