Before It Breaks (29 page)

The biker was a godsend, literally. Not for a minute did he think it some accident he had been placed at a point to intersect him, no, the Unseen Power had manipulated it. A present was offered but with it the challenge.

Are you worthy? It asked him. Yes, he believed he was.

Look at the long sequence of events that had brought him here. He felt he could shout to the sky that he had not faltered.

He reclaimed the shovel and dug for another hour, timing his exertions to finish at the moment his water bottle ran dry. He buried the head of the shovel into the dirt and climbed out of the pit using the handle. The sheet of corrugated tin had been lying in the sun for hours and when he went to drag it over, it burned through the gloves he wore and seared his fingertips. He was forced to take off his shirt and use it as an oven mitt. He dragged the tin over the pit. It fitted snugly just a half a metre over the edge. He picked the shovel up again and dutifully covered the tin with sand. Then he smoothed down the sand so it was indistinguishable from the dirt around.

The air pressed on his lungs. A cyclone was building, pushing to split its constraining skin, and when it unleashed, what could it be but the final expression of his transmutation into something beyond humanity, into the very breath of nature itself?

‘Are we now looking at two linked homicides, the Jasper's Creek killing and the death of a biker at Blue Haze?'

Tomlinson's clothes exuded the aroma of stale tobacco and sweat, exactly what one might expect of a journalist in these parts. So far as Clement was aware, Tomlinson was single, and Clement could understand why. As soon as he made that observation though, Clement cringed. He was the last person who ought to be judging his fellow man. Ten minutes earlier Rhino had called to confirm the DNA on the shovel matched Lee. One more piece of information, but not enough to make the big picture any clearer.

‘The murder weapon would appear to be the same in both cases,' he answered. Clement had been confronted by Risely and
The Post
editor/reporter as soon as he'd arrived at the station.

‘I promised
The Post
you'd have a chat.'

Risely angled his eyes in a way that pleaded Clement be cooperative. Clement had agreed to a ‘quick one' and tried to keep the grumble out of his voice. They were in Risely's office which was actually smaller than Clement's but, without the meeting desk, roomier. Some charity golf trophy occupied pride of place on newish shelves bare other than for a few folders. Clement found his attention drawn to the detailed maps of the area covering the wall. Somebody had actually gone out into the baking desert and measured this, he thought absently, and then somebody else drew and coloured and printed this work of art. A seemingly fathomless space, hot, hostile, indistinguishable from the cubits of surrounding sand had been measured, comprehended and ultimately turned into informational two-dimensional art. That's what police work needed to achieve, he thought. To take the psychology of individuals, the motion and action of inanimate objects, the decaying matter of human bones, skin, tissue and reduce it to something comprehensible and laudable, almost beautiful.

Of course he did not say any of this to Tomlinson, he just answered politely and waited for question two.

‘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.