It was going to be a fraught meal, thought Nuri. Ramzi, her younger brother, was on edge. He was picking on Yusuf and her repeatedly, using his sly humour to good effect. Yusuf was visibly agitated. He kept taking off his glasses and cleaning them with the edge of his shirt. He would stare at Ramzi while doing this. His unfocused gaze was unnerving.
Ramzi turned his attention from Yusuf to her. He was complaining loudly about the food, the lamb curry and fried vegetables with steamed rice that Nuri had painstakingly cooked on the small hob in the kitchenette.
‘It is too spicy,’ he said, sticking out a curling red tongue and fanning it with a curried hand.
Yusuf said stonily, ‘I think it is tasty.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Ramzi. ‘We might as well chew on raw chillies. My sister is unskilled in the art of cooking. I have no idea why we brought her along.’
Abu Bakr said, ‘Her husband is not complaining. Only he has the right to chastise Nuri.’
Ramzi giggled. ‘I would not dream of scolding my dear sister. As she knows, I am just doing my duty as a brother by pointing out her shortcomings – as I always do.’
Nuri glanced at her husband to see if he had noticed this pointed criticism of her. Ghani was still eating, shovelling the rice and lamb into his mouth at regular intervals with his right hand. He chewed slowly and methodically, his mouth opening and closing so that all of them could see the gradual process by which the food was broken down into digestible pulp. His forehead was shiny with perspiration. The food really was spicy, thought Nuri, but Ghani was too lost in thought to notice. She felt a moment of profound dislike for her spouse, a visceral disgust for the way he sat stolidly at the head of the table, oblivious to the tension in the room. She remained quiet, determined to ignore Ramzi, serving the men more food when their plates became empty.
Yusuf was staring at her with a half-worried, half-admiring expression on his face. She was tempted to sigh out loud. She had always known that Yusuf, anxious, devout and a complete failure with women, found her attractive. The time spent with her in the small Denpasar apartment had magnified his admiration until it was something very akin to love.
Nuri smiled ruefully, forgetting her annoyance at Ramzi and her husband for a moment. For the first time in her young life, she realised, she was sensitive to the signs of new love, her senses picking up signals like the antennae on the small kitchen table radio in her home in Sulawesi.
She dragged her attention back to the meal, quietly ladling more rice onto Yusuf’s plate. Ramzi was still complaining about the food. She felt a sudden crashing wave of anger at her younger brother – doing his best to aggravate her, oblivious or indifferent to her suffering at the disappearance of Abdullah.
Nuri stood up suddenly and left the table. She marched to the bedroom and slammed the door, the sharp crack causing all the men at the table to stare after her in surprise.
Inside the dark dingy room lit with a single lightbulb, Nuri looked into the cracked mirror. A furtive creature, divided in two by the fractured mirror – as if the glass had the ability to reflect the truth in her heart – looked back at her.
Bronwyn stared at the inspector in disbelief. ‘You don’t mean that, do you?’
Singh didn’t answer immediately. Instead he said, ‘Nyoman, what’s good to eat around here?’
Nyoman grinned. ‘Do you want to go to a warung which is very cheap, just a few rupiah? Or we can go to the Amandari – everything US dollars!’
‘What’s a warung?’
It was Bronwyn who answered. ‘A food stall.’
‘What sort of food?’
‘Maybe like ikan bakar or nasi goreng,’ said Nyoman.
Singh asked Bronwyn, ‘You know Bali. Don’t you have somewhere to recommend?’
‘Asian or Western?’
‘Asian, of course,’ he said.
Bronwyn said to Nyoman, ‘Take us to the Dirty Duck Diner!’
Nyoman nodded enthusiastically.
Singh said suspiciously, ‘Doesn’t sound very Asian …’
‘No worries,’ said his Australian counterpart, ‘it’s the best place to try Ubud’s signature dish – duck – first stewed in local spices and then deep fried. Served with steamed rice and Indonesian vegetables.’
