Before It Breaks (33 page)

Astuthi Osterlund's fear ramped up. ‘Why are you looking in the bush?'

He did not want to say, ‘In case your husband's body is there.'

‘We need be thorough.'

She let that sink in as they walked on without conversation. Eventually they got close enough to make out Taylor heading towards them. He pointed behind him.

‘Nothing. There's a couple of lay-bys just back there where vehicles drive off the main road to get close to the beach but they're empty.'

‘You keep going, double-check the area we just covered. We'll go back to the house.'

It took them about ten minutes to reach the first of the areas Jared Taylor had described as a lay-by. It was little more than a sand track off the main road that ran up through scrub and stopped about ten metres behind dunes. Clement scanned around. There was broken and flattened scrub where a vehicle or vehicles had turned but it was now empty. He was vaguely conscious of Astuthi Osterlund trying her phone again as she had done every five minutes or so. Then he heard the sound of a phone ringing. She hadn't heard it and was about to hang up.

‘Don't.'

For a second she was confused but realised what this sudden command meant. Clement was already past her heading towards the beach. She ran after him. The beach was still bare but the sound pulled him to an area ten to twenty metres in. A phone lay on the sand, pitted by wet dark spots. Blood?

‘Stay back,' he yelled to her. He slipped on evidence gloves and picked up the phone. The screen was opaque. He pressed it and a photo filled the small screen, a photo of Dieter Schaffer at Jasper's Creek, lying stretched out on the ground in his pristine t-shirt, his head split, grotesque and bloody.

Clement felt like the kid in the school play whose job it was to stand there with a crown and cape looking important while the other kids sang and danced and did all the stuff that actually required talent. He was immobile in the centre of Gerd Osterlund's lounge room as a variety of techs in full crime-scene clothing moved about dusting, photographing, cataloguing. Even Graeme Earle had something to do. Having cancelled the interviews with the remaining Dingos he now sat at the kitchen bench methodically combing recent emails on Osterlund's computer.

‘They're not on Facebook? Twitter?' he asked Clement.

‘Mrs Osterlund says not.'

The crime scene now spanned the beach and the house, the beach having been sectioned off from a hundred metres north of the house to the lay-by south where they had found the phone. Despite the photograph on Osterlund's phone, it couldn't be absolutely determined Astuthi Osterlund hadn't killed her husband, been involved in his abduction, or colluded with him to stage it. Clement did not believe any of these things but decreed nonetheless the house be treated like a crime scene. He had to balance potential contamination of the scene with the possibility that somebody would call the house and make ransom demands, so Mrs Osterlund was still inside being shadowed by Jo di Rivi. They were currently downstairs in the bedroom which had already been processed. Lisa Keeble had nowhere near enough bodies to work the case so more techs were flying in from Perth.

Scott Risely entered the house in an obligatory crime-scene suit. His fingers raked back through his cropped grey hair.

‘Perth is sending a media liaison person and three more detectives.'

‘You know who?' Clement hoped it would be people he'd worked well with before.

‘Not yet. You think he was abducted?'

‘That's my best guess.'

‘Why different this time? If it's our guy why not just kill him?'

‘He might want to know something from Osterlund. He may want to just draw it out.'

‘Or it could be a ransom. Osterlund is wealthy, right?' Risely automatically lowered his voice. ‘Where's the wife?'

‘Downstairs. Di Rivi is with her.'

‘I'll get the phones monitored.'

Clement scanned the empty beach through the glass. No birds. Something bad was coming. ‘I don't think this is a ransom situation. The abductor has had time to call her. He must know her next move would be to call us.'

‘We still need the phones monitored.'

‘I agree.'

Risely leaned back in to keep it confidential.

‘Are we sure this is the same guy? I mean, maybe the wife wants him to disappear and it's a good opportunity.'

‘What about the photo of Dieter Schaffer on his phone? She'd have to have something to do with that.'

Risely remained suspicious. ‘If Osterlund isn't involved in something, why didn't he call us when he got this disturbing text?'

‘It was very early, maybe he thought too early, went for a walk to kill time.'

‘Or he is involved.'

Sound logic. Clement was already planning ahead. ‘We need whatever CCTV we can get: coast road, town, service stations, anything between say five a.m. and seven a.m.'

Risely moved off to get it in train. Clement considered their killer-cum-abductor. This was the most dangerous of his crimes so far, with a much higher chance of detection. Either he was becoming bolder—not uncommon in a serial criminal—or Osterlund represented some much bigger prize than the others had. Maybe Risely was right and there was money involved?

Jo di Rivi appeared from the stairs. ‘I'm getting her a cup of tea,' she explained.

‘What's your take?'

The constable looked surprised to be asked. Clement pushed. ‘You think she's genuine?'

‘Yes, I do.'

‘Me too. How's the dog?'

Jo di Rivi smiled proudly. ‘She's good but she's hardly seen me.'

Even our pets suffer our vocation, thought Clement. ‘You got a name yet?'

‘Working on it.'

Clement's phone buzzed again and di Rivi headed to the kitchen bench.

‘Clement.'

‘It's Brett Manners. I thought that phone number was familiar.'

‘Which phone number?'

‘The one that sent the text to Osterlund's phone. It's the phone we were looking for, Arturo Lee's.'

Risely slapped his fist into his palm in emphasis. ‘The photo of the dead Schaffer came from Arturo Lee's phone. Lee is on a slab in Perth. Well, that's it, that's our connection.'

