A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul Read Online Free PDF

AFP.’
    â€˜What do you want with me?’
    The Australian turned to the doctor and snapped, ‘You haven’t told him?’
    â€˜No. I was about to when you showed up.’
    â€˜All right.’
    Atkinson gazed at the Sikh policeman appraisingly. Singh supposed he was not a figure to inspire confidence. He was short and fat with an excessive number of pens in the breast pocket of his shirt. His snowy white sneakers were in contrast to the large blue turban on his head. He had a thin upper lip, a pink, moist protruding lower lip and a neatly trimmed beard and moustache, both flecked with white.
    Atkinson asked, ‘You Moslem ?’
    Singh was really annoyed now. He said, ‘Not that it’s any of your business, but no.’
    â€˜Then why’ve you got that hanky around your head?’

    â€˜Because I’m a Sikh and our people have been turbaned for longer than you’ve had ancestors out of prison.’
    Atkinson barked with sudden laughter. ‘You might be right about that, mate.’
    Singh maintained a stony silence, his lips pursed to indicate displeasure.
    The Australian continued, ‘I don’t give a damn whether you’re Sikh or Christian or a bloody Moslem for that matter – but as it was a bunch of towel-heads behind the Bali bombs, I thought it was worth asking.’
    Bronwyn demonstrated the talent for insubordination that was keeping her at the periphery of the investigation. She said in a determined voice, ‘I don’t think the question was justified under any circumstances, sir.’
    The doctor, surprised by the developing antagonism, interrupted them, ‘Look, I’ve got upwards of twenty people in deep freeze waiting for me to turn them from charred remains into human beings. Are you going to get on with it? Because, if not, I’ve got work to do and you guys are just wasting my time – and your own.’
    Atkinson said in a conciliatory tone, gesturing to the doctor, ‘Show him.’
    Barton raised a sandy, sparse eyebrow and then nodded in agreement. He opened the freezer door again and a blast of cold air, laced with just a hint of decaying flesh, washed over them. The doctor brought out a small black plastic carrier.
    Singh decided it looked like a smaller version of the bag he used to put out the garbage every evening.
    Barton took it to a gleaming waist-high steel table on castors and shook out the contents carefully. A few blackened pieces fell out.
    The inspector was certain that he would not have been able to tell the difference between these human remains and
the charred pieces of vehicle chassis he had been shown earlier in the day.
    The doctor slipped on a pair of thin rubber gloves and rummaged through the pile.
    Singh felt squeamish. The large breakfast of bacon and eggs followed by fried noodles and washed down with three cups of strong locally grown black coffee was churning in his belly. He decided his stomach felt like a washing machine in a spin cycle. He wondered at his own queasiness. It was not like him at all. Rookies in the Singapore police force spoke admiringly of his cast-iron stomach during autopsies. It was part of his larger-than-life reputation. Why was he more affected by these victims of a suicide bomber than he had ever been when confronted with a corpse in the course of a murder investigation? Singh pondered the question as he watched the doctor. Was it that, in all the murders he had ever dealt with, there was always a personal nexus between killer and victim? Whether it was a crime of passion, of greed or of anger – the two chief participants in the crime had some sort of connection. Quite often the murder was intended to sever that bond but it often had the opposite effect, tying the criminal once and for all to his victim. But here, there was no connection between murderer and victims. All those killed had merely been in the wrong place at the wrong time – selected not by the