With Tyson’s information about the vehicle, the main room was invigorated: Shepherd checking all registrations of white SUVs for the region, Whiteman scrutinising the vehicles of all people tossed their way in connection with the cases, Jared Taylor recanvassing everybody in the Blue Haze area to find anybody else who had seen the vehicle. Gartrell and Paxton were methodically confirming Dingos alibies. Only Earle was absent. He’d called earlier. The chef was confirmed as being in Darwin when Schaffer had been killed, so he’d struck out for Derby to interview his second possible German of Interest.
Mal Gross headed to make himself a coffee and broadcast to anybody interested, ‘They’re saying it’s crossing about a hundred and fifty k north but we should still cop a whack.’
Clement called di Rivi and had her put Astuthi Osterlund on the phone.
‘Do you or your husband have any associates who drive a white SUV?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Have you noticed a car like that hanging about?’
‘No. Do you know something?’ She was eager for any crumb. He couldn’t share though.
‘We’re following leads.’
He told her to tell di Rivi if she recalled anything then removed himself to the AV room. There was no sign of Manners but the CCTV carpark footage was set up ready to roll so he helped himself to one more look. It is morning, half a dozen cars are visible in the carpark but no white sports utility. The boy said the car he saw near the garage that afternoon seemed like it was following the bike. But the car driver did not make himself known to Lee. If this was their guy and he was working with Lee, why not drive into the garage? Why might he be following Lee?
Clement began threading the needle. Suppose he’s following Schaffer, planning when and how he will kill him. Lee is also following Schaffer or waiting for him to ask him about the dope. Lee and the killer spy one another. Is it possible Lee was killed because he may have been able to identify the killer?
Clement sighed, rubbed his eyes. His phone rang. At the sight of Marilyn’s ID, every muscle in his body tensed.
‘Yes?’
‘We found it.’
‘Thank God.’
Marilyn was explaining. ‘The clothes she was wearing that day were in the laundry. Mum found it in a pocket. I’ll tell Constable Latich to go. You were right, it was just a coincidence.’
‘I’m sorry I scared you like that.’
‘It turned out okay.’ Not making a big thing out of it. It was encouraging. Maybe they could be friends.
‘I guess you’ll be busy for a while on this,’ she said.
‘I presume.’
‘We’ll see you when it’s done. Take care.’
As if his brain sensed it could now divert its powers elsewhere, the moment he ended the call, his tooth zinged with pain. That was it. He poked his head out of the AV room into the main area. ‘Does anybody know a dentist?’
Sometimes it is the one you least suspect. Shepherd looked up from his conversation with Paxton.
‘Our centre halfback is a dentist.’
He rang his mate who said he would do Clement in ten minutes. Clement got the details: it was walking distance. He stopped at Mal Gross on the way out.
‘They found Phoebe’s watch.’
Gross did not need to offer comment, his smile said it all. Clement slipped out the back door and up one of the side entrances. Three news vans were out front, three different crews, no sign of the journalists, which was a blessing. If they were from Perth it was almost certain they would know him but for now he was just another outback cop. The wind had really picked up. Empty soft-drink cans and coffee cups skittered across the roads, signs creaked and banged. The surgery was less than ten minutes’ walk and located in a small modern block on the east end of the main drag. An accountant and podiatrist flanked the dentist but were both closed. Nobody wanted to be caught out in a cyclone. Clement pushed into the fresh, well lit but deserted surgery and called out.
‘Dan?’ The voice came from a room behind the reception desk. Shepherd’s teammate appeared in the doorway. He was not your typical dentist. Shepherd’s call had found him at the Roebuck on his third lager and he had hastened back to his surgery in black footy shorts, a t-shirt and thongs.
‘Everybody cancelled. Cyclone I guess,’ he said as he ushered Clement through into the room where the dental chair waited like a predatory monster of the deep. ‘I was sinking a few jars at the ’Buck. I told Shep, “If your mate’s not gonna sue me I’ll do it.” Let’s take a look.’
Clement lay back, opened wide and stared at the ceiling. Someone had stuck a large print of a Broome sunset up there to soothe. It was the typical one you saw on all the tourist posters, camels in a line on Cable Beach.
‘Guess you’re flat out right now, eh?’
The dentist, whose name Shepherd had simply given as ‘Harry’, used a mirror and very gentle probe. Clement grunted a yes.
‘You floss?’ He pulled the mirror away.
‘Sometimes.’
‘That lower left molar?’
‘Down there somewhere.’
‘I’ll try and be gentle but this might hurt.’
And it did. The merest touch with the probe had Clement squirming.
‘Bad, eh?’ Harry pulled the implements out again. ‘Fairly extensive decay. How long since you’ve been to a dentist?’
‘Two years, maybe.’
‘Do it every six months, you won’t cop this. I’ll clean it out, fill it, we might get lucky. I don’t want to take it out if we can help it.’
Great, now I’m going to be a toothless old man. What next, incontinence pads? Clement already felt the invisible momentum of life shoving against him and now it seemed his own body had defected. After the needle began to do its thing, Clement mellowed, decided it was bearable so long as he did not think about what was happening in his mouth. So he lay back staring at the camels and dwelling on the case. Dieter Schaffer was the key to all of what had happened. No matter how flimsy the evidence Clement could not shake the idea his death was intertwined with Pieter Gruen’s murder. Something snagged in his memory: Mrs Gerlanger had said Dieter’s sister had written him off because his gambling had cost him his house, but his colleagues glossed over that. He bet small, Mathias Klendtwort said. Was Klendtwort lying? Or had Schaffer hidden from them the extent of his debts. What if the Emperor had found out about Schaffer’s debts and offered him a deal to save his home? Was Osterlund maybe an intermediary?
And as he lay there with his mouth screwed open staring at a print of camels on a beach, the puzzle began to take shape. Klendtwort had said Dieter was the only one to have personal contact with Gruen. The locker was used as a dead drop and cleared by Heinrich but only Schaffer interacted with Gruen. There was only one photo of Donen and if it had not come through the dead drop, it must have come via Dieter Schaffer. The answer was dead simple if only they had believed the junkie.
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.
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.’