Before It Breaks (41 page)

Anger burst inside him like a grenade. Fucking Dieter Schaffer. This was his doing. He should have killed him. And Wallen, he remembered him, that skinny junkie. He was one of the ones who had got away. It was always the weak ones who brought down the strong. Somebody once said no good deed goes unpunished and they were right.

It had been happenstance, Schaffer bumping into him on a rare trip to Hamburg, six or seven years ago. He usually avoided the city precisely for that reason but he was buying out an online competitor and they said the deal had to be done there in person. Schaffer had walked right up to him in the street while he was waiting for a taxi. He felt sorry for Schaffer, an emotion he'd never been able to afford up until a few years before when he began living in Bali. Schaffer was clearly dead-ended in life. He should have just walked away from him but he figured he owed him. Schaffer had tipped him off about the undercover cop and he'd saved Schaffer his home in return, quid pro quo. But it was Schaffer who thought of planting the fake photo. That was inspired and without it he'd have had none of this life. He was set up now. If he'd lost his drug money he never would have been able to buy back into the porn industry, get into online porn in its very early days, make a killing and get out. For the last seventeen years he'd been a legitimate businessman.
Schaffer, though, might have saved his home but not his marriage. When they'd reconnected Schaffer was working the docks and living in a rented apartment. Foolishly Osterlund had wired him ten thousand euros. Schaffer hadn't even asked for it. But what did he care? Ten thousand was a drop in the bucket. And then one day here in Broome somebody taps him on the shoulder and he turns around to see fucking Dieter Schaffer. He'd tracked him from the money he'd been sent.

‘I've come to join you in the wilderness,' Schaffer had joked. And then Schaffer had seen the fury in his face and begged off with promises he'd never tell anybody, proof of which was his silence all these years. He'd contemplated then and there giving Schaffer a permanent silence but he did not want to soil himself with any more blood and, truth be told, Schaffer's presence was a door into a time when he had been the dark prince of Hamburg, making money hand over fist, a time he enjoyed remembering. Sure, with his publishing he made more than enough but he missed the edge-of-the-seat adrenalin of those days, the keenness of his senses; and he liked sometimes to recall the cold chill of the wind off the river right through his herringbone flares, the smell of tobacco and pils in the basement pubs, the luxury of a car cassette player, the feel of a clutch under his cheap leather soles. He did not want to go back, he was not nostalgic in that sense, but he liked to remember his time on the rise so he would never take what he had now for granted. He decided to let Schaffer be and Schaffer had played his part, never letting on even to Tuthi that they had known each other before. He'd remembered Schaffer's computer and removed it before the police, just in case there had been something incriminating on it. But it was too late by then.

He should have connected Schaffer's death to that of Klaus but when the biker was murdered the same way he had dismissed his concerns. He should have understood Schaffer was a door to the past not just for him but others. Schaffer was the portal, the passageway that had led his persecutor here to bind and tie him and bury him alive in a black cesspit.

He tried to think of other things: Tuthi naked in the morning, the old days in the Reeperbahn when he got his start selling girls to drunk sailors. He was successful because he was fair to the girls, giving them twice what the competition paid, in smack instead of cash but still that's what they would spend it on anyway.

It was all business, nothing more.

Their faces were out of focus now. It had been too long ago. A few OD'd; most just faded away. The early days had been hard. He'd been bashed by chains, cut by switchblades. Somebody hits, you hit back twice as hard. You got smart, employed mercenaries back from Africa and out of work but that only got you so far. The polaroid opened up everything. He could offer pictures to the sailors of the girls they'd paid to fuck. Throw a little extra to the girls for their trouble. There was just as much money in the photos as the sex. He remembered the first magazine issue, his pride. He tried to see the cover in his mind but the thought snapped and he was back in the dark, utterly alone, his hands and feet numb. He would die down here. His tormentor may never revisit. There was air for now but no water. After a tough start, his life had been comfortable, luxurious even. But as death calls you, who is content with what they used to have?

The pain in his knee tore at him. Osterlund bellowed again into the gag, a wail of self-pity.

‘A biblical judgment.'

The words came in a voice from long ago, his stepfather's, that mean Lutheran bastard sitting at the table in his braces and rolled sleeves, massive hairy forearms. He sensed him in here now. There, his face glowing, a phosphorescent Shroud of Turin.

‘Free me,' he tried to say, but his words were muffled and his stepfather was without ears.

The recent impetus had waned. Clement watched his team grinding their way through their various assignments. While he had uncovered more elements of the mystery, time was running out to find Osterlund. The pieces were there, enough of them anyway, but he must look in the right place. That was what he had always been good at.

Before his tooth had driven him to the dentist he had been on the verge of sussing out something. What?

Mal Gross loomed. ‘I've covered the road to Derby, Cape Leveque road to the north and a couple of the major tracks east. Traffic's light with this storm coming so if the SUV is out there we should spot him.'

‘Okay, good.'

‘You think we need to look at station wagons too?'

‘The kid seemed confident.'

Mal Gross nodded and went back to his desk. If Tyson had it wrong it was most likely too late anyway. Knowing the interruptions would continue out here, Clement retreated to his office and switched off his phone. He recalled earlier he had been contemplating the connection between Lee and his killer. Now he tried retracing his mental steps. Schaffer's killer knew where Lee was hanging out. Maybe he followed him from town out to Blue Haze?

