A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul

by Shamini Flint

  ‘All right then – just get me as close as possible. I can walk after that.’

  She was dropped at one end of the street and handed the driver a generous wad of Indonesian rupiah. It would take him a while to fight his way through the hordes of people descending on the blast sites. Pulling her hat more firmly down on her head, Bronwyn marched purposefully towards the temporary structures she could see ahead.

  It was a mixed crowd who were making their way forward. There were thousands of native Balinese dressed in their temple best. Intricately patterned sarongs were worn with smart shirts and silk headdresses by the men. The women were also in sarongs but their blouses were in the kebaya design, fitting snugly with embroidery and lace to decorate the cloth. Both men and women wore long sashes around their waists and many of the women carried offerings of fruit on their head, casually balancing the load while sauntering down the uneven road without losing so much as a banana. There were many Westerners as well. Bronwyn wondered whether they were residents of Bali, tourists or families of those killed in the attacks. Probably all the above, she thought. The elderly couple walking ahead of her – the woman had tear stains on her cheeks and was leaning on her husband’s arm – they might have lost a son or daughter in the bombs. But the group of young men in surfer shorts and T-shirts, tanned to a darker brown than the native Balinese, had to be tourists who had stayed on.

  She walked through a gauntlet of Balinese security personnel. They gave her a cursory glance but demanded to look into the backpack of the young man behind her. She noticed for the first time that there were men in the uniform of the Bali police mingling with the crowds. She’d bet that there were plainclothes policemen too – probably personnel from the AFP as well.

  Bronwyn remembered the news programme which had optimistically suggested that Bali was already on the road to recovery. Bronwyn looked around at the silent crowds. She was not convinced. It was early days. People in Bali were still coming to terms with what had happened to them.

  She made her way to the temporary scaffolding that had been put up around the entrance to the Sari Club. Bamboo canopies on metal poles provided some shade from the sun. There were signs stating that the seats were reserved for VIPs and family members of those killed. Despite the hordes of people, there were still workers in their orange reflective jerseys tightening bolts and erecting final bits of the structure.

  Bronwyn sat down tentatively on a pile of rubble. It was a desperately uncomfortable seat but gave her a good view of the proceedings. She resigned herself to waiting and wondering what the inspector from Singapore was doing.

  Her phone rang, its shrill tone causing her to jump although it was the most common sound of the modern era.

  Bronwyn reached for it, going through her routine of flipping it open while tucking her hair behind her ear.

  There was an excited tinny babbling at the other end.

  She covered her mouth with her hand to muffle her exclamation of shock. Her eyes widened with horror.

  She muttered, ‘Oh my God!’

  She listened for a bit, hung up and sat silently on the pile of debris, oblivious to the throngs of people.

  At last, taking a deep breath, she rang the inspector from Singapore.

  Singh barked, ‘What is it?’

  She could barely speak the words.

  The inspector asked sharply, ‘Bronwyn, is that you? What’s the matter?’

  ‘Tim Yardley is dead.’

  ‘What?’ The man who professed to know all the answers was gobsmacked. ‘How?’

  ‘Sergeant Agus just called me – Yardley walked fully clothed into the sea and never looked back. By the time anyone realised what he was up to – it was too late.’

  There was a silence at the other end of the phone.

  ‘Do you think it means he killed Richard Crouch?’ asked Bronwyn.

  ‘And couldn’t live with what he’d done? No, I think he just gave up on life – the poor bastard. Sarah Crouch might not have killed her husband – but she definitely drove Yardley to his death …’

  ‘But there’s nothing we can do about it?’

  ‘Nothing at all.’

  Yusuf was within the security perimeter. Ghani’s plan had worked like clockwork. He had made his way to the site in the early hours of the morning wearing the orange worker’s jacket that Ghani had stolen from the site the previous day. Security had waved him in as he tried to explain he was there to put the final touches on the grandstand. ‘You and everyone else,’ chortled a sleepy guard. When Yusuf got closer he saw what the sentry meant. There were dozens of men working through the night to get the place ready.

