A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul

by Shamini Flint

  Julian stared at the small hand gripping the stem of her wine glass and wondered how he was going to prise some funds from that grasp.

  The situation was urgent.

  He had even asked that goody-two-shoes, Richard Crouch, for a loan. It was no use asking Tim Yardley, he was always skint. He remembered how Richard had looked at him sympathetically and explained that he did not feel able to help Julian with his debts. ‘I don’t approve of gambling, you see,’ he explained in his low, quiet voice. ‘Perhaps you should get some help with your addiction?’

  Julian had felt like screaming at him, standing there, looking at him with an expression of gentle sympathy. He didn’t have an addiction. He just enjoyed hanging out with the locals at the regular cockfighting contests. He had been unlucky with a few wagers. He didn’t need therapy. He needed to find a way to avoid having his legs broken – or worse.

  The tip of Julian’s long patrician nose was red with aggravation. He wondered whether he should come clean with his wife. Did he dare? Would she help him or leave him?

  Julian looked at Emily, trying to recollect if he had ever felt any real affection for her. He had married her for her money, of course. But he had done so willingly. She was a small attractive woman with an exaggerated hourglass figure. In the early days of their relationship, her casual largesse had come in very useful. He had admired her effortless class – he had always been attracted to women who were further up the social ladder than him. He, with his thin long limbs and lean bony face, looked the part of an aristocrat. He enjoyed playing the role when he had enough ready cash to dryclean his cream linen suit and dress like a tropical gentleman. But he had none of the natural self-esteem that only money could buy. Emily had drifted into his life and presented him with an opportunity to turn his act into reality. He had grabbed it with both hands.

  He had known that Emily drank when he married her but not thought that much about it. Most of the expatriates in Bali enjoyed their drink. After all, what else was there to do on an island paradise where all the daily chores were carried out by willing Balinese minions?

  Julian recalled that he had even decided to abandon his beloved cockfighting until he was more certain of his bond with Emily and her affection for him. But he had been unable to withstand the temptation to have a flutter and now he was in desperate need of funds. He gazed across the table. A waft of expensive perfume tickled his nose. Emily rested her head against the pillow of two folded arms. She began to snore gently.

  Dr Barton stood behind the ornate carved teak desk, inappropriate in both size and design for the tiny, cramped space. The other two tried to find a place to stand that did not involve leaving muddy footprints on the piles of papers on the floor. Books propped each other up drunkenly on a large bookshelf. Singh noted that the titles were all work-related. Although the air-conditioning was running, the large window behind the desk was wide open. The policeman could feel a hot evening breeze wafting in. At the same time, the air-conditioning blew gusts of cold air onto the back of his neck. He sneezed. Barton scowled at him as he blew his nose on a large white handkerchief that he pulled neatly folded from his trouser pocket.

  Singh edged forward but found himself too close to Bronwyn. She was at least six inches taller than him even in flat shoes, he thought irritably. At least she wasn’t the sort to wear heels – he didn’t need his lack of stature emphasised any further.

  ‘How did you identify the body?’ asked Bronwyn as the inspector from Singapore continued to belie his reputation as a canny investigator by shuffling about the room looking uncomfortable.

  ‘Dental records,’ said Barton. ‘Fortunately, the jaw was mostly intact – the rest are just fragments.’

  Singh asked sharply, his interest caught, ‘Was it a conclusive identification?’

  Barton adopted his most professional tone. ‘Well, considering the fragmentation, incineration and co-mingling, I would go as far as to say we have a positive identification. The ante-mortem and postmortem data match in sufficient detail, there are no unexplainable discrepancies, the dental work was not extensive but it was idiosyncratic. Considering some of the stuff we’re relying on, this is good. Off the record – I’m pretty sure we have one Richard Crouch, Caucasian male, late thirties.’

  Singh was not convinced. He asked, ‘But how can you be sure the skull and jaw are from the same body? You said yourself that there was a lot of confusion after the bombs.’

  Barton nodded. ‘You’re right. But the DNA from the teeth and that piece of skull I showed you are a match.’

