A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul by Shamini Flint Page B

know what this place was like before the blasts?’ asked Singh, turning to the other policeman.
    â€˜More or less,’ said the AFP man, who had been listening to their conversation with interest. ‘The Sari Club was a sort of open-plan outdoor club. It had thatched-roof bars with high walls around it.’
    Singh said, ‘That explains why there’s nothing left.’
    The AFP man added, ‘People who survived were towards the back or behind some sort of structure that took the brunt of the blast. The bomb was so big that the shock wave alone would have killed anyone in the vicinity.’
    Singh tried to imagine the Sari Club on the night of the bombing. Crowded with backpackers, surfers and rugby players – all dancing and swigging from their bottles of Bintang – the heavy beat of the music punctuating the sounds of revelry. The lighting would have been subdued on the fringes. There would have been dark corners, areas that were in the shadows. The dance floor by contrast would have been lit with colourful, moving disco strobe lights. The noise would have drowned out conversation, perhaps even a gunshot.
    All that and then the explosion. Singh had read that, for many in the Sari Club that night, the blasts were followed by a complete unnerving silence because their eardrums had been damaged by the force of the explosion. The electricity grid had failed and the lights across Kuta had gone out. For the victims, it had been a silent darkness lit only by the raging fires.
    Singh asked, his voice suddenly husky with doubt, ‘Do you feel that what we’re doing, looking for the murderer of
one man in the midst of this … this horror, is a waste of time?’
    Bronwyn shook her head reassuringly. ‘Of course not. Richard Crouch deserves justice too.’
    Â 
    Nuri lay on her side, feigning sleep. She pulled the thin blanket over her shoulders and curled into a foetal position on the narrow sagging bed. Her eyes were squeezed shut but she could picture the bedroom. Small, with flaking white paint, faded patterned curtains and a brown damp water stain on one wall. A pipe had burst and the water was seeping through the brick and paint. Ghani complained often that the damp in the bedroom made his bones ache. It reminded her of how much older he was than her, suffering the pains of late middle age.
    She had half-expected Ghani to follow her into the bedroom. She knew that many husbands would have demanded an explanation for her flash of temper that lunch time. But not Ghani. He was such an unassuming, undemanding man for a respected village elder, well known both for his piety and Islamic scholarship.
    And he had picked her, Nuri, to be his wife from all the village girls. She had been so grateful and happy – although surprised to be his first wife. She would have been content to be one of the four wives he was permitted as a Moslem.
    Abu Bakr had explained that Ghani had not had time to settle down previously. He had continued, ‘Your marriage to Ghani will forge a bond between our families. It is important that the ties of friendship be strengthened by this marriage.’ There had been pride in her older brother’s voice when he said, ‘You have done well, sister.’
    Provoked by her younger brother, she had walked away from the dining table. It was her first act of rebellion. She
wondered again whether she would get into trouble. Her entire fate was bound up with that of Ghani. He need only say ‘I divorce thee’ three times and she would be out in the street. She would have no means of survival. Her parents would be too ashamed to take her back. Without an education, except in the Quran, she was ill-equipped to get a job.
    She listened hard. It sounded, from the clattering outside, as if someone was washing the dishes in her place. No prizes for guessing who it would be. Only Yusuf would think to protect her by doing her chores.
    Nuri buried her face in