  He found a spot on the second floor of a deserted building down the road from the Sari Club, took off his knapsack with the cake of plastic explosives within, and lay down on the hard ground to rest. If anyone found him they would conclude he was a worker skiving on the job.

  Somehow he slept despite the discomfort and his terrible nerves. He woke up with a bright shaft of sunlight shining on his face. Yusuf wiped his glasses on his T-shirt and put them on. He wished he had thought to pack some water. His mouth felt like he’d been chewing on old socks.

  He took off the orange jacket, rolled it into a small bundle and hid it under a piece of fallen masonry. Then he picked up the knapsack with nervous fingers and slipped it on his back. It was light but he felt the weight of destiny on his shoulders. He wondered whether he dared say his prayers. Ghani had said there was no need. Allah would forgive him this one transgression. If he was caught praying, head down and bowed towards Mecca, he would immediately raise suspicions. Ghani had also insisted that he leave his Quran behind. The field commander pointed out that a passing guard might not recognise a cake of C4, especially since Abu Bakr had sewn the wiring for the detonator into the lining of the bag, but he would certainly know a well-thumbed Quran. It would raise the alarm. The key was to minimise risk, Ghani explained, his tone slow and patient. It had annoyed Yusuf. They all treated him like an idiot or a small child. He was not that stupid. He just struggled to put his thoughts into words sometimes.

  He had asked if Nuri would be brought to the safe house. Ghani had snorted, ‘She’s on her own.’

  Yusuf tried to protest but was told to go and prepare himself for his martyrdom – Nuri was not his concern. As usual, he felt overwhelmed by the stronger personalities around him. He had done as he was instructed, cursing himself for his own weakness. But now as he prepared to walk amongst the crowds with his knapsack, he found his thoughts turning to Nuri again. He hoped she was going to be all right. He was grateful that Allah had given him the opportunity to say goodbye, to explain why he was leaving her.

  Yusuf walked out into the street and blinked against the bright morning light. The sky was a clear cloudless blue. Even the bombed-out buildings glowed in the sunshine. It was a truly beautiful day. It felt good to be alive. Yusuf savoured the moment as he walked towards the target.

  Nineteen

  Bronwyn decided that her posterior had never felt worse. She had been sitting on the pile of rubble for over an hour. She was certain she could distinguish every stone through the seat of her pants. The trousers themselves were constricting her waist. The sun was beating down but at least her hat provided some protection from sunstroke. Her white shirt clung to her like a second skin.

  The guest of honour had finally turned up. An entourage of officials and lackeys ushered him towards the raised dais.

  Bronwyn watched the families. They were numbed to the presence of the dignitaries. Most of them were just staring at the crater in front of the Sari Club – unable to believe that their loved ones had been stolen from them in such a random act of violence.

  The official ceremonies were beginning. It was not so much a memorial for the dead as an exorcism. Jalan Legian had been sprinkled with red and yellow petals. The air was thick with incense. The gamelan, native drums and wind instruments, was played loudly by a group of musicians sitting cross-legged on mats
on the bitumen road.

  There were hundreds of chanting Hindu priests lining the thoroughfare. They were dressed in white linen sarongs. Their upper bodies were completely bare, exposing flabby torsos with a sprinkling of dark hair. Patterns were traced on exposed flesh in ash and red pigment. Senior clerics in white and gold robes were sprinkling holy water around the area. Goats, chickens and buffaloes were being sacrificed, their blood splattering on the ground. Many of the priests had gone into trances and were convulsing with the effort to purify the blast sites.

  Although the chanting and the ritual sacrifice gave the ceremony a sombre air, Bronwyn sensed that most of those present, the families of the dead excepted, were now in an upbeat mood. This was the moment, they seemed to believe, when Bali would put the past behind it. They were convinced that the biggest purification ritual ever staged would successfully cleanse their island of evil influences.

  Bronwyn watched in wonder as young girls in saffron robes danced intricate patterns on the dusty road and storytellers told ancient tales of good triumphing over evil.

  She tried to imagine what the inspector from Singapore would have thought of the spectacle, then smothered a smile. She could have used the company, but was glad she had not been able to persuade him to attend.