  Singh was impressed by the bad-tempered doctor. His casual way with bones masked both integrity and an attention to detail which was remarkable in the circumstances.

  He asked, ‘Dental records? That means there are next of kin?’

  ‘Yes. There’s a wife. I should be clear that the other characteristics, age and race, I’ve based on a picture she provided. She came to the morgue looking for her husband after the bombs and seemed to think a photo might help with identification. ’

  ‘Poor woman,’ said Bronwyn.

  Singh nodded in agreement. It was slightly comic, and very tragic, that the wife had thought there might be enough left of her husband for a visual identification from a photograph.

  Singh asked, ‘You couldn’t confirm race from skull shape?’

  ‘There isn’t a single piece big enough to determine racial identity,’ explained Barton impatiently. ‘Besides, the wife should know if her husband was white!’

  Singh said carefully, ‘We have to take everything she says with a good dose of scepticism.’

  ‘Why?’ demanded Bronwyn, offended on behalf of the unknown woman.

  ‘Because she’s the only suspect we have right now.’

  Met with silence, he asked, ‘Have you told her?’

  Barton shook his head. ‘I’ve told the family nothing. I found the bullet hole some time back – so I’ve known there was a murder mixed up in this mess for a while. But we just discovered the dental match – and it took a while after that to make sure the DNA samples from the teeth matched the skull. The widow doesn’t even know that we’ve identified the body, let alone that her husband was shot in the head before being blown to smithereens.’

  He paused for a moment. ‘I guess it’s just as well a person can only die once.’ Barton grabbed a folder from the top of his desk and held it up. He asked, ‘So, you’re going to take the case?’

  ‘I really think I am,’ said Singh.

  He held out a grubby hand and the doctor handed the file over.

  Singh remarked, ‘This murderer almost got away.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Bronwyn.

  ‘Well, if the doctor hadn’t found that skull fragment with the bullet hole – he’d have got away with murder. It’s not every day that terrorists conspire to get a killer off the hook.’

  Bronwyn asked, ‘There is no way of knowing, I suppose, when Crouch was killed?’ She looked at the doctor inquiringly and he shook his head.

  ‘There’s not enough left of him for any fancy analysis of time of death. I didn’t find any trace of decomposition in what was left but I’m not sure what that proves. He probably wasn’t dead a huge amount of time before the bombings. But that’s just my best guess – could be that any signs of decomposition were incinerated.’

  Bronwyn continued, ‘I suppose that means it’s conceivable that the perpetrator died in the bombings too?’

  ‘Shot the guy and then was blown up? It’s possible, I guess.’

  Singh was disappointed. His jowls drooped. He wanted to find a murderer, not identify another corpse.

  Bronwyn noticed this and said cheerfully, the dimple putting in a fresh appearance, ‘Probably the killer is lying under a beach umbrella, watching the sunset, sipping a pina colada and thinking how lucky he – or she – is.’

  Singh’s face brightened. He said, ‘I certainly hope so!’

  Tim Yardley sat under a thatched umbrella, leaning
back against its sturdy wooden trunk. He was shirtless and a stiff breeze ruffled the hair that blanketed his belly. His breasts drooped over his stomach.

  A low full moon, hanging like a paper lantern in the sky, provided the only light. The sea waters were ebony against a midnight-blue sky. Only the frothy wave tops reflected the moonlight, each strand racing the others to shore, occasionally colliding in a wheeling eddy. It was peaceful.

  Tim did his best to forget the hurtful things his wife had said to him. Karri was becoming more unpleasant by the day, playing with his emotions with the capriciousness of a young child pulling the wings off a butterfly. Indeed, she had used her spiteful tongue with good effect throughout the course of their marriage, mocking his weaknesses, insisting her maliciousness was just humour – that he was being too sensitive in taking it all to heart.

