A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul

by Shamini Flint

  ‘How often did you meet up?’ he asked.

  Julian said, ‘About once a week …’

  Singh nodded. He said, ‘You knew him well then. Excellent! Perhaps one of you could tell me who killed him?’

  The widow of the murdered man was in the hotel restaurant, sipping a cocktail. She had chosen one of those tropical concoctions with pineapple juice and dark rum. A small pink umbrella was stabbed through the heart of a cherry floating on the surface.

  Wayan, the front desk operator, hurried over to her. He had a sheaf of notepaper in his hand. He held it out respectfully. ‘Ibu, there were a few calls for you while you were out.’

  She took the notes – the calls were from Tim Yardley. He was becoming a real nuisance. She regretted her interaction with him, but she had been desperate, ready to seize any opportunity, however tenuous, to win her freedom from her husband.

  Sarah did not regret the death of her husband. She felt sorry for him, but it was the distant pity of a stranger reading a sad tale in a newspaper or watching a tragedy unfolding on television. She felt none of the gut-wrenching immediacy of a loss of family. The discovery of the body had shocked her, but in some ways it had also come as a relief. It had, after all, never been very plausible that her husband had done a runner. Not Richard, who occupied the moral high ground as if he paid the mortgage on it.

  Richard’s death meant that she could spend every spare moment with Greg Howard. The thought of Greg – easygoing, lighthearted, always willing to squeeze every drop of joy out of a day – smoothed the lines on her face like an iron running over starched cotton. It was amazing to think they could be together now. She knew quite well that Greg did not feel as strongly about her as she did him. That did not bother her. Now that she had her freedom and some ready cash, she would have no trouble keeping the surfer by her side. Sarah realised with a start that she was happy. A small contented smile played about her lips. She struggled to control the expression spreading across her face like a radiant Balinese sunrise. She needed to keep her emotions in check. It would not do for word to get to the Sikh policeman from Singapore and his large Australian counterpart that she was not at all devastated by the loss of her husband. Singh was quite likely to leap to all sorts of tiresome conclusions. Her thoughts turned unerringly to Greg again. This time she could not prevent her lips curving like a plucked bow. When she looked up, Wayan was staring at her, an expression of genuine consternation on his face.

  A gust of wind cast the paper napkins into the air like miniature untethered kites. Only Karri had the presence of mind to grab her serviette. The rest of them were staring at Singh with flabbergasted expressions. All, that is, except for Tim, who was still absorbed by the red tablecloth.

  Like Singh earlier, Bronwyn wondered at his response. He did not appear surprised by the question. Was he forewarned? And, if so, by whom? Had there been a leak of information or was there a more sinister explanation? Try as she could, Bronwyn found it difficult to imagine circumstances where a man like Tim Yardley would be driven to kill someone.

  Perhaps, she speculated idly, Richard Crouch had been having an affair with Karri and Tim had killed him in a fit of jealous rage? Bronwyn had to work hard to prevent herself from grinning at the absurdity of her hypothesis. It seemed highly unlikely that the dead man, whose suitcase had indicated a rigid, well-organised, conservative disposition, should have been in a relationship with the highly-coloured woman still gripping her napkin as if it were an unwitting prey.

  The silence at the table was oppressive. Bronwyn watched Singh. He was carefully picking a nail, trying with all the concentration in the world to extricate a bit of dirt. She wondered why he was not watching the men and women. Surely it was important to gauge their reactions? She supposed she just did not understand murder investigations – or, more likely, she did not understand the Sikh policeman’s methods.

  She would have to follow her own instincts. It was impossible to anticipate or imitate the inspector from Singapore. Bronwyn stared at the two couples. She would put money on Emily Greenwood speaking first. She seemed the most confident. Her expression, the shock having cleared her mind of the befuddlement of alcohol, was thoughtful, not frightened.

  On cue, Emily asked, her matter-of-fact tone at odds with the angry words, ‘What in the world are you talking about?’