But Lee was a biker, used to violence, suspicious, on his guard because the Dingos had told him the police were looking for him. If the killer didn't know Lee, how did he manage to surprise him and kill him? Did he just lie in wait in the shadows on the off-chance, or knock on the door and run off and hope Lee would emerge to investigate?

No. He had to know him. Didn't he?

Clement had the sensation of looking across a vast empty desert.
He sighed, despairing. His eyes travelled to Phoebe's drawing. He should call her. As he picked up the receiver, the answer he had been chasing fell on him. He gently replaced the receiver.

The flashing watch.

When he had seen it in the dark room the other night his response had been curiosity, ‘What on earth is that?' And now he was thinking Lee had thought the same. Lee had been lured to the exact position the killer wanted by that watch.

Clement was certain of it.

Clement found Manners gobbling a sandwich and felt bad for interrupting much needed nourishment. Manners had begun to resemble a hologram of himself.

‘That liquor shop footage of the carpark … did we dump the whole hard drive on our computers?'

Manners tried to speak through bread. ‘Yeah, got it all.' He slapped his computer to show that was where it resided.

‘I want you to go through that footage again, this time I want you looking for white SUVs. Make a note of the rego of any white SUVs or people driving them.'

‘It's black and white footage. Yellow, light blue, it might be hard to tell.'

‘Do your best. Start on the day of the argument then work out one day each way, then two days each way.'

‘Got it.'

‘Did you find Schaffer's Pajero in any other footage?'

‘At the shopping centre carpark, just that one day. But HQ clocked it once, remember?'

That was right. They had a shot of the Pajero on the street from when they'd been looking at Lee to see if he'd been hanging about. Clement started to call Perth.

‘I'll get a copy sent to us.'

‘I've got one, thought we should have that too.'

‘Fantastic.'

Manners puffed a little at the compliment.

Clement instructed, ‘Look for a white SUV. You never know, if he was tracking Schaffer, he could be on there.'

He left Manners to it and thought of trying Klendtwort again but decided he'd leave it for now. Instead he called Marilyn's. Geraldine answered.

‘Hello, Geraldine. Is Phoebe there?'

‘What do you think you're doing, Daniel?'

Trying to converse with his daughter? Evenly, he said, ‘What do you mean?'

‘I mean hanging around here, dragging us all into murder and your sordid world.'

‘The watch was a coincidence.'

‘It might not have been.'

‘Geraldine, I don't have the time for this right now. Could I speak to my daughter?'

‘Have you caught him yet?'

‘No.'

‘Didn't think so.' The phone clunked on a sideboard. A moment later came echoing footsteps.

‘Hello, Daddy. I got my watch back.'

‘I know.'

‘Mummy said you helped look for it.'

Another tick for Marilyn.

‘That's true. We need to get together, make up for that lost weekend. I was thinking about the Derby house.'

‘Can we take the boat out?'

‘Of course.'

‘Can I drive it?'

‘Yes, you can be skipper.'

That seemed to swing the vote. ‘Okay.'

‘I'm not sure when this will all be finished but as soon as it is.'

‘Alright. And remember …'

‘What?'

‘When you catch the bad man, cut his head off, otherwise they can come back to life.'

He assured her he would remember that, told her he loved her and hung up. He'd almost asked to speak to Marilyn but thought better of it, though it would have been enjoyable to annoy Geraldine. His mobile rang. He didn't recognise the number.

‘Yes?'

‘It's Manners.'

Typical IT guy, using the phone instead of walking five metres across the room. He sounded pumped. ‘Come over to the AV.'

Clement made it there double-time. Scott Risely was there too. Manners spoke quickly.

‘The footage came from Banton the jeweller. Not a red light
camera unfortunately, that would have given us a numberplate.'

They stood at the console and stared at the screen which had been paused. Manners hit play. It was shot from inside the shop focussing on the window display in case of theft. But it was possible to see passing traffic, albeit not in sharp focus. Manners tapped the screen.

‘That's Schaffer's Pajero.'

Right behind it came a white SUV. It was impossible to see the driver. Manners hit pause as the SUV receded. The registration was blurred.

Risely said, ‘Can we enhance it?'

‘I think so.'

Clement felt himself bobbing with excitement. ‘How long?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Get onto it.'

Risely said, ‘The Germans called. They've already spoken to Pieter Gruen's brother and sister. The brother is in Hamburg, the sister in Switzerland. They don't think they are involved. They'll work through ex-colleagues and other associates, anybody who has contacted the department. They are very grateful, rapt in fact.'

He handed Clement a post-it note with a number written across.

‘They've given us an English-speaking liaison officer and any help we need.'

They were close now, very close, but Clement did not like relying purely on the physical evidence of CCTV and numberplates. He wanted an additional approach that looked for motive and opportunity. Whoever killed Schaffer had kicked and beaten him as he lay dying. It was extremely personal. Back in his office Clement reviewed Pieter Gruen's file as if it might talk to him. The German police had ruled out Gruen's brother and sister but there might be friends, his best man, a school chum. Pieter Gruen had a boy, Manfred, who had been six years old at the time of his death. Clement searched the file frantically. There was no mention of what had become of Hilda Gruen or her son. He tried Klendtwort again but there was still no answer. He left a message quickly outlining his discovery that Osterlund was Kurt Donen.