Clement had called his boss and Graeme Earle outside to the front veranda. The uniforms were assiduously going about their business, processing the surrounding bush.

Risely ran like a marlin. ‘Lee and some associate kill Schaffer, take his photo for some reason. Extortion maybe? They're going to scare the shit out of Osterlund so he'll pay up. The unknown associate gets greedy, kills Lee.'

Clement felt the need to haul in his boss.

‘Actually just because the photo was sent from that phone doesn't mean it was taken on that phone. It could have been taken on a camera and downloaded to the phone before being sent. It could have been blue-toothed from another phone. All you can say is it was texted from that phone.'

Earle soaked up this revelation. ‘So Lee may not have been at Jasper's Creek?'

‘Exactly. It could have been transferred to his phone after he was killed.'

Risely was unfazed. He checked his watch. ‘There's a strong connection somewhere, even if we don't know exactly what. I've got a radio interview in ten. I'll ask for anyone who was on the beach this morning around five thirty to six thirty to call us. I've got the phones and the CCTV stuff underway.'

Earle said, ‘Schaffer and Osterlund are both German. You know
what these dickheads are like, most of them are clueless. Maybe Osterlund was the target all along, “the rich Kraut”, but they screw up and go after the wrong one.'

It wouldn't be the first time something like that had happened but Clement couldn't see why the abductor would give Osterlund a heads up. Why not just snatch him? Clement made himself look at the photo of Schaffer again. There was something about it he should be seeing. Clement's phone rang. Lisa Keeble was overseeing the evidence collection from the lay-by, run off her feet but holding it together.

‘Definitely signs that a vehicle was there recently, and I think we can say it's not a small car and it's not a truck but there's no tyre tracks to speak of. Just got off the phone from Rhino, too, nothing in the samples I took from the undercarriage of Karskine's car that matches any vegetation or soil from Jasper's Creek.'

The trouble with the science of a case was it was always two or three steps behind where the case was heading. Clement mentioned to Keeble the wet stuff in the sand where the phone had been found.

‘Was it blood?' he asked.

‘Yes. I'll let you know if it matches Osterlund's.'

‘There didn't seem to be much of it.'

‘There wasn't. I'd say it wasn't a big wound.'

‘Could he have been shot?'

Keeble spoke off the phone, giving one of the techs a direction before returning to him. ‘Normally I would expect more blood.'

‘Small calibre?'

‘Possibly. We've got a metal detector down there just in case there's a spent cartridge. We found an area that looks like the primary location of the attack on the beach about twenty-five metres in, equidistant almost to the ocean, slightly to the northwest. Then it's essentially clear until those drops where you found the phone. None on the grass where the lay-by borders the dunes so I think the vehicle was backed in and whoever was bleeding went straight into the vehicle.'

‘Okay, keep me posted.' Clement felt sweat pooling on his collar, excitement or humidity, he wasn't certain. He ran Keeble's info past Earle. Earle's brows knitted.

‘Osterlund was a fair size. How could one person have carried him? Are we looking at two?'

‘Maybe. Osterlund gets a photo of his dead mate at five thirty.
For whatever reason he doesn't call us or tell his wife about it. I don't know about you but I'd be very wary. Yet he still goes on his walk.'

‘To meet someone?'

‘He'd have to be cautious. Maybe he armed himself?'

Clement went back inside and took himself down the staircase to the bedroom. Jo di Rivi was sitting on the bed, Astuthi Osterlund staring out the window sipping her tea. She swung at his footfall, anxious. Clement got in quickly.

‘We're still trying to work out what may have happened. At this stage we believe he may have been abducted.'

‘You think they will ask for money?' She was hopeful.

‘It's possible. Did you have any problems with neighbours? Friends?'

She shook her head. ‘We don't see many people. They are all nice.'

‘It seems somebody must have known Gerd's movements. Did he mention meeting anybody regularly down the beach?'

‘No.'

‘Have you had people through the house lately, besides your friends, any tradespeople?'

‘Not for a long time. We had the dishwasher person last year.'

‘Gerd went for his usual walk even after he had that text. I would think he might arm himself. Did your husband own a gun?'

‘In Bali we had one. Some Europeans were attacked. He left it there.'

‘Would you know if there are any knives missing?'

‘I'll check.'

She started up the steps. Jo di Rivi was about to follow when Astuthi Osterlund stopped and turned back. ‘He keeps a knife out here.'

She stepped out of the sliding doorway. Clement followed her to the barbecue, a luxury model shining like the skin of a formula one car. She picked up an empty self-sharpening scabbard from a sideboard.

‘There was a knife here he uses for the barbecue.'

‘You sure?'

‘I washed it and put it there ready for the next time.'

Like Arturo Lee, Osterlund had armed himself. Like Lee it had made no difference. Clement looked at di Rivi. ‘Credit cards, bank cards?'

‘I got all the details and rang them through to the Sarge.'

One less thing to chase up but somehow he didn't think the abductor was going to make the mistake of using Osterlund's cards. The policewoman went back inside to stick with Astuthi. The air around Clement was seething. Osterlund had been on alert from the photo. In his mind Clement saw the carcass of Dieter Schaffer stretched out. A switch in his brain snapped on. Once more he studied the photo. He knew what it was that bugged him. It was posed. There was Dieter Schaffer stretched out on the ground, head bashed in but the focus was the pristine t-shirt, Hamburg 1979 right across Schaffer's chest. That was the message this photo sent, and now Clement understood why the t-shirt did not fit. It was not Schaffer's. The killer had brought it with him specifically to take this photo.