Before It Breaks (9 page)

‘Did you buy marijuana off him?'

The girls denied it vociferously, Arnie squirmed.

‘But he offered and you smoked it with him, right? It's best you
tell me the truth. Don't worry, I'm not interested in a few joints.'

‘A puff or two, that's all.' Living up to the stereotype, Rosa used her hands expressively.

‘How did he seem?'

Happy, fun. He was quite old but he seemed in good spirits. He told them he was going fishing in crocodile territory the next day and asked if they wanted to accompany him. They politely declined but his mood didn't change, he was still happy to talk with them.

‘Did he mention whether he was expecting any money?'

Not that they could recall. He didn't seem worried about anything and nobody else spent any time talking with him, although most people in the tavern seemed to know him.

‘Did any of you take photos that night?'

Clement was aware that these days young people took photos of anything. They looked at one another trying to remember. Arnie and Marie shook their heads but Rosa wasn't sure. She pulled out her phone and scanned through snaps. Her lips pushed out as if about to blow a raspberry.

‘Sorry.'

Clement hadn't been expecting much but wished he had been wrong. After warning he may need to speak to them again, he took his leave, picking his way back along the paths that led around the outdoor garden setting to the dining area. There he stopped cold. Marilyn was about to be seated. She was not alone. Brian was with her. He had some job that involved travelling overseas for plastics. Though he'd admit it to nobody but himself, Clement knew some vanity in him had hoped that Brian's absence and his own presence up here might somehow tip the scales back in his favour, might awaken in Marilyn something she missed, might put them on collision course and let the Fates decide if anything came of it but since his arrival he'd rarely encountered Marilyn without her poisonous mother or Brian in tow.

He saw Marilyn make him. She glared, whispered something to Brian, who looked over, and then she started towards him while Brian took his seat and perused the menu. He was older than Clement. Had it been cooler, Clement reckoned Brian would have had a pale-coloured knit sweater draped over his shoulders. He was that type. Marilyn glided down the terrace, a chiffon vision, all those years in private schools paying off in balance and poise. Her dress print was white with pink hibiscus. It carried echoes of early sixties but was somehow contemporary in the cut, clinging
to her body just enough. Clothes liked Marilyn and vice-versa but she never ventured too far, never attempted a faux-celebrity look, she was pure style, putting the more conservatively dressed women with whom she would socialise in the shade, gliding above the nouveau riche with their gym-toned bodies the way only women born into money can.

‘This is getting ridiculous.'

She wasn't happy but neither was she as angry as she might have been. Her years dealing with primary school children availed her of a number of tones to deal with him, the problem child, in any given situation. Today's was forbearance slipped into a glove of future threat but whichever day it was, whichever particular technique employed, she never lost the ability to make him feel he'd disappointed her. He was thinking all this as he studied her hair, brown, lush, obedient, natural. She would rather have died than dyed but the cut was different to last time.

‘I'm working, had to interview some people.'

The answer seemed to mollify her further. ‘What's the case?'

‘Fisherman. Could be a homicide, can't really talk about it. Shouldn't Brian be choking on some Shanghai smog?'

She deadpanned him. ‘He has some time off.'

Clement hoped Brian might go swimming and be stung to death by box jellyfish. He said, ‘I like your hair. It suits you.'

Later tonight Brian would be kissing, touching her, making love to her. He tried to bury the image. It shouldn't affect him but it did.

‘Thank you.'

He could tell she enjoyed the compliment. She offered no quid pro quo; instead she said, ‘You still picking Phoebe up Saturday morning?'

She knew his policeman's life well enough to understand how fluid things could be.

‘I'll let you know as soon as. How did she do go on that assignment about frogs?'

‘Fine. She'll tell you.'

Code for this isn't the time or place and stop delaying me. Brian had made up his mind, placed the menu down and stared over. She caught the look.

‘Take care.'

And with that she slid back along the path to Brian and a different future. He watched her go for as long as was polite and once again wondered at the wisdom of uprooting himself for the
constant reminder of what might have been. Phoebe would only spend a year or so here before being shipped off to the city for what Geraldine would consider real schooling. Then where would he be?