  Singh’s mobile rang and he answered it reluctantly. It was one of the two policemen watching the flat. Ramzi had not come back, but the other brother, Abu Bakr, had returned. What should they do? Singh pondered the question. He said, ‘Bring him in – and the girl too.’

  He terminated the call. The others might be able to tell him where their brother was hiding. It was odd that none of them except Yusuf had returned to the flat the previous evening. Bali was not the sort of place where construction projects went on all day and night like in Singapore. Here it was tools down as evening approached.

  He wished Bronwyn was with him. He realised that he was accustomed to bouncing ideas off the Australian. Her suggestions, usually dismissed out of hand by him, had the effect of keeping him thinking. He realised why Hercule Poirot often had that daft Englishman in tow. A sounding board was imperative in a murder investigation. Not that there was much left of this investigation. If Sarah Crouch had killed her husband in a fit of rage over his demure Indonesian woman or more cynically for a financially secure future with surfer boy, he would probably never find out for certain. Singh thought it unlikely. She had wished her husband dead. She had most likely hinted to Tim Yardley that it would solve their difficulties. She had certainly played a large part in driving Yardley to take his own life. But Singh was almost certain that Sarah was too inherently cautious to have taken active steps to kill her husband.

  His other key suspect, Ramzi, was nowhere to be found. He had notified the airports and ferry terminals but Singh was fairly certain that a determined young man could find his way through Bali’s porous borders.

  Singh wandered towards the canteen and ordered himself a cup of strong black coffee. He needed fortification by caffeine. He drained it in one gulp and stared at the dregs at the bottom. Perhaps he should have ordered a cup of tea, thought Singh. He could have read the tea leaves and confirmed that young Ramzi had killed Crouch. He seemed to have run out of policing options to reach a solution. Singh wondered again at Richard Crouch’s choice of companions. Even for a Moslem convert looking for friendship amongst those who professed the same religion, they were an unattractive bunch. Singh realised that he was making the elementary error of attributing positive attributes to Richard Crouch because he felt sorry for him as the victim of a brutal murder. Murder victims were just as likely to be unpleasant human beings as anyone else. After all, Sarah Crouch had remarked that Richard would have been delighted with the work of the mad mullah types who destroyed the Sari Club. His new friends seemed to have equally extremist views.

  Inspector Singh’s legs buckled at the knees. He sat down suddenly. A sharp stab of pain in his chest made him nauseous. He shook his head, trying to physically dislodge the thought that had twisted his stomach into knots. Singh recalled how Ghani had seemed relieved that he was being questioned about the death of Abdullah – he had wondered at the time what could be worse than an accusation of murder. Singh turned pale under his dark skin – he knew the answer now.

  Ramzi’s jaw was throbbing from where Ghani had hit him. He supposed he deserved it. He had compromised the operation by linking up with the first cell. And it had been reckless to kill the bomb-maker. Not that anyone regretted Abdullah’s passing. No one, that is, except his foolish young sister.

  He was very conscious of his jaw. He stood out in the crowd because of the rainbow bruising and the swollen lip. Ramzi joined the throngs headed towards Jalan Legian. He was stopped and searched, patted down by one of the policemen – his status as a young man who appeared to have been in a fight ensured that. As he was only carrying his wallet and a mobile phone, they let him pass.

  He weaved his way through the crowd until he was close to the blast sites. He looked around, trying to spot Yusuf. There was no immediate sign of him but that was no reason to panic. Yusuf was a slight, anonymous-looking character, easily overlooked. Besides, he didn’t actually need to see Yusuf to carry out his orders. He knew exactly what to do. If at twelve noon, Yusuf did not detonate the bomb in his backpack, he would set it off using his mobile phone. Ramzi grinned and then winced as the action hurt his mouth. The only reason he needed to locate Yusuf was to ensure that he was not standing too close to him when the bomb detonated. He, Ramzi, was not inclined to be an accidental martyr.