Singh did not look convinced.
Bronwyn laughed. ‘You look more suspicious now than when we met the widow! Do you always radiate such hostility to the recently bereaved?’
Singh said, ‘Only when they are my only link to a murdered man. If she decides to tell us a pack of lies about their time in Bali, we have no practical way of finding out the truth.’
Bronwyn said slowly, ‘I suppose they’ve not been here that long. There isn’t the usual network of friends, relatives and workmates to contradict or corroborate what suspects and witnesses choose to tell us …’
‘Exactly,’ said Singh. ‘We’re operating in a vacuum.’
Bronwyn was more optimistic. ‘The Balinese are inquisitive and observant. More than half the island works in the tourist trade.’ She corrected herself. ‘Or they did before the bombs anyway. They pass the time between being obsequious to foreign tourists by gossiping about them.’
Singh nodded his great turbaned head thoughtfully. ‘You may be right. That young fellow Wayan had a bit to say.’ He slapped his knee hard in sudden frustration. ‘In fact, do you remember he was about to say something about Crouch’s friends when the widow turned up? I wonder whether she was listening somewhere …’
Bronwyn interrupted. ‘The expats form cliques very quickly – even your reticent English types probably have a few mates on the island.’
‘You may be right – I look forward to asking any new-found friends for the dirt on Sarah Crouch.’
Bronwyn shook her head emphatically. ‘I can tell you once and for all she had nothing to do with it.’
‘On what grounds?’ asked Singh.
‘Women’s intuition,’ she replied and then burst into laughter at Singh’s disgusted expression.
The Dirty Duck met with Singh’s approval.
He chewed his way through the flaky duck, drank two bottles of cold Bintang beer and said, ‘So where do we go from here?’
‘Back to the widow, I guess,’ said Bronwyn.
‘And we need to bully Wayan.’
‘I’ll leave that to you,’ replied Bronwyn.
‘The Bali police should have collected all Richard Crouch’s possessions by now. We’ll have to go through that.’
Bronwyn was impressed. ‘When did you arrange that?’
‘I told them to do it last night – but I said to wait somewhere till after we’d broken the news to the widow and then follow us in. I saw two coppers walk in as we got into the car.’
‘Why did you want them to wait?’
‘In case she made a mad dash to destroy any incriminating evidence. That would have incriminated her.’
‘This murder stuff is quite complicated, isn’t it?’ said Bronwyn, patting her mouth with a napkin.
Singh shook his head. ‘No. Actually it’s the simplest of crimes. Murder is such an extreme, absolute step that there are only a very few people capable of it. And of those few, an even smaller subsection will ever find themselves in a situation where killing another person seems like the appropriate solution.’
‘You really believe that? You don’t think that we’re all capable of murder given the right circumstances?’
The Singaporean inspector said, ‘I’m talking about premeditated murder. In a fit of rage, in self-defence, to protect loved ones – we might all be able to kill a fellow human being. But to plan, to think, to decide in cold blood that murder fits the needs of a given situation best? I believe that very few people could do that.’
‘Inspector Singh, I do believe you’re a romantic!’
The policeman scowled at the grinning Australian. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You wander around with a long face hunting murderers but you’re convinced of the
essential goodness of human nature.’
Singh stood up, dropped a fistful of crumpled rupiah on the table – inflation was such that it took a lot of paper money to pay for things in Indonesia – and said curtly, ‘Let’s get back to the widow.’
The widow of Richard Crouch was composed. She sat primly, like an extra from a Jane Austen television drama, with her knees together and her hands folded on her lap. She had even smoothed her skirt after sitting down to make sure her knees were covered.
She asked, as if it was a social visit or – perhaps on the evidence of the cold formality – a business meeting, ‘What can I do for you now?’
‘Help us find your husband’s murderer!’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’ll do everything I can. I’m just not sure what use I can be.’
