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SNOWING IN BALI

As they yanked him out of the back of the car, below the blindfold he could see lights directly ahead and dirt underfoot. The night was eerily quiet, but in the far distance he could hear the drone of a busy road. Here, darkness surrounded him and he imagined vast rice paddies, which tied in with stories he’d heard of people being taken by Bali police to isolated windowless houses, and bashed.

They pushed him through a little iron gate into a house. Tipping his head back slightly, he glimpsed unpainted walls, raw brick and a bare concrete floor – an unfinished house. He saw five pairs of feet in leather sandals – each slightly different; soon the trait that he would use to distinguish his captors. The air was full of tension; the cops were angry and for Alberto, standing impotently blindfolded, cuffed and vulnerable, every sound and touch was magnified by fear and blindness.

He flinched as the cops grabbed his arms and shoved him into a room, pushing him to sit down on the edge of a bed. A door slammed shut, then boom, it was on, fists raining brutal blows into his stomach, ribs and back, a hand slapping his face, as someone else used a plank of wood to slam into his head. He was helpless, the handcuffs preventing him from even lifting his arms to shield his face. It was against every human instinct, but he had to just surrender his body to the blows. Even gritting his teeth, he could not stop crying out in pain.

After an hour or so, the cops slammed the door behind them, leaving him slumped on the bed, hurting badly and trembling. He knew that was only round one; that they would be back to hurt him again, until they broke him down into helping them set someone else up. Right now Andre, who owned the pills, and Rafael, whose name the cops had already tossed out, were blissfully unaware of his predicament, oblivious to how close

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