  Singh hurried down the corridor, his thumping heart punctuating every panicky step. Abu Bakr and Nuri were in a holding cell. The policeman at the door fumbled with the keys and Singh screamed at him to hurry. The Balinese dropped the keys in shock. Singh took a deep breath. He needed to stay calm, stay professional. But this was not a situation he had confronted before. He was a slow, methodical thinker. Not some sort of action man. He solved murders, sometimes long after the fact.

  He didn’t try and prevent them.

  The policeman managed to open the door. Singh pushed past him and entered the cell. Abu Bakr was sitting next to his sister on a wooden bench against a graffiti-covered wall. They both turned to look at him as he stormed in.

  Abu Bakr asked, ‘Why have you brought us here?’

  Singh did not answer the question. He demanded roughly, ‘Where are the others?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Where is your brother? Where is Ghani and that other man – the one with the spectacles?’ Singh’s voice was fraying with panic.

  Abu Bakr would not meet his eyes. He said, ‘I don’t know. At work, I suppose.’

  ‘Why didn’t any of you come back to the flat last night?’

  Abu Bakr crossed his arms but did not answer.

  ‘Why did you come back to the flat this morning?’

  It was Nuri who piped up. ‘He came to fetch me. We are going back to Sulawesi. My husband has left me but Abu Bakr did not want to abandon me in Bali.’ She put a hand on his arm. ‘He’s a good brother.’

  Singh spotted a weakness. He said roughly, ‘Ramzi killed Richard Crouch.’

  Her face contorted in shock.

  Singh drove the point home. ‘You dishonoured the family. And it got your boyfriend killed. It was your fault.’

  Nuri’s shoulders started to shake.

  Abu Bakr shouted angrily, ‘Stop it! You cannot know that. Nuri, he is just trying to upset you. Pay no attention to him.’

  Nuri was not listening to her brother. Tears welled up in her eyes. She brushed them away with an impatient hand. She asked, ‘Is it true? Was it Ramzi?’

  ‘You know it was.’

  She nodded slowly – it had to be Ramzi. Her voice was hoarse and hurt when she said, ‘I want him punished – I want him punished for what he did to Abdullah.’

  ‘Then you must tell me where he is.’

  Nuri looked at the stout policeman. He was chewing on his
pink bottom lip so aggressively she thought he might draw blood. His foot – in a white shoe, she had noticed him wear it before – was tapping a silent impatient rhythm on the cement floor of their cell. She realised in that instant, as she looked into his dark stricken eyes underneath a frowning brow, that the inspector from Singapore suspected what Ghani, Ramzi and Yusuf had planned.

  She understood the policeman’s thought processes – he had guessed, but he could not believe his own conclusions. She had felt the same way when Yusuf had come to say goodbye and told her what he was going to do. Singh was staring at her – his expression was almost pleading now – begging to be told that his suspicions were absurd, misplaced, a product of a vivid imagination.

  Nuri remembered how she had gazed into the cracked mirror in the bedroom of the flat soon after Abdullah had disappeared. She had appeared cleft in two – now she realised that the fissure ran even deeper than she had perceived. At the time, she had recognised it as a reflection of the state of her heart. Now she realised she was torn in two – to tell this policeman what she knew, and destroy the legacy of Abdullah, the man that she had loved – or to keep silent and allow Ramzi to get away with murder … again.

  Nuri licked her parched lips. She could feel the ridges of skin and taste the saltiness of blood. She closed her eyes. The devastation she had seen on Jalan Legian played across her memory like a silent film. She tried to understand, tried to believe that Abdullah was right – that those people at the Sari Club had deserved to die. They were infidels, the enemies of Islam just like the inspector standing before her – an unbeliever despite his turban. And yet, this policeman had toiled hard to find the murderer of Abdullah. He, a non-Moslem, had worked tirelessly to find justice for the man she loved.

  ‘I just can’t believe that anyone would do this in Allah’s name.’ Unbidden, the words that had been spoken by the elderly Javanese woman she had met at the bombsite, popped into her mind. She almost expected to see her, eyes filled with unshed tears, gazing blindly down the narrow street, praying that her brother was safe – knowing deep down that he had been a victim of the violence.