  They had been married almost fifteen years now. He had met her in a Bali hotel, the sort that catered to Taiwanese package tours and low-budget corporate retreats. She had spotted him balanced precariously on a bar stool, sipping a Bintang and waiting for his colleagues from the engineers’ conference to put in an appearance. With her usual self-confidence, she had sidled over and begun a conversation. He remembered being bowled over by the energetic skinny woman with the exotic hairstyle.

  Half an hour later, he had abandoned his fellow engineers to perch on the back of Karri’s rented scooter, holding on to her flat stomach gingerly. She took him on a tour of rowdy bars and strobe-lit nightclubs where he sipped a beer and watched her dance, proud that he was there as her escort. They had ended up in his hotel room, the first time he had had sex with a woman he had not paid for upfront.

  Tim remembered how certain he was that he could not let this vibrant creature out of his life. He had been terrified of being left to his old sedate existence and regular job in Canberra, no one to come home to except his old mother who relied on him and despised him at the same time.

  In desperation, he had blurted out a proposal of marriage and then cringed at the thought of her horrified response. Karri had rolled over, her hair tousled. She had gripped his naked belly, already starting to protrude, in a firm hand. He had felt ashamed of his physique, flabby and untoned, compared to her brown wiry muscularity.

  To his amazement, she had burst into loud laughter and said, ‘Why not?’

  Tim had immediately faxed his resignation to the Canberra head office from his hotel, his hands tremulous with anticipation as he gave the scribbled letter to the desk clerk. He was a new man, embarking on a new life. He had married Karri wearing the suit he had brought for the conference but was determined to burn it right after the ceremony – a symbolic rejection of the regimentation and tedium of his previous life. He would dress in cotton vests and comfortable surfer shorts, knock himself into shape jogging on the beach and get a tan. Tim remembered how he had peered into a mirror just before the ceremony, looking at his high forehead and wondering whether there was a Balinese potion that would magically restore his hairline. For a short while, he had truly believed in miracles.

  When he arrived at the registry office, he found Karri waiting for him. She was dressed in Bali’s famous white Uluwatu lace. He thought she looked beautiful. The best man was a co-worker from the office who was also at the conference. Tim had roped him in at the last moment. He was determined to provide his bride, a woman who disdained the formalities and mocked the conventions, with the accoutrements of a traditional wedding.

  A week later, he had found his new wife and the best man in bed together.

  He remembered how his bowels had loosened with shock when he had happened upon them. His broader despair had been subsumed into a small narrow panic that he would soil his brand new beach shorts.

  Karri had seemed genuinely surprised that he expected her to be faithful. He shook his head. Even now, the memory of her words was like a knife twisting in his gut. She had said, as his colleague hurriedly left the room wrapped in bedclothes, grabbing his pants on the way out as if he were a character in some sort of staged bedroom farce, ‘Tim, I might have married you – but you don’t own me and you can’t tell me how to live my life.’

  Four

  The following morning, Inspector Singh gazed out to sea. The blue-green surface sparkled as the sunlight caught the tops of rippling waves. It seemed as if a generous deity had caused it to rain diamonds onto the ocean. It was the final touch to raise Bali from the perfect to the sublime.

  It was still early and the sun was a low orb on the horizon. Although bright and determined, it had not yet succeeded in turning the fresh, cool morning into a sultry Balinese day.

  Inspector Singh had sand in his shoes, between his toes and under his soles. Sand chafed his heels as well. Bali sand, at least on this particular beach, was a coarse yellow. Scratchy. Not the coral white powder he had been expecting.

  At least the beach was clean. The cleanliness had mystified Singh. It was no mean feat considering that it was facing the South China Sea, rubbish dump of Asia. The previous morning, an explanation for the minor miracle had been forthcoming. Coming down to gaze over the waters earlier than usual after a sleepless night, Inspector Singh had seen a large tractor trundling up and down, scooping up the top layer of sand together with all the human detritus that the oceans had chucked up overnight. Driven by a morbid curiosity, Singh had walked forward until he was close enough to look into the tractor’s square, metal jaw. Empty plastic bottles, limp condoms, broken glass, much of it the toxic green that signalled the remnants of a bottle of Bintang beer, a leather shoe covered in mould, a syringe – Singh stopped looking.

