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.’