Winner Kills All

by RJ Bailey

  Back up at the main hotel, there would be a gifting lounge and a huge marquee with ‘image mapping’ walls – this was where the dancing would take place, with a backdrop of settings from the Sahara to the Grand Canyon, thanks to digital projection. All that was done in-house, too.

  I slid off the hammock and walked around to the rear of the area. There was, as Mae had told me, an elevator there, hidden by a screen of shrubbery, meaning those with mobility difficulties could still access the river. They didn’t like to advertise its mechanical existence, as it rather dented the natural and spiritual claims of the Ayung spa.

  It all sounded great. I just wondered whether Noor would still enjoy it once I told her my suspicions.

  When I reached the top of the steps, my shirt clinging to me from the exertion, Kate was sitting with Keith and Noor on the curved deck overlooking the gorge. She was wearing shorts, a halter-top and an engagement ring that was bright enough to cause after-images on my retina.

  Her jaw dropped when she saw me.

  She shot a glare at Noor that was pure Kassie, which said: What the fuck is she doing here?

  But the freshly minted Kate persona quickly reasserted itself and she stood up and beamed at me. ‘Miss Wylde. What a surprise. Noor said she had security, but she didn’t say it was an old friend.’

  I thought old friend was pushing it, but I suffered through the inevitable hug. ‘Hello, Kas—Kate. Congratulations. On the wedding.’

  She beamed. ‘I know. I still can’t quite believe it.’

  Mae left to make some calls to the caterers and Keith also made his excuses, promising to send drinks over, so we sat. Kate had cajoled Noor into a temple visit and supper at her hotel – she and Cameron, her husband-to-be, were spending the night before the ceremony apart.

  ‘You’ll be welcome too,’ said Kate to me. ‘Just some of the girls getting together.’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ I said, ‘but I won’t join in the fun. Work, not play.’

  ‘Of course.’

  I gave her a thin smile. ‘I just have one question.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Who did you get to toss the bottle over the wall? Cameron? Some local kid? Or did you do it yourself?’

  ‘What?’ It was Noor. ‘Sam—’

  ‘One line in the threats did it – the promise to do Noor like a kipper. I wondered where I had heard it before. Only once. When a young girl fell on me in the back of a stretch limo. You can take Kassie out of Harlow . . .’

  ‘Hey, you stupid bitch,’ said Kate, her lips twisting so that, fleetingly, she looked just like the old Kassie. ‘I ought to rip your head off.’ She stood up, fists balled as if she fancied having a go. She was welcome to try. ‘Noor, you gonna let her talk such bollocks?’

  ‘One phrase?’ asked Noor. ‘Is that all you have?’

  ‘She’s fuckin’ mad,’ suggested Kate.

  ‘Motive,’ I said calmly. ‘She has motive. Why would she want to put you off coming? Because every time she looks at you, she sees what she isn’t. She isn’t Kate. She’s a construct. She knows that because you paid for her, you made her. And she’s worried that tomorrow you are going to tell anyone who will listen.’

  ‘What a pile of old wank,’ said Kate.

  ‘I can’t see any other explanation,’ I said.

  ‘What about that you’re talking shit? Is that an explanation?’

  I addressed my answer to Noor. ‘Someone threw that bottle over the wall. A bottle that could have hit you.’ Or me, I failed to add. ‘What sort of friend is that?’

  ‘Chrissake. Can’t you get this through your thick skull?’ Kate yelled. ‘I didn’t throw any fuckin’ bottle.’ Then, in case I had missed the point: ‘I don’t know nothin’ about any bottle, understand?’

  ‘But you did write the emails and texts.’

  She spat her answer. ‘That’s not the same as chuckin’ glass at people, is it?’

  The silence was immediate and, apart from the roar of the waters below, complete. Eventually Noor managed to find her voice. ‘Kate?’

  ‘It was only . . .’ But she didn’t seem to know what it was, and her face slowly turned a deep crimson. ‘Sorry. I gotta go.’

  The drinks arrived at that moment: lurid orange and filled with fruit. Kate paused and took a huge gulp. When she spoke, her words were clipped and precise.

