"What happened?" has consumed Australia this week. Perhaps it is the sliding doors moment in this sordid narrative that grips us: the small decisions that can change the shape of our destinies.

The Byron Bay community has closed ranks around Sara Connor, but from what we have been told she is kind and much loved. Her fresh pasta business – started out of a twin garage – gained the respect of restaurants throughout the northern rivers. Her two young sons attend Byron Bay Primary and she played an active role in their sport. She sometimes offered a spare room or tent space to backpackers.

"The accusations laid against her are totally out of character for this beautiful person," Sarah Mulvin, a Byron Bay marketing consultant who is fielding all media requests, said in a statement.

Less is known about her relatively new boyfriend, British DJ David Taylor, aka DJ Nutzo, who police say went completely nutzo in the small hours of August 17.

Whatever happened on that fateful night in Bali, a police officer is dead after being brutally bashed on the beach at Kuta. The Australian media's obsession with Aussies who come a cropper in Bali means this has often been shamefully overlooked.

Wayan Sudarsa, a police officer of 35 years, leaves behind a wife and two sons. He was also loved. A man of simple pleasures, he enjoyed eating nasi goreng at a roadside stall, raising chickens and participating in banjar (neighbourhood) cultural activities. Touching stories have emerged of how he helped others. Now he is gone.

Here is what we know. Connor flew to Bali  on Tuesday, August 16 to holiday with her boyfriend. Taylor picked her up from the airport that day, they had two beers with dinner and then took a couple more down to Kuta beach to "date", as the Indonesians quaintly put it. At some point Connor's handbag went missing.

The lost bag has become something of a leitmotif in this whole sorry saga. It was the visa card and driver's licence in this bag, discovered at the crime scene, that first linked Connor to the dead body. Wanted posters were displayed in police stations and hotels throughout Bali in the search for her.

Taylor and Connor were eventually detained by police on the Friday (August 19) at the Australian Consulate in Bali. Connor had sought consular assistance after a friend told her the couple were being hunted over the death of a police officer. It was all over the news back home. But it later emerged the couple had burned the bloodied clothes they were wearing on the night of Sudarsa's death before going to the consulate.

The police officer's driver's licence and identity cards – which police say Connor took to destroy the evidence after Sudarsa was bashed senseless on the beach – were found in a blood-stained bag on the side of a road.

In Australia, lawyers and police bristle with hostility towards journalists. In Indonesia, they smile beatifically and hold forth. "There is not the prohibition on speaking to the media that exists in Australia – it's normal. In fact, there's almost an expectation that police and lawyers will talk about the case," says Professor Tim Lindsey, the Director of the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society at Melbourne University.

"After the fall of Suharto, the quite justified concern about corruption and political influence in the legal system put a lot of pressure on people to be seen to be transparent."

This means claims and counterclaims, some downright bizarre, were rolled out for the media over the next couple of days. Connor had been too drunk to remember what happened. Taylor had been trying to help a man lying in the sand when he was "bitten on the finger", apropos of absolutely nothing. Connor had been pushed onto the sand by a "bad cop", who then lay on top of her. She screamed and was rescued by good samaritans who seemingly vanished into thin air. The stories kept changing. They didn't match up or make sense.

On Saturday night the couple were formally named suspects in Sudarsa's death, which allowed police to detain and question them. "The Indonesian criminal justice system is very different to that in Australia," Lindsey explains. "Being charged does not exist in a comparable way. Police collect evidence and recommend the offences for which suspects will be tried but the decision is made by prosecutors."

At present, the offences for which Taylor and Connor seem likely to be tried include a rough equivalent of manslaughter and assault, which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years' jail. Connor also faces a subsidiary charge of aiding or abetting, which suggests she may receive a lesser sentence if found guilty.

On Sunday night Taylor's own lawyer said he thought his client was covering something up. Haposan Sihombing was on the legal team for Schapelle Corby and also represented Bali nine drug mule Renae Lawrence.

He has forged a reputation as a solid, pragmatic lawyer who gets his clients the best possible results. Haposan is fond of reminding us that Lawrence was the only member of the Bali nine who received a 20-year jail sentence while the others got the death penalty or life imprisonment.

He told the media he had warned Taylor the Indonesian law frowns upon suspects who tell false stories and do not admit their guilt. "Reading his statement ... there were unsynchronised statements, I saw something he was hiding. I tried to move his conscience to say it as it is, what he knows, what he felt, what he saw."

The next day, Haposan assured us, Taylor would tell the whole truth.

The "truth" was a bombshell. Taylor had now "confessed" to a violent confrontation. The two had fought and Taylor had bashed him: first with binoculars, then a phone, then a sharp object, then a bottle smashed into the back of his head. It must have been a frenzy: Sudarsa's bloodied corpse had 42 wounds including 17 head injuries.

After so many days of mystery, intrigue and speculation, the alleged motive for the vicious fight is surprisingly banal. The missing handbag. Taylor accused Sudarsa of being a bogus cop, according to the Denpasar police chief, and tried to frisk him.

"David said to the victim: 'You are a bogus cop. Where's my bag? Where's my bag? F--- you bastard police'."

Connor's legal team insist she tried to break up the fight and did nothing that caused Sudarsa's death. "She said: "I was only helping, helping to separate David and the victim, to protect the victim," lawyer Erwin Siregar says. Taylor told Connor the police officer had simply passed out, Siregar says, and it was days before she learned of his death.

"She said: '… I was very sad, I sympathised with the victim's family. I wanted to help the victim's family and I wanted to go back to my family. I am innocent."

On Wednesday, we visit Sudarsa's family in Jimbaran. They are reluctant to talk but finally usher us through a tiny shop, crammed with packets of food and sachets of toiletries. Sudarsa's widow, Ketut Arsini, is dignified and stoic. It is only when we mention the allegations – since recanted – that Sudarsa had pushed Connor into the sand and lay on top of her that she becomes animated.

"That is not possible. He would never disrespect any woman ever. I guarantee. I know my husband."

Taylor and Connor made up lies to defend themselves, the family says. Unsurprisingly, they want the strongest punishment possible. The maximum sentence for unpremeditated murder is 15 years' jail, but the family feel that something extra is warranted, something that reflects that Sudarsa was a police officer, killed while on duty. His widow says: "Despite all the rumours and false statements, the truth will prevail about what happened that night."

Follow Jewel Topsfield on Facebook