  ‘I want to know who shot Richard Crouch!’ Singh’s tone was cheerfully conversational.

  ‘Shot?’

  ‘Yes, you know’ – Bronwyn was aghast to see him cock his fingers like a child imitating a gun, pointing his index finger at his own forehead and curling his middle finger to indicate a trigger being pulled – ‘shot!’

  If Emily was taken aback by his crudeness, she did not show it. Instead, she said, ‘I thought he was at the Sari Club?’

  Singh scowled, his brow wrinkling like a cheap rug.

  Bronwyn guessed he was annoyed at being reminded of the unlikely physical nexus between his murder probe and the Bali bombings.

  The Sikh policeman snapped, ‘Shot first!’

  Emily took it upon her plump freckled shoulders to speak for all of them. ‘Well, it had nothing to do with us!’

  Eight

  ‘No sign of them?’

  Bronwyn shook her head. She said tentatively, ‘It’s not even certain that Crouch’s friends were Javanese.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ growled Singh.

  ‘Wayan said they were Moslems from Java, but they could just as easily have been from Lombok or Sulawesi or Sumatra. There are hundreds of islands in Indonesia. Bali is the only bit which is not predominantly Moslem.’

  Singh ground his tobacco-stained teeth in frustration. He was quite certain it would be impossible to piece together Richard Crouch’s Bali life without these so-called friends of his. And murders were not solved when crucial witnesses went walkabout.

  Wayan had been hopeless. He had not been able to give them a description that would distinguish these men from the Balinese, let alone other workers from the Indonesian archipelago.

  Singh had insisted that Wayan be driven around Ubud – especially to construction sites and areas where the workers from Java and the rest of Indonesia were known to congregate. But he had been unable to spot the men. Worse, he had explained nervously, he was not sure he would recognise them even if he did see them.

  ‘They were just men, Pak,’ he said plaintively. ‘One was quite old with a beard, one was a bit younger and quite handsome – but I did not look at them so carefully.’

  Singh stared at the men smoking clove cigarettes under a rain tree at the entrance to the Monkey Forest. He could see an older man with a beard, most of the others were young and a few might have been described as handsome.

  ‘You’re going to have to do better than that, Wayan – if we are to find these people.’

  Wayan said miserably, ‘But maybe they went back to Java. A lot of people have gone – not just tourists.’

  Singh knew it was a real possibility that the men had left Bali. There was not much work left on the island. He cracked his knuckles. ‘I need to know what Crouch was up to in those days leading up to his death!’

  ‘We’ve heard from the widow,’ pointed out Bronwyn.

  ‘To rely on Sarah Crouch as the only source of information is a complete waste of time,’ insisted the inspector.

  As the only viable suspect, everything Sarah Crouch asserted had to be treated with a degree of scepticism that suited Singh’s temperament but did not get him any closer to solving the murder.

  ‘Besides,’ he continued, ‘she wasn’t spending much time with the dearly departed.’

  Wayan, who had been sitting on the kerb looking glum, suddenly brightened up. He said, ‘There is one thing, Pak.’

  Singh gazed at him hopefully. ‘You’ve remembered that one of them had a third eye?’

  Wayan got to his feet looking bewildered. ‘No, Pak. I would not forget such a thing.’

  Singh, regretting his attemp
t at sarcasm, asked, ‘So what do you remember?’

  ‘They had a motorbike!’

  ‘I know that,’ said Singh, feeling his head begin to throb.

  ‘It was a new bike with a big engine – and it was red.’

  Singh looked around at the rows of motorcycles parked along the street. They were mostly grimy and sober-coloured, black or grey, with small engines.

  He clapped a beaming Wayan on the back, causing the thin young man to take two hurried steps forward to regain his balance. ‘You know – that might actually be useful!’

  The men were out. Abu Bakr and Yusuf had gone off together. Her husband had left shortly after.

  Ramzi had revved his bike and disappeared in a cloud of Bali dust. His last words to her, as he had glanced around the messy flat in disgust, had been, ‘I hope you will finally remember your womanly duties and clean up this mess!’