  ‘I am afraid I shall have to disinvite you for this evening, Miss Wylde. Noor, we’ll talk about this later.’ She pointed at me. ‘Meanwhile, I suggest throwing this one back into the pond she crawled out of.’ With that, she left. Flounced, if one can flounce in shorts that skimpy.

  I almost laughed at her parting shot. Now it was all my fault?

  ‘So you were right?’ asked Noor.

  ‘Looks like it. She just wanted to put you off. It’s probably why she’s getting married in Bali. To make sure most of her old friends wouldn’t be able to afford it. But you could.’

  Noor sipped at her cocktail. ‘She didn’t actually say it was her.’

  That was true. Even the apology was ambiguous. ‘She didn’t say it wasn’t,’ I offered back.

  ‘That’s just crazy, innit? Why would she do that to me, of all people?’

  ‘I think she’s embarrassed by how she got here. Wouldn’t be the first person to reinvent themselves and want to torch all evidence of the past.’

  It was my turn to try the drink. It was rum-based and delicious. I reluctantly pushed it away. I needed a clear head.

  ‘And the bottle-throwing?’

  I gave a shrug. I suspected she was telling the truth on that.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Noor. ‘What a fuckin’ mess. She could’ve just asked me to stay away.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s her style. Let’s just say I’m right. What are you going to do?’

  Noor turned up her nose, as if at a bad smell. ‘Do? Nothing. I’m going to the wedding. She might be an ungrateful old slapper inside, but she’s still my friend.’

  I accepted that with a nod. ‘And I’m still your bodyguard.’

  A bodyguard with one nagging question: If Kate didn’t lob that bottle, then who did?

  EIGHTEEN

  Seeing Noor off at the airport, I felt a great weight lift off my knotted shoulders. The wedding had gone without a hitch. The village choir was brilliant, there was a rather beautiful dance – the Barong Brutuk – and the Ayung ravine was thick with the scent of frangipani and jasmine. The bride and groom, who was both startlingly handsome and far nicer than I expected from a hedge fund manager, were anointed with water from the sacred lake by an old woman who was some kind of mystic and, we were told, lived in the shadow of the island’s still-troublesome volcano. It was only just over a year since it had sort-of erupted, temporarily devastating the island’s tourism economy.

  At the meal, Noor decided to skip giving a speech and we all subsequently wished that the horse-faced best man had done the same. Nothing untoward happened, and I mainly kept to the shadows. Kate never admitted to being the culprit – why would she? – but, by revealing her motives, her fears, I had ensured Noor stayed away from the whole subject of her reinvention, even in conversation.

  Job done.

  That was what I told myself, anyway. Now for the real reason for my visit: Jess.

  I went back to the hotel and sorted out my things ready for the off. I needed to go down to the south of the island, below Kuta. I took a shower, wrapped myself in the hotel’s robe and lay on the bed under the fan. My hand strayed to between my legs and I had myself a quick squeeze. I contemplated masturbating. It was, I knew, a response to being alone at last. A hangover from my army days. It was so unusual to have a genuinely solitary experience that, any time you did, you felt the urge to – as Freddie would say – rub one out.

  But something stopped me. The feeling I was being . . . watched? No, not watched. Played, perhaps. There was something off kilter and I couldn’t quite pin it down. The bottle and now this sense of unease. The villa didn�
�t have the right karma. Maybe I should have done some ceremony with doves.

  I retraced my steps since entering the villa, scanning as if I were casing a client’s room.

  I found what I was looking for in the bathroom.

  I went back to the bed and lay down, hands behind my head, watching the blades of the fan chop the air while I considered my next move. Then I rolled onto my side and called Erik, the security guy, asking if he would kindly come to the villa.

  *

  Erik arrived wearing a dark-blue linen suit that was creased in all the right places. How did he do that? I had plenty of linen dresses and jackets, but they have a time limit on them. If I was going to be in public for more than an hour they were a no-no. After that time, I looked like I had dressed in a cement mixer.

  I had changed out of my robe into a T-shirt and jeans. I asked him to sit at the desk.

  ‘You’re leaving then?’

  ‘Can’t afford to stay here,’ I said.