  He wondered idly where the garbage was dumped. On some other beach less frequented by foreign tourists? Did they throw out the sand too? Surely the beach would soon be excavated bare? After all, it took millions of years for the rocks and stones of the coastline to be whittled down to the grains of sand getting into his shoes.

  Tourists, those few hardy souls who had refused to be driven away by the Bali bombings, were starting to appear, drawn to the beach by the sun. Seasoned sunbathers had baked their skin to dark leather. Others were golden brown – looking good until the skin cancer set in, thought Singh grimly. He glanced at his own arms, covered in a starched, long-sleeved white cotton shirt, with approval.

  Singh’s attention was drawn to a large man, bright red all over except for his bum cheeks. These, exposed in a pair of thong swimming trunks, were a flaccid white. As he watched, the man spread a large striped bath towel on the sand and lowered himself onto it gingerly. He levered a panama hat onto his inflamed bald head and rolled over. His pristine bottom needed colour too.

  A few Balinese were making their way in a leisurely fashion towards the tourists. A small nut-brown boy was assembling kites. In a few minutes he had a selection, from traditional diamond shapes to intricately painted birds of prey, tethered to a bamboo construction. The kites bobbed and danced in the sky. Singh’s favourite was a kite of primary colours in the shape of a ship. Its sails billowed in the wind as it tugged insistently at its anchor, anxious to be on its way.

  Two middle-aged Balinese women with wrinkled, kindly faces squatted on the beach in bright-coloured sarongs and kebaya. They beckoned to the tourists, offering cheap massages in cackling tones, their teeth rotten and stained from chewing betel nuts wrapped in the peppery leaves of the sirih plant. Their prices dropped as their quarry moved further away. Singh caught a whiff of jasmine and coconut oil from the tray of jars on the sand.

  The inspector realised he was attracting a good deal of suspicious interest. A fully-clothed, turbaned man, standing statue-like and contemplative on a Bali beach, was not a sight to reassure. There were very few Westerners, thought Singh, who could tell a Sikh from a headgear-wearing Moslem – and in Bali, since the bombs, every Moslem was assumed to be a potential terrorist.

  Singh retreated slowly up the beach. He reached the hotel and flopped down on an intricately carved wooden bench. Everything in Bali was intricately carved
, he thought crossly – it made it damned uncomfortable. He rubbed his back, kicked off his shoes and, puffing slightly from bending over, peeled the socks off his feet, exposing toes sprinkled with sand, tufts of grey hair growing between the joints.

  The policeman turned his white sneakers over and dusted them out. He slapped his socks against his foot, trying to shake the sand loose. An obsequious Balinese man dressed in a white bush jacket, tan sarong and slippers, the uniform of the hotel staff, rushed over to offer his assistance.

  ‘I can do it myself,’ said Singh brusquely.

  He noticed the square bulge in the man’s pocket. Singh held up two fingers, mimicking holding a cigarette. The Balinese was delighted to be of service. He extricated the packet and tapped it expertly on his palm, offering Singh the protruding fags. Singh took one and slipped it between his thin upper lip and full pink lower lip. The man whipped out a lighter and held the flame to the cigarette. Singh inhaled deeply. He smiled. Cultural differences were papered over by their mutual addiction to tobacco.

  Singh leaned forward and squinted at the file he had tucked under his arm as he walked along the beach. Ash from his cigarette fell on the cover and he brushed it away with the back of his hand. He had wasted enough time staring out to sea, trying to come to terms with his new assignment. It was time for him to knuckle down and do what he did best – hunt down a murderer.

  Julian Greenwood jumped on his motorbike. He could have taken the car with its docile Balinese chauffeur but Emily would almost certainly find out where he had gone. The staff knew very well who signed the cheques every month.

  He weaved between traffic. An old Bali hand, the narrow roads and erratic driving held no fears for him. He was not wearing a helmet and his thin brown hair was swept back from his high forehead by the wind. Strands of his drooping moustache were getting into his mouth.