Before It Breaks

by Dave Warner

  ‘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.

  ‘Mathias, I urgently needed to speak to Pieter Gruen’s widow, so please call me.’

  The more he thought about it the more convinced he became that he could be onto something. Those wounds were gruesome. It had to be somebody very aggrieved about Pieter Gruen. Clement called the Federal Police and Immigration to see if any Manfred Gruen had entered the country in the last three months. The woman he spoke with at Immigration said she would be back in touch. Just before she was about to hang up he had another thought: the mother could have remarried, the boy may have been raised with a different name.

  ‘Actually I’m not even certain about the last name but Manfred is not that common. Can you look up all those for me?’

  She said she would ‘modify the search criteria’ and rang off. Now he felt he was out of the sand and running on firm ground. He left his office and found Ryan Gartrell who was helping run down leads on white SUVs.

  ‘I need to speak to Hilda Gruen, Pieter Gruen’s widow. The Hamburg Police might have an address. If not, see if she was receiving any benefits as widow of a police officer, we might be able to locate her from those.’

  Clement copied the post-it note Risely had given him and handed it over. ‘The Germans have assigned an English-speaking liaison officer to us. Ask for him.’

  The door to Risely’s office opened and Risely stepped out in a fresh suit. Clement hit him with his theory on Manfred Gruen.

  ‘It’s slim but it fits,’ Clement concluded.

  Risely was feeding off the energy too. ‘You’ve spoken to Immigration? Federal Police?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. I have a conference in ten. You want me to mention the vehicle?’

  ‘No. It’s our best chance of finding Osterlund alive. Our killer gets wind we’re onto him he might kill him … if he hasn’t already.’

  Chelsea Verschuer swung in from the back door. ‘The wind is too strong. We’re going to move it to the library.’

  Risely was in agreement.

  Clement left them working out the wording of the statement. On hot bricks, Clement took himself back down to the AV room where Manners was hunched over a computer.

  ‘How’s it going on that numberplate?’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do this. I’m not getting anywhere. I’ve tried three programs but it’s still blurred.’

  ‘Then ask Perth for help.’

  Clement returned to the main room and paced, worried now that he had banked so much on technology.

  Time drizzled. He called Earle, found him already on his way back from Derby. The second candidate had been no more likely than the first. Clement gave him the latest.

  ‘You guys have all the fun and I’m battling a cyclone. It’s getting nasty.’

  Clement told him to take care on the road. He turned to see Ryan Gartrell advancing rapidly.

  ‘That was quick,’ he observed.

  ‘It’s a police murder. The Germans are desperate to put it away. Good news is we have a name. Hilda Gruen became Hilda Bourke and the pension was sent to a Manchester bank for twenty-five years.’

  Bourke? It seemed familiar but it was a common enough name he supposed.

  Gartrell continued, ‘But they don’t have any current address on her yet. They are going back through correspondence.’

  ‘Okay, good.’

  Once more he was becalmed. There had to be something he could do. He looked across at the whiteboard, thought of pieces still missing in the puzzle. Okay, suppose this was payback for Pieter Gruen. How did the killer know Schaffer was bent? How did he know Osterlund was Donen?

  It clicked. The drug dealer who claimed to have been Gruen’s friend! Clement felt he was getting his groove back. At great risk to himself this dealer had presented at the station to warn the police they had a leak. He had been telling the truth after all when he said he did not recognise the Emperor from the photos they showed. What was his name? Clement was sure it had been in the files but couldn’t recall it right now. He would be mid-sixties, he knew what Osterlund looked like and he knew one of the cops was bent.

  Clement went through the Pieter Gruen file until he found reference to the drug dealer. There it was: Michael Wallen.

  He dialled the number on the post-it and was answered in English.

  ‘Hamburg State Police, Erik Brohlen speaking.’

  Clement introduced himself.

  The German was polite. ‘We are still looking for the information on Hilda Gruen.’

  ‘This is something else, Erik. It might be a long shot but I need to locate the drug dealer, Michael Wallen, who is mentioned in Pieter Gruen’s file. If he is still alive I think he might be around sixty, sixty-five.’

  Brohlen took down the details. He sounded optimistic.

  ‘If he had a police record we could have his date of birth and full name. I will call you back soon, Inspector.’

  True to his word he was on the line in five minutes.

  ‘Michael Wallen: date of birth, eleventh September nineteen fifty-two, owns an apartment in Harburg.’

  Clement gratefully copied the phone number. Translation could be a problem but he thought he’d try his luck anyway. He dialled, the phone rang. A man answered.

