A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul by Shamini Flint Read Free Book Online Page A

in miracles.
    When he arrived at the registry office, he found Karri waiting for him. She was dressed in Bali’s famous white
Uluwatu lace. He thought she looked beautiful. The best man was a co-worker from the office who was also at the conference . Tim had roped him in at the last moment. He was determined to provide his bride, a woman who disdained the formalities and mocked the conventions, with the accoutrements of a traditional wedding.
    A week later, he had found his new wife and the best man in bed together.
    He remembered how his bowels had loosened with shock when he had happened upon them. His broader despair had been subsumed into a small narrow panic that he would soil his brand new beach shorts.
    Karri had seemed genuinely surprised that he expected her to be faithful. He shook his head. Even now, the memory of her words was like a knife twisting in his gut. She had said, as his colleague hurriedly left the room wrapped in bedclothes, grabbing his pants on the way out as if he were a character in some sort of staged bedroom farce, ‘Tim, I might have married you – but you don’t own me and you can’t tell me how to live my life.’

Four
    The following morning, Inspector Singh gazed out to sea. The blue-green surface sparkled as the sunlight caught the tops of rippling waves. It seemed as if a generous deity had caused it to rain diamonds onto the ocean. It was the final touch to raise Bali from the perfect to the sublime.
    It was still early and the sun was a low orb on the horizon. Although bright and determined, it had not yet succeeded in turning the fresh, cool morning into a sultry Balinese day.
    Inspector Singh had sand in his shoes, between his toes and under his soles. Sand chafed his heels as well. Bali sand, at least on this particular beach, was a coarse yellow. Scratchy. Not the coral white powder he had been expecting.
    At least the beach was clean. The cleanliness had mystified Singh. It was no mean feat considering that it was facing the South China Sea, rubbish dump of Asia. The previous morning, an explanation for the minor miracle had been forthcoming. Coming down to gaze over the waters earlier than usual after a sleepless night, Inspector Singh had seen a large tractor trundling up and down, scooping up the top
layer of sand together with all the human detritus that the oceans had chucked up overnight. Driven by a morbid curiosity, Singh had walked forward until he was close enough to look into the tractor’s square, metal jaw. Empty plastic bottles, limp condoms, broken glass, much of it the toxic green that signalled the remnants of a bottle of Bintang beer, a leather shoe covered in mould, a syringe – Singh stopped looking.
    He wondered idly where the garbage was dumped. On some other beach less frequented by foreign tourists? Did they throw out the sand too? Surely the beach would soon be excavated bare? After all, it took millions of years for the rocks and stones of the coastline to be whittled down to the grains of sand getting into his shoes.
    Tourists, those few hardy souls who had refused to be driven away by the Bali bombings, were starting to appear, drawn to the beach by the sun. Seasoned sunbathers had baked their skin to dark leather. Others were golden brown – looking good until the skin cancer set in, thought Singh grimly. He glanced at his own arms, covered in a starched, long-sleeved white cotton shirt, with approval.
    Singh’s attention was drawn to a large man, bright red all over except for his bum cheeks. These, exposed in a pair of thong swimming trunks, were a flaccid white. As he watched, the man spread a large striped bath towel on the sand and lowered himself onto it gingerly. He levered a panama hat onto his inflamed bald head and rolled over. His pristine bottom needed colour too.
    A few Balinese were making their way in a leisurely fashion towards the tourists. A small nut-brown boy was assembling kites. In a few minutes