Before It Breaks by Dave Warner Page A

medical examiner, Keeble had worked numerous deaths-by-trauma in conjunction with the Coroner’s department. She had trained under professor Michael ‘Rhino’ David, an expert etymologist and head of the Forensic Science department at the University of Western Australia. She knew her stuff.
    Clement’s and Rhino’s careers had grown in step. Clement was the first cop to make use of Rhino’s abilities but it was a symbiotic relationship. Rhino helped him solve cases and Clement’s support kept Rhino’s numerous bureaucratic enemies at bay. Rhino’s CV included stints lecturing at the FBI’s US body farms, consultant on a number of international murder trials, and reigning faculty titles for piss-drinking and Donkey Kong. Politically incorrect, looking more like a roadie for a heavy metal band than a professor, Rhino scared his university colleagues and was anathema to the State Coroner, who saw him as some kind of forensic cattle baron muscling in on her turf. But his department was brilliant at identifying DNA, whether human or mineral, and earned the university a tidy sum from commercial clients, thereby coating Rhino in just enough Teflon to keep from being jettisoned. Rhino was also a teacher par excellence. His graduates could find employment anywhere in the world but Lisa Keeble’s best quality was she was adaptable. There were plenty of gourmet chefs but up here you needed one who could cook on a Bunsen burner. Clement had Shepherd put her on.
    â€˜You know I can’t speculate on what killed him.’
    â€˜Of course, but did you see anything other than a whopping blow to the head or drowning?’
    â€˜No ligature marks but I lifted the t-shirt and had a quick look. I’d say he took a heavy beating, rib fractures most likely. You saw the jaw, right? Curious thing was that the shirt didn’t have any corresponding marks on it, that I could tell. If you hadn’t dragged him up onto the shore with a mechanised winch it might have helped.’
    â€˜There’s crocs around, I’m not stupid.’
    â€˜No, I’ll give you six out of ten.’
    â€˜So what are you saying about the t-shirt?’
    â€˜I don’t know, maybe he put it on after he was beaten.’
    That was important. Maybe Schaffer got into a fight, took a beating, changed and then whoever beat him came back to finish the job?
    â€˜Anything else?’
    â€˜Sorry, that’s it for now.’
    â€˜Is Shep making a nuisance of himself?’
    â€˜Of course. But I can handle him. Now the croc guys are here, he’s occupied.’
    â€˜You going to need more bods?’
    â€˜I’ve already called Perth. Given the size of the potential area, the billabong, it’s going to take a bit of time. Two techs are on their way from Perth and my guys will be here any minute.’
    It was as he expected but just because they’d be sending techs didn’t mean Perth was going to run the case, not if he could help it, not after weeks of nothing more exciting than petrol theft.
    â€˜Take care,’ he said and swung into the small carpark of the Anglers Club. There were half a dozen vehicles in a carpark of about twenty spaces that doubled for the printing business next door. Only the late model Ford and the early model Toyota Camry had bothered to actually stick between the lines. Clement assumed they belonged to the employees. The other vehicles, pig-shooting and fishing rigs, were splayed as if the drivers were already a few sheets to the wind even though this wasn’t necessarily the case. Up here people got used to space, more space than they needed. Why bother to straighten up when there were plenty more bays available?
    Clement left the car, the heat not capitulating one iota. He pushed through aluminium and glass doors into heavy-duty air-conditioning. The sweat trickling down his back froze instantly. The building was no-frills, white brick walls,