  ‘Hallo.’

  ‘Do you speak English? Thi
s is Detective Clement of the West Australian police.’

  The words bounced back soaked in confusion.

  ‘Police? Australia?’

  ‘Yes, you speak English?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘Am I speaking to Michael Wallen?’

  ‘No. He is my father. I am Rolf Wallen.’

  ‘May I speak with your father?’

  ‘He is not here.’

  A flicker of optimism warmed Clement. ‘He is away?’

  ‘He is dead.’

  It could be a lie. ‘I am sorry. How long?’

  ‘Juli.’

  July. Six months. ‘Was it sudden? Unexpected?’

  ‘No. He was sick a long time.’ Rolf Wallen was becoming curious rather than defensive. ‘Australia? Kangaroos?’

  ‘Western Australia, yes.’

  ‘This is about what?’

  ‘Did your father ever mention a man named Pieter Gruen?’

  ‘Ja, of course. He is a … how you say … Hercules to our family.’

  ‘A hero.’

  ‘Ja, hero. My father say we owe everything to him.’

  ‘Did any of Pieter Gruen’s friends meet with your father?’

  ‘No. My father is honest about his life. He is junkie in old days. Gruen give him his life but he is a policeman.’

  ‘And your father never met with any of the police or family?’

  ‘I am sorry. I do not understand.’

  ‘We have a murder case here that may have something to do with the murder of Pieter Gruen.’

  ‘That’s a long time.’

  ‘Yes it is. But back then your father told the police somebody in the police was corrupt, informing to the Emperor.’

  ‘My father tells me about this.’

  ‘I believe he was right.’

  ‘Too late for my father.’

  It was said matter of fact, not with bitterness.

  ‘Yes, Rolf, but you can help us. I think sometime in the last year or so your father must have met with somebody associated with Pieter Gruen.’

  ‘I don’t know this.’

  ‘Did he ever have any contact with Gruen’s family?’

  ‘He send a parcel and a letter, I remember. A long time back. I am zwölf.’

  Clement went with the word it sounded most like. ‘Twelve?’

  ‘A boy, not teenager. I give some of my toys.’

  ‘It was to another boy?’

  ‘Ja. In England. The boy, Manfred. He is my age.’

  44

  On the way out to the pit for the last time the dark peeled away and dawn shone on the memory of that first meeting with his saviour. He had sat enthralled listening to Wallen’s slow plodding words.

  ‘He was my best friend. He will always be my best friend.’

  Wallen stirred the sugar through his coffee relentlessly. His fair hair was still thick in clumps though with sparse areas like a well-worn walking track, his eyes were tired and his skin grey. They were in a little café just a street from the railway station, a cheap place where the smell of toast and cooked ham hung in the air, and there was a greasy patina on the check plastic tablecloths. The majority of the customers were men in vinyl jackets that had been long soaked in cigarette smoke and whose razors had not quite done the job on cheeks and chins. It had been an impulse decision to ring from Munich. The tournament was over and the rest of his party were spending their last day sightseeing but he felt he could not let the chance pass. Wallen had offered to come to Munich but he thought he would like to see Hamburg so they arranged to meet here.

  Wallen’s face adopted its natural line of concern and missed opportunity.

  ‘I was so shocked about your father. I should have tried to contact your family years ago but I was scared. Not just for me, I had a young family. I’m not a brave man. After I tried that first time with the police, I was worried Donen would know I’d tried to talk. For years I ran. And then when I stopped running I couldn’t find an address for your family. Finally I rang the police and pretended to be an old colleague of Pieter’s and somebody found that Manchester address.’

  Yes, that made sense. He would never forget the day the parcel arrived with the letter.

  ‘I bought that t-shirt for myself but never wore it. I know it was too big for a young kid but I thought one day you can wear it.’

  ‘I still have it. I never took it out of its wrapping. And the letter of course.’

  He was alone at home reading Harry Potter, a boy similarly deprived of family by evil, when the parcel finally arrived.

  ‘At first Hilda didn’t want me to write back,’ he said. The coffee was too strong for him. He sipped it and put it down.

  ‘I can’t blame her. I was a druggie, not then, but before. I’ve got hep C to show for it. Anyway, I’m glad you did.’

  They talked for a long time. About family at first: Wallen in detail describing his own kids and wife, then, asking about his schooling, and Hilda and her second husband. The proximity of the train station meant they could squeeze the juice out of every detail before he climbed on his return train to Munich.

  ‘And you’re a sportsman too?’ Wallen’s eyes crinkled over the rim of his cup.

