The news crew camped outside Osterlund’s filmed Clement as he entered, on the phone to Earle who was just arriving in Derby. The crew looked tired already, unshaven and untidy and like angry scammers caught on a current affairs show; the wind buffeted their cameras. One seemed to be a woman but the sexes of news crews tended to merge, only the anchors retained an individual identity. Daryl Hagan and Beck Lalor patrolled the gate and acknowledged him as he passed. Clement parked where he had the first day and walked to the door carrying the Donen file. Jo di Rivi saw who it was. Her eyes couldn’t help asking the obvious question: had Osterlund been found?
‘Not yet. How is she?’
‘She’s barely slept. She won’t take anything.’
The air was crushingly humid now. Before he entered, reflexively, Clement looked up at the sky but it had nothing to offer him.
Astuthi Osterlund was sitting by the kitchen bench. She looked at him with a mix of intense fear and frail hope. The question was the same as di Rivi’s.
‘Have you found him?’
And he knew she feared the answer was yes.
‘Not yet.’
Her body lost some tension. The vast glass window reverberated in the powerful wind. It was unsettling, ominous. Lucky the cyclone has been downgraded, thought Clement, a four and the glass would have to be covered though he supposed Osterlund had special protective shutters if needed. Clement sat on the stool beside Astuthi Osterlund and placed the file beside him. The techs had all long gone and the place felt lonely, like a coastal guest house out of season.
‘Your husband’s real name is Kurt Donen. He was involved in pornography and drugs in Hamburg in the nineteen seventies and he is a suspect in the murder of at least six people including an undercover policeman. The policeman’s controller was Dieter Schaffer. It seems likely Schaffer protected your husband.’
She did not throw her hands to her face, nor call him a liar, nor protest her own innocence. Some part of her seemed already resigned to such news. Outside the ocean rippled like a fat man’s belly.
‘I want him back.’
‘You don’t seem surprised?’
‘I don’t know who he was before. He is, Gerd Osterlund, my husband.’
But something was tormenting her, he could see it. Her hands twisted. ‘Is he married to somebody else?’
‘Not that we know.’
She seemed to weigh that.
‘He told me he was never married and had no children. He didn’t lie to me.’ She said this as if it exonerated him from murder.
Clement said. ‘His whole life was a lie.’
‘You could say that about many people.’
‘But they’re not all covering up murders.’
‘It’s not my job to convict my husband.’
She did not add, ‘And it’s not yours either.’ She would have been right. His job right now was to find him, alive if possible. Sand was whipping off the beach below. He chose his words carefully.
‘We have to assume that somebody found out about this, somebody who is out for revenge.’
‘They want to kill him?’
‘That would seem likely. Gerd is not some intermediary. Your husband may be the end of the line, the one they are after.’
‘Maybe they want money?’ It was a feeble hope and she couldn’t sell it any better with her eyes than her voice.
‘They haven’t called. This person is very thorough. They prepare. At some point they may have trailed you or your husband, or called at the house on some pretext. Have you seen any strange vehicles?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Think hard.’ He found an image of a white SUV on his phone and showed it. ‘Any car like this?’
She continued to shake her head.
‘Like I said before, I don’t remember. One of my friends has a silver car like that but she is away in Sydney.’
‘Your husband never gave any indication he was previously acquainted with Schaffer?’
‘Not at all.’
‘The first time he met him here in Broome, were you present?’
She thought back.
‘No. I can’t have been. The first time Gerd introduced me to Dieter Schaffer it was at a restaurant in town. He said this man is a German from Hamburg.’
Clement wondered how Schaffer had found Donen. Had they been in touch over the years, part of the same operation, or had they ceased to have contact after Gruen’s murder?
For the next ten minutes Clement canvassed the same ground with slightly different questions but Mrs Osterlund could give him nothing that pointed to who they might be looking for. The Germans they had met up here were a mere handful, nearly all passing through. Clement took whatever names and details she could remember. Feeling there was nothing more he could achieve here, he announced he had to get back to the station.
‘Are you going to keep looking for Gerd?’ she asked, demanding the truth.
It was a pertinent question. Was he going to spend every ounce of his energy trying to save the life of a multiple murderer and drug lord? He was not proud of the answer.
‘Of course.’