  ‘I can get you a friends and family rate,’ he offered.

  Yeah, that would take it down to just hundreds of pounds a night. It was too rich for my blood. And my bank balance, even with Noor’s final fee promised within days.

  ‘Thanks. But I need to be somewhere else.’ I put the first of the photographs down on the table. There was Jess in a hotel pool, elbows on a wooden deck that formed the pool’s edge, a grin on her face and an umbrella’d drink in her hand. I tried to ignore the usual gut spasm that the picture – all the pictures – gave me. ‘Recognise this place?’

  ‘Four Seasons, Jimbaran Bay,’ he said without hesitation.

  I nodded. I had known this. In a couple of the other pictures, you could see the company logo. ‘What about this bar?’

  He leaned in and studied the image. I liked that he took his time. ‘Bit dark. What’s this about?’

  I hesitated. Stay tight-lipped or ’fess up? Well, in this case there was no harm in spilling the beans about a client, the client being me. ‘That girl there is my daughter. She has been missing for over a year. Taken without consent by my ex-husband. You can just about see his one of his syphilitic limbs right there.’

  Erik looked shocked. ‘Really? He has syphilis?’

  ‘Of the soul,’ I said, reminding myself that sarcastic vitriol wasn’t Erik’s first language. ‘What about this one? Or this?’

  Again, Erik took his time. ‘The problem is these bars all look the same. Illuminated bottles, lots of bamboo, a few ancient Balinese artefacts made in China. This one looks like a beach bar rather than a Kuta one. That one, too. You should show these to Tandoko at the Four Seasons.’

  ‘Tandoko? Japanese?’

  ‘He’s Chinese-Indonesian. He’s from Jakarta. His parents were required to change their name to something less Chinese during the Suharto regime. Call him Jiànyì, he likes that.’

  I gathered up the photos.

  ‘Sorry I couldn’t help.’

  ‘Well, there is one thing you might be able to do.’

  ‘Anything.’

  The next part was throwing rocks in a pond and seeing where the ripples went. I watched his face intently before I spoke. ‘Tell me who searched my room while I was dropping my client at the airport.’

  *

  My next hotel was more in keeping with my pay grade. Twelve rooms, set back from the beach just above Jimbaran Bay, close to the main road – a little noisy thanks to the endless motorbikes – but with air conditioning and friendly owners. The room was simple and clean and as I sat down on the bed, I thought how pleased I was to be away from breathing rich people’s air.

  I had spent a good chunk of my life hanging around – literally on some jobs – with them. I knew their foibles. But it was when they were on holiday that they really got up my nose. If there were a dedicated fragrance made for millionaires and oligarchs, it would be called Entitlement. The world owes them a perfect vacation every time. Nothing must go wrong. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the Amans and the Mandarins and the other top hotels publicly execute a member of staff every morning just to keep the rest on their toes for the pampered guests. It was the attitude that gave the world the much-needed bath butlers and pillow concierges that most high-end hotels have. It’s a living, I suppose.

  I checked the lock on the door. It wouldn’t keep anyone out for long. Not that it mattered. I had very little worth stealing. I don’t travel with jewellery. I keep my passport and credit cards either on me or in my safe.

  So why had someone bothered to go through my stuff at the last place?

  I could tell from the way the narrow lipstick line I had put on the catches of my Globe-Trotter suitcase had been smudged.

  Apart from that slip-up, it had been a pretty good turn-over, and it took me a while to find something off to confirm it. These days, the intruders take snapshots on their phone to ensure they can put everything back just so. But whoever had done the searching had moved my toothbrush to the wrong side of the sink. Maybe they knocked it off as they went for the bathroom cabinet and put it on the wrong side of the tap. Easy mistake, but I always keep my toothbrush away from the lavatory. Someone had once told me how many germs hit the bristles every time you flush. Such facts bring out the Howard Hughes in me. This time, I had found it making eyes at the toilet bowl.

  I had pointed all this out to Erik, who had protested it hadn’t been him. Or any of his staff. But he didn’t like the alternative much either – someone had come into the hotel and broken into a guest’s room.