‘Tell us about him,’ interjected Bronwyn.
‘Richard? There’s not an awful lot to tell. He is … was an only child. His parents are both dead – they died in a car crash a few years back.’
‘Was he close to them?’
Sarah looked at Singh in surprise. ‘I guess so. I met him for the first time about six months after the accident.’
‘And you got married – when?’
‘About six months after that – two and a half years ago.’
‘A whirlwind romance,’ remarked Singh.
She said, ‘Looking back, I think maybe he was looking for a family to replace the one he lost.’
‘That implies that all was not well with your relationship,’ pointed out Singh.
She glared at him, a crack in the ice, swirling cold dark waters underneath. She said, ‘We were fine – there were a few issues, there always are. This move to Bali was a way for us to iron out some of our difficulties – get away from it all.’
‘Sounds to me like he spent most of the time – before he was killed, that is – getting away from you.’
‘That’s nonsense!’ Her voice was uneven, but it was anger, not sadness, that Singh sensed. Sarah Crouch was trying to keep a tight lid on a resentment that ran very deep. He reminded himself that it did not make her a killer.
‘What was the trouble? Another woman?’
‘Of course not! Richard worked very hard, that’s all. I felt that he was not spending enough time with me.’
‘What did he do?’ asked Singh. ‘For a living, I mean.’
‘He was a chemical engineer. He travelled a lot for his work – there was always a project in some far-flung part of the world.’
‘It’s awful when they do that, isn’t it?’ said Bronwyn. ‘My ex-husband used to be away a lot – it makes it very difficult to sustain a relationship.’
Sarah did not respond to this attempt at solidarity.
Bronwyn was trying to forge a bond with the widow. Singh was not sure that, tactically, it was a good idea. Practically, it was a waste of time.
‘What was your routine in Bali?’ Singh did not plan to change his own approach of being unpleasant. He hoped it would provoke the woman into saying something revealing.
‘The usual,’ she said. ‘We shopped, visited art galleries and temples, went down to the sea, met friends for meals or a drink, tried out the local cuisine.’
Singh became animated. He said, ‘You should try that place – the Dirty Duck.’
Sarah said coldly, ‘I don’t have much of an appetite.’
Singh did not seem to realise that he had been a trifle insensitive. He asked, ‘Who were these friends?’
‘It’s mostly Australians out here, isn’t it? It took us a while to meet people …’
Singh could see that Bronwyn was about to ask her what was wrong with Australians.
He said hurriedly, ‘I know exactly what you mean about Aussies. They’re excruciatingly friendly.’
Sarah responded in an almost affable tone, ‘And love telling you about their personal lives.’
Singh stole a glance at Bronwyn and noticed that the tips of her ears were red but that she was focused on the widow’s answers. That was good. A competent police officer always knew when to set aside personal feelings to concentrate on the information provided.
Singh asked again, ‘So who were these friends of yours?’
‘An English couple, the Greenwoods … and’ – she smiled sheepishly – ‘an Australian pair, Karri and Tim Yardley.’
Singh made a quick motion with his hand, indicating that Bronwyn should take the details down.
‘Were they Richard’s friends too?’
The widow hesitated. At last she said, ‘Yes, but perhaps more so mine.’
‘Did he have friends of his own?’
Sarah Crouch pressed her palms together. Singh noticed that her nails were colourless but well-maintained. He glanced down at his own hands. The nails were too long, the tips dark with grime that matched the fine hair between each joint. He rubbed them against his trousers.
Sarah’s nostrils flared slightly, indicating her distaste at what she was going to say. ‘Richard was much less particular than I was …’
‘You disliked his buddies?’
The widow shrugged non-committally.
‘Does that mean that he would go out on his own with them?’
She admitted reluctantly, ‘Sometimes.’
‘Do you have their details?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘But they were Australian?’
‘No, that was just my particular prejudice. Richard had made some friends amongst the locals.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, most of the times he went out without me, it was on his scooter with the Indonesians.’