He'd switched off his phone before talking with the tourists. When he switched it back on there were messages from Risely and each of his team filling him in on where they were at. Risely's was simple: if there was any news, call him, they had to work out what to do once ‘Tomlinson and
The Post
came sniffing'. Tomlinson referred to Kevin Tomlinson, the editor and main reporter for the local newspaper. Graeme Earle's message announced he was back from a successful fishing trip, had heard about the investigation and was ready if he needed him urgently. Otherwise he would be a work at seven a.m. He sounded like he'd had a few beers but was totally coherent. Clement tried to work out if he needed Earle for anything and concluded he'd be better fresh in the morning. Mal Gross called to say Jo di Rivi and Nat Restoff had found nobody at Schaffer's shack and nothing untoward and he had directed them to head to Jasper's Creek. The next message was from Shepherd. He and Lisa Keeble were still at the scene collecting anything and everything. Two of Lisa's local techs had joined them. Inevitably Shepherd complained about how hungry he was. The croc guys said the creek would be ready in the morning. Beck Lalor and Daryl Hagan had arrived and would keep an eye on the scene overnight, although it was expected the Perth techs, Lisa and her team would be working it till the early hours. Clement called Shepherd back and got the latest.

‘We've rigged lights. Jo and Nat are on their way back from Schaffer's. They're about a half-hour away.'

‘Ask Lisa how long she needs you, then get home, get some sleep and be back there first thing to search the creek for the murder weapon, the outboard and the rifle.' He predicted Shepherd's objection and cut it off at the pass. ‘I'll call the boss and see if he can get us some Fisheries boys to help.'

It seemed Risely was happy to organise Fisheries support. His concern was how they were going to handle the release of information to the media, the kind of stuff Clement tried to ignore.

‘Let's keep it to ourselves as long as we can,' said Clement.

‘That won't be long. News travels fast in a small town.'

They arranged to meet first thing in the morning for a briefing. If Clement came across anything else he was to call.

Clement climbed back into his car and sat to reflect a moment
on the interviews. When he was interviewing he tried to listen to the answers people gave rather than let his mind explode in a fever of possibilities. Often he wasn't successful but today he'd done okay and now he'd afforded himself a moment to slow-roast scenarios.

If the outboard, wallet and rifle were not sitting on the bottom of the creek then it could be a crime of opportunity: robbery-murder. Alternately somebody might have gone to the creek with the idea of killing Dieter Schaffer and disposing of his body there. In that case they must have known his movements, either because they were acquainted personally or following him. Or Schaffer could have gone with one or more companions, they argued about something and he was killed. Schaffer had told Bill Seratono he was expecting money. His bank account wasn't showing anything just yet so either he was lying and it hadn't arrived yet, or he'd been paid cash. What might Schaffer's idea have been of ‘rolling in it'? He lived very modestly. Maybe he was going to sell the outboard or the boat to somebody. That person had decided it was cheaper to just do Schaffer in and take it.

Plenty of questions without answers.

In effect, Clement had been able to eliminate nothing. He simply did not know enough about the victim. Dammit, he'd have to go to Schaffer's shack now and see what he could learn. He didn't trust leaving it to the uniforms. In the city it would be simple. You'd drive across town, forty-five minutes at most. And there would be somebody who could back you up, keep on train A while you shot off to investigate B, C or D.

Not here. He was more or less it. He fired up the car, consoling himself with one new fact learned. Presuming the girls were telling the truth, Dieter Schaffer had no inkling that within twenty-four hours of enjoying himself at the Cleopatra Tavern somebody was going to bury an axe in his head.

Clement drove north towards Schaffer's place in a declining mood. It might be over with Marilyn but the encounter with Brian present rankled. He flashed to himself twenty years on as Dieter Schaffer, lonely and single, still here, using pot to befriend girls younger than Phoebe would be then. The thought of another woman in his life wasn't on his radar, it was all too complicated.

The highway was straight, the night black. This part of the world ate time. In a sense it was like you were already dead, a soul passing through dark space. Igniting in his brain out of nowhere, an image, circa late 70s, early 80s, his parents sitting in those uncomfortable aluminium deckchairs with the plastic strips that pinched your bare legs.