  ‘We came third out of seven.’

  ‘I never made any team, hopeless. Pieter would have been proud.’

  ‘Tell me about him.’

  Wallen recounted how they met, how he didn’t have much to do with him at first, how he had saved Pieter Gruen once and how Pieter had in turn saved him from something much more pernicious than a group of skinheads.

  ‘The whole operation could have come crashing down because of me. He put his own life in danger to tell me to clear out. He trusted me. And the worst part is, sometimes I fear—at the end—he might have thought it was me.’ Wallen shook his head bitterly.

  Hours had passed. Shifts of diners had come and gone.

  ‘Do you know exactly what happened to him?’

  ‘As I wrote you, the man they called the Emperor killed him. I heard that from a very reliable source.’

  ‘Is it true they chopped him up with a chainsaw?’

  Wallen did not want to meet his eyes. ‘Yes.’

  Donen himself had cut Pieter Gruen to pieces while he was still alive.

  ‘The man who told me this heard it from one of the men who was actually there, one of the Emperor’s bodyguards, a man named Klaus. I couldn’t live with this image of my friend Pieter. I am a coward at heart and I tried to blot it out but I could not and eventually I went to the police. They did not believe me. You understand after that I had to disappear too. Once Donen knew I was prepared to talk…’

  ‘Where is Donen now?’

  ‘If I knew that I would track him down and kill him myself.’

  ‘Do you have any photos of Donen?’

  ‘No. He was too careful. And back in those days it wasn’t like now with cameras in phones. But if the cops thought they had a photo of Donen they were wrong.’

  It was on the train on the way back to Munich that he looked at his reflection in the window and promised he would track down those men and kill them no matter what. He was pragmatic about it though. He was sixteen. First he had to complete his schooling, and he had to prepare himself, be ready to give up his own life. But in the years that took, his desire never wavered. Every arrow he shot was through their hearts, every math problem he solved, the mystery of how to find them, every sentence he wrote, part of their obituaries. There could be no future until the past had been dealt with to his satisfaction, however long that took. And now here he was on the other side of the world and finally it had been done and his life could restart when Donen’s ended.

  45

  The woman from Immigration got back in touch to say there was no record of a Manfred Gruen entering the country in the last five months. They were still in the process of compiling a list of people named ‘Manfred’ who had entered Australia in that time. Clement had thought the chance of Manfred having his father�
��s surname was fifty-fifty so he wasn’t too discouraged.

  ‘You can reduce it by eliminating those under thirty-five and over forty-five. Also please check for a Manfred Bourke.’ He could have adopted his stepfather’s name.

  ‘I’ll email you a list as soon as we have it, shouldn’t be long.’

  Michael Wallen had been in contact with Manfred when he was a boy. Perhaps they had stayed in touch? Once you accepted that Wallen was not lying and the photo shown of Donen was fake it was a short step to put Dieter Schaffer in the frame. He was the only one who could have substituted the photo. If Clement could see that, Manfred Gruen may have also.

  ‘Look for anybody with first name Manfred up here, caravan parks, vehicle hires.’

  He stood in the centre of the room firing off orders. Mal Gross emerged from the AV area and Clement stabbed the question.

  ‘How’s Manners going?’

  Gross shook his head. Ryan Gartrell slammed down the phone and called out from his desk.

  ‘It’s not Manfred Gruen, boss.’

  What did he mean? It had to be Gruen, everything fitted.

  Gartrell continued. ‘The Hamburg Police have records of sympathy cards they sent to Hilda Gruen. Manfred Gruen suicided twelve years ago.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘They’re definite.’

  The room shrank.

  ‘What about Hilda Gruen?’

  ‘The cards were sent to an address near Manchester in England. They still haven’t found her current address.’

  ‘Wallen might have told somebody else.’ It was Whiteman.

  ‘Probably, but his son was only aware of that one parcel going off to Manfred.’ Clement sucked it up. ‘Keep doing what you’re doing. Let’s find the owner of that white SUV. I’m going out to clear my head.’

  Clement fought the temptation to head up to AV and hang over Manners’ shoulder again. The guy was under enough pressure already. He climbed into his car and drove back out where the media crews had been assembled a little earlier. None were left. The streets of town were eerily quiet, the footpaths spare of café furniture that could become lethal weapons in a cyclone. A shop-owner was drilling and fixing ply boards over his windows. Clement passed only two cars heading into town as he cruised out, his mind a jumble between the case and the humiliation of being shifted from leading it. On autopilot he turned along the coast road. Sand was whipping across from the beach.