  We were both baffled as to motive. My most precious items were the photographs of Jess, and they hadn’t been taken. Even if they had been, I had back-ups stored on my phone and with both Freddie and Nina. So why? And who? I had a feeling that, one way or another, I’d find out. Because I was clearly on someone’s radar.

  I showered again and changed into cream cotton trousers and a sleeveless blouse. I pinned my hair back, took more care than usual with my make-up and put on heels. I wanted to look like I belonged in the Four Seasons Jimbaran Bay before I called a cab.

  *

  I took tea with Jiànyì next to the very pool where Jess had frolicked many months before. It was infinity-sided on the section facing the sea, blending seamlessly into the blue ocean. Staff hovered with iced water, cool towels and offers of snacks from the terrace café. I could see why Jess, judging from her expression in the pictures, had enjoyed herself.

  ‘Well, that certainly is the pool here,’ Jiànyì said when I showed him the photograph on my phone. He was a young man in his thirties, not security, but part of guest services, who had nodded energetically when I had mentioned Erik’s name. ‘But these other bars . . .’ He gave a sheepish grin. ‘I don’t drink, you see. I don’t have the genes for alcohol. So, I am the wrong person to ask. But perhaps Carol from the spa.’

  If I were Carol, I would have sued for national stereotyping by both Jiànyì and God. She was from Brisbane, broad of shoulder and accent, with blonde hair going on white, scrunched back into a perky ponytail. She was wearing a vest top and shorts, and every inch of exposed skin looked like she had been sprayed with a Pantone colour match for sun-kissed. I liked her, if only because she looked at the photos and said: ‘That one’s Ricky T’s. That one is now Kamala. They change their name a lot.’

  ‘And the girl?’

  ‘I remember her. I gave her a treatment once. Nails, I think, and a facial. She came in with a slightly older woman.’

  ‘Laura?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I know she told me she was something to do with Dieter’s place.’

  ‘Dieter?’

  ‘He’s German or Swiss, I’m not sure.’ She held up the phone to show me the place she had identified as Ricky T’s. ‘Drinks here sometimes, not often. Scrawny little twerp. Anyway, he’s got a place of his own about two miles from here. It’s not either of these in the photos. Bedawang, it’s called. Or the Blue Turtle.’

  ‘Did you ever meet Matt? Jess’s father?’


  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘She didn’t talk about him?’

  She shrugged her impressive shoulders. ‘Jeez, I don’t know. We get a lot of families, lots of kids.’

  ‘You’ve been a great help,’ I said to her and Jiànyì. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I’ll call you a cab,’ he said, and walked off towards the café.

  As he left, Carol leaned in and lowered her voice. Up close, she smelled like an exotic forest glade. ‘I hope you find your daughter. The Turtle doesn’t open till six. But be careful, hon. I tell you, the word is that this Dieter is trouble.’

  I stood, heady with the feeling I was making progress at last. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said slowly, attaching a smile to it. ‘So am I.’

  NINETEEN

  A darkness waits for me. I can see it there, out of the corner of my eye. Some claim that’s where guardian angels lurk. All I have is a tar-black stain of depression, waiting to knot my stomach and drag me into its sticky embrace.

  When and from where this dark devil came, I can’t be sure. It might have been there after Iraq and Afghanistan. It was certainly there when Paul died, and it had grown bolder in the days after Jess was taken by Matt and Laura.

  I keep it where it belongs by activity. I know that’s why I went to Albania. After the debacle in France and the Basque Country where I lost a client, I could feel my dark storm gathering. I should have come to Bali immediately. But by going to Albania, I had managed to put something between me and the events where a woman had lost her life on my watch. That was an act of revenge. She had once been something in the IRA, and her past had caught up with her in a particularly horrible way. But then, she had done terrible things in her time.

  While I waited for the Blue Turtle to open, I organised myself a driver on retainer, a keen young man called Kadek. I told him that I didn’t want to buy anything: no presents, no batik, no lace, no sodding ukuleles. I told him I would factor the shopping commission into his tip, a tip that would only materialise if he followed those rules. Then I sat on the veranda, drinking green tea, trying to keep the darkness and self-doubt away.