‘Is your husband involved in drugs?’
Clement sat in the same position he’d occupied that first visit to the house, under the fan. This time he wasn’t looking at the ocean. Astuthi Osterlund shook her head vigorously.
‘No. That’s crazy.’
Earle sat at the other end of the sofa observing. Jo di Rivi was up in the kitchen area giving them space. Lisa Keeble had gone to supervise evidence collection and ensure fingerprinting and DNA testing was carried out on Schaffer’s computer. They had already established the hard disk had been wiped. Clement recapped.
‘Dieter Schaffer grew marijuana plants. Arturo Lee was a bikie looking to distribute drugs. Arturo Lee was at Schaffer’s place the night after Schaffer was murdered. Quite likely so was your husband. The computer we retrieved, which you confirm you have never seen before, has been completely wiped. We believe it is Dieter Schaffer’s. Gerd must have had something to hide.’
‘Gerd was here that night.’
Clement wanted to make sure there was no mistake.
‘Not the night Schaffer was actually murdered but the next night.’
‘Yes, I know what night you mean. Gerd was here. We ate fish and we talked about Dieter. It was the day you visited. Gerd has never taken drugs, not in Bali, not here, ever.’
‘What were your husband’s movements earlier that day? Can you remember?’
‘Gerd went for his walk as usual. At least I don’t remember any different, he does that every day. We’d had guests for dinner the night before.’
‘The Lucases across the road?’
‘Yes. After his walk he came back and relaxed I suppose. He must have got your message and waited for you.’
‘Did he tell you he had received that message?’
‘No. He doesn’t talk about his business.’
‘But it involved you. Dieter Schaffer was your friend too.’
‘You called Gerd’s phone, that’s not my business.’
The tenet of the relationship had seemed pretty clear from that first visit. Clement was learning nothing different. ‘After I left?’
‘He went for a round of golf.’
‘Whereabouts?’
‘The Mimosa.’
If Osterlund played golf it would have to be the Mimosa. The public course wasn’t much chop. Clement couldn’t imagine Gerd Osterlund hacking around there.
‘With anyone? A friend?’
Astuthi Osterlund’s hands were moving nervously. ‘Sometimes he plays with John Sherwin, sometimes by himself.’
They got Sherwin’s details and Earle broke away to call him.
‘What time did he come back from golf?’
‘I don’t know, four o’clock maybe. I’m not sure.’
Osterlund could have driven to Schaffer’s that afternoon while Clement was at the Anglers and the Mimosa interviewing the witnesses. He could have removed the computer, missing the patrol Mal Gross had sent around. If that were the case it implied Osterlund had no idea Schaffer was dead until Clement had turned up here. Otherwise he’d likely have removed the computer before or after killing him. On the other hand, Arturo Lee could have retrieved the computer and have been about to split when Clement had arrived, so he clocked him. But for Osterlund to have it now it meant either Lee had given it to Osterlund, which suggested some financial transaction somewhere, or Osterlund killing Lee to take it from him.
‘The night before last, where was your husband?’
‘He was here with me.’
‘The whole night?’
Astuthi cast her mind back.
‘We had dinner in Chinatown, early. We came back about seven. I don’t think he went out after that … no, we just stayed in, then went to bed.’
‘Are you sure your husband and Dieter Schaffer weren’t involved in anything illegal?’
‘I told you, we barely saw Dieter, my husband didn’t even like him much. Maybe somebody put that computer there.’
She pointed over to a ceramic bowl on the table.
Clement said. ‘Somebody would have to get the keys and put them back without you knowing.’
She looked crestfallen. Clement pressed.
‘You said Gerd has no family. What about friends, business colleagues?’
‘No close friends. The person he speaks to most is his accountant Werner Helstag.’
‘Did your husband or Dieter Schaffer ever mention a man named Donen or “the Emperor”?’
She looked completely at a loss. ‘No.’
Clement showed her the clipping of the drug lord’s photo.
‘This man.’
She looked closely but shook her head.
Earle joined them. ‘Sherwin did not play golf with him that day. I called the Mimosa. The guy there doesn’t remember him playing by himself or with anybody else.’
Astuthi Osterlund looked confused. ‘Maybe the man missed him.’
‘It is possible. But these things just don’t add up. Are you sure Gerd never lived in Hamburg?’
‘He told me he didn’t. He doesn’t talk about his past.’
‘I need the oldest photos you have of him.’
She thought about it. ‘In the bedroom, in the closet.’ She disappeared downstairs.
Earle admired the view like a man who knew he’d never own it. ‘Schaffer and Osterlund had to be mixed up in something, drugs, kiddy porn, something.’
Clement was thinking blackmail could be involved: Osterlund the successful businessman, Schaffer a cop who might know a few secrets. Astuthi Osterlund said her husband ‘tolerated’ Schaffer, which could suggest that kind of uncomfortable relationship. When he learned Schaffer was dead, Osterlund would be keen to retrieve the computer and wipe whatever shameful thing it was he was concealing.
Astuthi emerged, carrying the kind of photo album made obsolete by the digital revolution. ‘This is the earliest. Nineteen-nineties I think.’
Before he met her, then.
Clement flicked through the shots, his guess, a Balinese holiday. Her time frame seemed about right on these, early to mid-90s, Osterlund looking relaxed by temples and at the beach, but unsmiling, impenetrable. Interestingly he was never with anybody in the snaps, always by himself. If he was with some companion he had discarded any snaps revealing their identity. Perhaps he’d had a guide or passer-by take them for him?
‘We’ll take this with us. Please, if you can think of anything that seemed odd or unusual, you must tell us.’
‘He wasn’t into drugs. I’m sure of that.’
They prepared to leave. She seemed suddenly small, timid. ‘I’m scared for him,’ she said.
What could Clement say? She had every reason to be.