‘That’s quite unusual,’ said Bronwyn. ‘Very few expats fraternise with the Balinese.’
Sarah said, ‘Well – Richard was unusual. He spoke Bahasa Indonesia.’
‘How come?’
‘He spent a few years in Jakarta with his parents as a teenager. He was always very comfortable with … with “native” types, if you know what I mean.’ She curled the index and middle finger of both hands to indicate inverted commas as she said ‘native’.
Singh had never actually seen anyone do that before. He decided he had reached his limit as far as Sarah Crouch’s company was concerned.
He said abruptly, ‘Be at the police station in Denpasar tomorrow. We will continue this interview then.’
On the way out, Singh stopped at Wayan’s desk. There was a young woman manning it and he asked, ‘Where’s Wayan?’
‘He has gone home, sir.’
‘Where’s home?’
Her delicate Balinese features creased worriedly. She asked, ‘Why do you need him? I know you are police.’
‘Why do you care?’ asked Singh.
‘He’s my brother.’
‘Excellent,’ remarked Singh. ‘Then you can take us to him.’
‘I have to work,’ she pleaded. ‘It is my shift.’
Singh stood his ground, his bulk making him physically intimidating. He gave the impression that he could stand around and wait indefinitely. The receptionist looked terrified.
He said with feigned sympathy, ‘I’m sure the boss will understand. As you said – we are the police.’
She rode a small scooter, her long hair streaming behind her. They followed her in Nyoman’s Kijang.
Singh asked curiously, ‘Why are the Balinese so docile?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They seem to cave in to authority immediately.’
‘Maybe you frightened the poor kid?’
Singh grinned. ‘You could be right – but compare and contrast Sarah Crouch and that young lady. I wouldn’t put it past the widow not to turn up tomorrow. That girl’ – he nodded at Wayan’s sister – ‘is prepared to lead the cops straight to her brother.’
‘I guess most Balinese rely on some aspect of the tourist trade for a livelihood. Maybe they’ve learnt the hard way that disagreeing with foreigners could cost them their jobs.’
Singh rubbed hi
s beard between thumb and forefinger thoughtfully. ‘It’s more than that – it’s like an institutional bias in favour of authority.’
‘It’s a hierarchical society. Historically, the Balinese have been ruled by kings and sultans. And there’s quite a strong caste system – the Brahmins dominate the priesthoods. I suppose you could say that they have respect for authority woven into the very fabric of society.’
‘That’s the way I like it,’ said Singh comfortably.
And when Bronwyn did not respond, he added, ‘You sure know a lot about Bali!’
Six
Bronwyn realised that despite her purported knowledge of Bali, she had never visited the home of an ‘ordinary’ Balinese. Her forays had been limited to the temples and the shops.
They were driving through a small village. The road, off the beaten tourist track, was stony and full of potholes. The Kijang rode the surface like a boat on a stormy sea. There were small piles of rubbish, the standard third world fare of plastic bags, bottles and leaves, at regular intervals. Someone had swept the detritus of village life into neat heaps but it had not yet been collected by any garbage collection agency, assuming there was such a thing.
A cowering stray dog with huge distended teats and patchy fur was frantically scratching a flea-ridden ear. Children in bare feet and outsized T-shirts happily played in the dust and sand. Their mothers hung clothes out to dry. Young men hung around in small groups smoking kreteks.
Wayan’s home was tiny. Despite its humble size, the typical elements of Balinese architecture, red brick and grey cement walls, were visible. The garden was a square lush patch of grass with an altar built at the highest point of a stone pyramid. The small structure at the top, with its thatched straw roof and wooden pillars, reminded Bronwyn of an elaborate birdhouse. Incense was burning and Bronwyn sniffed appreciatively. It tempered the smell of fermented mangoes. A tree next to the house was so laden with golden fruit that much of it had been left to fall to the ground and rot.
A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul Page 7