Free A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul by Shamini Flint

shoulders.
    Wayan seemed to take this as an affirmative. He said, ‘The wife, poor thing. Are you going to tell her now?’
    â€˜After you tell me everything else I need to know,’ said Singh curtly. It was time for Wayan to understand that this was not a friendly chit-chat with passing tourists.
    â€˜What do you want to know, Pak ?’
    â€˜Would he usually go to the Sari Club without his wife?’
    â€˜I don’t know where he goes. But yes, always he goes out on his own.’
    â€˜Did he have any driver he used regularly?’
    Singh mentally crossed his fingers. If Crouch had used a regular driver, as people often did in Bali – once they found someone reasonably priced whose vehicle did not appear to be a deathtrap – it would be easy to trace his movements.
    Wayan said, ‘No, no. He has a motorbike.’
    That trail went cold pretty quickly, thought Singh with disappointment.

    Wayan added, ‘Sometimes his friends pick him up.’
    Singh’s ears quivered although his voice betrayed no excitement.
    â€˜Friends?’ he asked.
    â€˜Yes, some men …’
    Singh noticed that Wayan was hesitating – on the verge of saying something but having second thoughts. He was about to follow up when the young man’s fair skin flushed as red as his acne. He said, ‘Good morning, Mrs Crouch. The police are here to see you.’
    Singh and Bronwyn both turned around, Singh with curiosity and Bronwyn with sympathy.
    Sarah Crouch was a slight strawberry blonde with lightblue eyes. She wore a wide floppy hat to protect her fair skin. Although she had been in Bali for six months, she was still pale, almost translucent, faint blue veins visible on her cheeks. Singh thought that she would have been pretty once. He could imagine that, young and smiling, with her small even features and blue eyes, she would have turned a few heads. But her looks had not withstood the uncertainty of wondering whether her husband was dead. Sarah was thin and worried-looking, her face covered in spidery lines that radiated out from the corners of her eyes like a fan and down the sides of her mouth. Her lips were thin, chapped and almost bloodless. Her blue eyes were faded, the whites tinged with red.
    She said, ‘You were looking for me?’
    Singh said, ‘We’re the police. We’d like to talk to you about your husband.’ He took out his police ID and so did Bronwyn.
    Here there was no instinctive respect.
    â€˜Singapore? Australia?’
    Singh said, ‘We’re assisting the Balinese police and have been seconded to your husband’s case.’

    â€˜What’s going on? Have you found him?’
    Bronwyn said gently, ‘Is there somewhere private we could go?’
    Bronwyn had telegraphed that the news was not good. She had given the woman time to prepare. He, Singh, did not have so much tact. Forewarned was forearmed. He would have preferred to break the news harshly and suddenly and then watch this widow of a murdered man for any reaction that did not seem entirely consistent with hearing about her husband’s death for the first time.
    Sarah said, ‘The patio is normally empty at this time,’ and led them through the guest house. They walked out the back door into a small walled garden with lush tropical ferns against mossy stone walls. At the far end, the highest point in the garden, there was a carved stone gargoyle with bulbous eyes, curled lips and fangs on a pedestal. The creature was draped in a black and white checked sarong and had a flaming red hibiscus behind one ear. It was no more appropriate, mused Singh, than if he took to wearing a flower behind his ear. Balinese men with their delicate features and wide smiles might get away with adorning blossoms. It certainly suited the women with their streaming black hair and colourful sarongs. But him and that gargoyle? It was like putting lipstick on a pig.
    There was a large timber