Read Hotel Kerobokan for Free Online Page B

bathroom. They burst in, pointed their guns at her and screamed, ‘Get up, Ramos!’ They were local police, therefore knew who she was. Two of them grabbed Nita under the arms, jerking her to her feet, before dragging her outside the cell. In the smoky yard, they pointed their guns at Nita and shouted at her. ‘Your boyfriend run away. Your boyfriend escape.’ ‘I don’t know, he never told me,’ she sobbed. Being a tamping , they suspected she knew something. ‘Tomorrow is investigation, so prepare, Ramos. Security police will come to investigate you tomorrow!’ they warned. ‘Why me?’, she asked. ‘Because your room was open.’
    The police then did a roll call to ensure all thirteen women were still in the cell, before fastening the padlock on their smoky cage. None of Block W’s fifty-three women had escaped. None had even known of the great escape. But all would soon be suffering its consequences.
    Outside the jail, large numbers of police were setting up roadblocks, securing bus stations, and increasing surveillance at local harbours. The chief of police issued a ‘shoot on sight’ order if any inmates resisted arrest. Smarter escapees, such as Tony, were already safely miles away. But others who weren’t so bright were caught loitering in the local areas around the jail, hiding in backyard toilets or wandering around the streets. Several inmates were even caught sitting at local cafés, eating plates of nasi goreng.
    If living near a maximum-security prison had always caused the locals a little dread, this outbreak was a terrifying ordeal for them. They were immediately warned by police and in radio alerts to lock their doors, be vigilant, and particularly wary of strangers who were ‘sweaty, barefoot and possessed no identity card’. But some still got hurt. One woman was bashed at home by a prisoner who was stealing her car. Several were pushed off their motorbikes as prisoners hijacked them. An expatriate living up the road from Hotel K discovered her dog drowned in her swimming pool. Presumably, it had been barking while a prisoner stole clothes from her washing line.
    Police were doing door-to-door searches and raiding any houses where sightings of suspicious people had been reported. They caught four prisoners hiding in backyard toilets and another sitting on Kuta beach. By sunset, one hundred and four of the two hundred and eighty-nine escapees were back in custody. Fifty-nine of these had surrendered, claiming they’d run away only under threat of death. One Balinese prisoner had run straight home to his family compound, but asked his brother to phone the police to explain he’d be back in the morning after a shower and a meal. He kept his word.
    Nita awoke the next morning with a dark bruise down the right side of her face from her clash with the bathroom door. Her world had darkened too. She was under a cloud of suspicion. She was bewildered and knew nothing. But she seemed overnight to have morphed into a dangerous criminal, guilty of harbouring a deadly secret. Armed police burst into her cell, snapped on handcuffs and marched her across the prison. They were taking no chances. Nita looked around Hotel K, and was shocked by the complete devastation, and by the smell of kerosene and smouldering mattresses still hanging heavily in the air.
    The great escape was a major embarrassment. The police needed answers and were sure Nita held them. Returned prisoners had been freely blabbing that Tony was the leader, the mastermind, much braver now that he was gone. And with little chance of catching Tony, the police pressured his girlfriend for information. ‘Your boyfriend escaped, we know he’s your boyfriend.’ ‘I don’t know anything,’ she kept repeating. They didn’t swallow it. Her cell had been opened and they believed she’d been given something by the man who’d unlocked it. She was interrogated for five hours by six specialist police on a crisis mission from Jakarta. Her cell