It could have been any weekend in that span because it was their perennial occupation: a dainty wooden table between them, a large bottle of Swan Lager in a chill bucket, two frosted small glasses. Not like now with everything big, giant glasses, giant bottles of Coke. Only cars had gotten smaller. The way things were going, in a year or so a bottle of Coke would be too big to fit into the boot of your car. Back then people knew how to sip not gulp. His aunt used to do jigsaw puzzles or play Patience, soaking time. Life was cruise-liner speed compared to now, no internet, you wrote with a leaky Bic biro, you mailed, you watched for a postman, you contemplated. His parents in those uncomfortable chairs in their shorts, staring ahead into nothingness, relaxed, seemingly contented. No words. As one drained a glass the other would politely refill it. They could sit like that for hours. At the time he could not imagine how they survived these hours of flat nothing. Truth be told, he still couldn't quite grasp it but he had an inkling that at some point in life you accepted, not its pointlessness, that would be too negative, the
vastness of it perhaps, the volume of it that was out of your control. You began to assess your inability to make any difference not just to other people's lives but your own.

Up here, that revelation was focused by the lack of distraction. The blackfellas had evolved to this state well before white Australians. ‘Don't sweat' was the saying and how apt it was here. A hard day's work had been done, this was sufficient in itself, anything else was futile bordering on posturing. His mother and father had appreciated all of this, knew it in the pores of their skin and what's more needed no conversation to communicate this. Each was embedded in his or her own thoughts and yet at the same time aware of their partner, considerate. He marvelled now at such intimacy. Did he and Marilyn ever have that? Not that he could recall. They had to find events to entertain them, movies, dinner. Neither of them would have lasted five minutes in those deckchairs. Perhaps that was it, they just weren't robust enough together in the first place, so when his work challenged him, seduced him, and the same for her, they really had nothing left except Phoebe.

Even though Clement was prepared for the turn-off to Schaffer's, he nearly missed it. It was not bitumenised, just a wide dirt entranceway between bending trees. About twenty metres in, the trees thinned and he found himself on a rutted dirt track between scrub the height of the car. The shack nestled ahead under gums. Built on low stumps it was made of wood and tin, and had the look of a log cabin except that the roof was of shallow pitch and extended out over a simple veranda. Clement pulled up about twenty metres short and climbed out, taking his torch. The cabin was in darkness, which he expected. There was no electricity service out this way. Clement switched on his powerful torch and stepped from the ground straight up onto the veranda. A cable and light globe was slung over the open doorway on a hook, suggestive of a generator somewhere. A well-worn cane swinging chair was hooked to a beam under the veranda roof. Also hanging from the beam was a hodge-podge of old iron implements, dingo traps, farm tools. The mix of jagged teeth and prongs was malevolently artistic. Clement's beam traced the cable leading from the light bulb. It headed inside the shack. There was no door, just a permanent space for entrance and exit, about double the width of a normal door.

Stepping inside, Clement was surprised. Going on the condition of the Pajero he'd expected to find a dump, a mess of empty bottles and wheezing furniture but while it was rough and simply decorated,
the place was well-ordered. It might have been one single room but it was a home. Large canvases of aboriginal art lay propped against the walls or hung. Good stuff by the looks, not the quick jobs dashed off to flog to a tourist coach. A gritty rug of what might have been South American design covered about a third of the floor. To the left as you walked in was a kitchen of sorts. A rectangular wood table, some odd kitchen chairs and stools. In the city it may have passed as a chic, inner city café. From the kitchen a window space without a window gave onto the bush. The electric cable continued its route and snaked out of it. Clement walked over and shone the torch. The cable ended at what may have been a converted dog kennel housing the generator. A rainwater tank was outside to the right. It looked relatively new. One tap was fixed near the window above the bench but no sink. An old washing machine, its power cord cut, sat on the floor, its outlet hose hooked over the window sill to deliver water to a small garden. Clement smiled at Schaffer's economy, presumably he hand-washed his clothes in the tub and then used that water on his garden. Beside the washing machine squatted a plastic tub which may have been used as a portable sink. Nailed up on the wall was a framed poster of a soccer team, HSV, 1978–79. It appeared to be from the same session as the t-shirt Schaffer had been wearing when Clement hauled out his body, though this looked older, an original. The players were grinning and holding some trophy. Premiers he guessed. HSV? Clement wasn't a soccer nut but Hamburg rang a faint bell. Had Osterlund mentioned Dieter Schaffer was from Hamburg? Could explain it, local team wins. Fixed to the wall were hand-made wooden shelves which held the basics; a few tins and jars, coffee, biscuits, sugar. No sign of a fridge. On the kitchen table was one of those plastic dish racks sporting a few odd plates, cups and saucers, all clean. A toolbox did for the cutlery drawer, neatly arranged in forks, spoons, knives.