  Nuri tried watching television. They had arrested one of the Bali bombers. Amrozi was in his house in Solo in Java when the Indonesian police tracked him down. He did not deny his role in the bombings. He seemed delighted to have a chance to boast about it as he was led away in handcuffs. It was reported that a policeman had found a serial number under a soldered piece of metal. The police had traced the van.

  Nuri switched off the television in disgust. She had no interest in the investigation into the bombings.

  She considered stripping the beds and finding a launderette for the sheets. But she was bone weary – a tiredness born not of physical activity but of the sheer weight of mental fatigue and worry.

  Where was he, this man whom she had known so briefly and loved so intensely?

  She tried to remember if Abdullah had said anything, hinted at anything that might explain his disappearance. She could think of nothing. They had spent so little time together. She could recall all their conversations verbatim – the courtesy, followed by warmth and then a realisation of love. It had dawned on them, if not simultaneously, then close enough in time that there had been none of that awkwardness of mismatched emotions. It had been brief and perfect.

  She wondered if, sheltered her whole life, married to a man much older than her, she was reading too much into the experience. Maybe, as her parents had warned her, men were not to be trusted, they were too weak to resist temptation. That was why, they had explained, it was the duty of good Moslem women to remain covered from head to toe, to eschew make-up and to behave with circumspection and modesty so as not to tempt men into feelings of misplaced lust or desire.

  There had never been much talk of love in her home. Between individuals, the language was of duty and responsibility – and piety. Nuri had absorbed the lessons well. She had never stopped to wonder if her husband loved her. She had never asked herself if she loved him. If she was honest, as she was now, in these long empty days and nights, she respected Ghani – chiefly because of his efforts on behalf of oppressed Moslems. She had some affection for him. He no doubt felt some for her – he had married her after all – and there had been a measure of choice in his decision. But love? Until this visit to Bali, she had never known what it meant to feel a heart literally jump with joy, to meet someone’s eyes fleetingly and feel as if they had kissed, to feel the desperation of separation.

  Yet, here she was, alone in a filthy apartment in Bali. The man she planned to live her life with had left without saying goodbye. It was too much to take in. Had she been such a fool?

  Nuri felt a burst of energy. She would go looking for him again. She had wandered the streets for days on various pretexts – looking for halal meat, shopping for essentials, stocking up on cleaning goods – and there had been moments when she had completely forgotten why she had set out and been almost caught out by returning empty-handed.

  She remembered that the day after the bombings, when it first became apparent that Abdullah was not coming back as he had promised, she had served the men chicken she had bought from a non-Moslem vendor down the road. Ghani would divorce her if he found out. Well, what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him. Theirs seemed to be a vengeful God, but Nuri presumed that some element of informed consent was necessary before transgressions were punished. She would be the one to feel the wrath of God. Nuri realised, with some surprise, that she didn’t give a damn.

  She would go out and see whether she could find some sign of her man. Rationally, she knew there was no hope of suddenly coming across him wandering down the street. But there was nothing else she could do. She couldn’t stay in the small, claustrophobic flat waiting for her husband and brothers to return.

  Singh radiated contentment.

  Bronwyn could not help smiling at him. She asked, ‘So why the good cheer – do you think we’re making progress?’

  Singh leaned forward in his chair, elbows on the maroon faux satin tablecloth. He shook his head briefly at his Australian counterpart. ‘We haven’t made any progress – I don’t know about you but I haven’t got a clue who killed Richard Crouch.’

  ‘Then why so happy?’

  ‘Indian food,’ explained Singh, nodding his great head towards the menu that was holding his attention like a conclusive piece of forensic evidence.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Indian food,’ repeated Singh loudly, choosing to believe that she had misheard him rather than misunderstood him. ‘I’m sick to death of nasi goreng!’

  Bronwyn chuckled. ‘I wondered why you thought it was necessary to visit the restaurant Julian Greenwood mentioned …’

  ‘You’re too cynical – I’m here in order to further our investigation and nothing more.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘I might be prepared to admit I decided to further our investigation at lunch time for personal reasons.’

  Bronwyn perused the menu and realised that she was hungry. The food smells wafting out of the kitchen were tickling her nostrils and her fancy. She tried to fit a thumb into the waistband of her trousers – it was impossible. She hadn’t eaten anything that wasn’t fried or curried since meeting the inspector from Singapore. At this rate, she would need a new wardrobe.

  Singh beckoned to a waiter and ordered a large bottle of Bintang and an assortment of dishes.

  ‘Are we expecting anyone else?’ asked Bronwyn rudely.

  ‘I am a simple man with simple tastes – and I’m famished.’

  Bronwyn glanced at the fat man but refrained from further comment.

  She looked around the restaurant. It was open-fronted and faced out onto a Sanur high street. It was deserted except for a man sitting at the bar, sipping a beer moodily. As she watched, he beckoned to a waitress and indicated a stain on the floor. Bronwyn realised he was the proprietor when the waitress scurried away and returned with a stringy grey mop.

  Singh had obviously reached the same conclusion. He waved to the man, who sauntered over.

  ‘You’re the owner?’ he asked.

  The dark Indian man with a military moustache and a head of bottle-black hair nodded.

  ‘Food smells great.’

  ‘Customers are all gone, though.’

  Singh nodded.

  ‘How come you’re still here?’

  ‘Police!’ explained Singh.

  The man’s eyebrows shot up and to Bronwyn’s consternation, he clicked his two false front teeth out and back again. ‘Bali bombings?’

  ‘Sort of …’

  If he thought this was a peculiar response, he did not follow up. Instead he stuck out a hand, the lines on which looked like they were marked out with a black felt pen and said, ‘Call me “Major”.’

  ‘“Major”?’

  ‘Retired, Malaysian Air Force. My own name is too difficult for the expats.’

  ‘Singh – Singapore police. And this is Bronwyn Taylor, AFP.’

  The Major pulled up a chair, beckoned for his beer, clamped his teeth around an unlit cigarette and asked, ‘So, why are you here?’

  ‘Murder investigation … one Richard Crouch.’

  ‘Tall Englishman – skinny wife with bad attitud
e?’

  Singh folded his arms across his belly and smiled. ‘It seems we’ve found the right man!’

  Further conversation was interrupted as the food arrived. Bronwyn was amused to see that both men felt that this was an event that merited a respectful silence. She herself was agog to hear what the restaurateur knew about Sarah Crouch’s friends.

  Singh ladled a generous helping of food onto his plate. He inclined his head at the Major, inviting him to join them.

  The Major shook his head, chewing on the end of his cigarette instead. He patted his belly. ‘This is from drinking with the guests – if I eat with them as well …’

  Bronwyn noticed that his eyes strayed to Singh’s tummy but he refrained from finishing the thought out loud.

  The restaurateur asked, ‘So what do you want to know about Richard Crouch?’

  ‘Who killed him?’

  The Major shrugged. ‘Hard to imagine why anyone would. He was probably the least aggravating of that lot. They came here regularly. Two couples in addition to Crouch and his wife. Actually, Crouch didn’t come in that often. He didn’t drink so never really got into it …’

  ‘What were the rest like?’

  ‘The pretty fat woman has money. Her husband looks like … one of those English character actors, bony face and pale eyes. The other man was a real loser – with a freakshow host for a wife.’

  ‘So why did they hang out together?’

  The Major gestured with two open palms. ‘Who knows? They enjoyed the food and beer, listened to my war stories and chose to believe they had enough in common to be friends … I’ve seen it often enough in Bali.’

  Bronwyn interrupted. ‘What about Crouch and his wife?’

  He said unexpectedly, ‘I’ve been running this restaurant for ten years – and it still amazes me, the couples that stay together when they have nothing in common, no affection left …’