For the first time her voice had a note of impatience, the hint of a sigh. Not impatience, exactly. Resignation. 'If you wish to live, Mr Jordan, you must not take the plane. That is all I can do for you.'

Maybe if I told the girl at the gate I was officially working for the Thai government and showed the laissez-passer that Prince Kityakara had given me she'd at least tell the captain, but I still had no source to offer except a voice on a telephone.

'What kind of accident will it be? Is there a bomb on board?' If I could give them any details they might listen.

'I must go now, Mr Jordan. I am sorry. There will be no survivors?

The girl at the gate was giving herself a manicure, one pantyhosed leg crooked, her head tilted in concentration.

'I am going now,' the voice on the line told me.

There was something getting through to me but I didn't know what it was; it was simply a feeling. There wasn't time to work out the dozen or so explanations for this call on the paging phone. A decision had to be made and it had to be made now and there was absolutely no reason to think that this wasn't a crude last-minute attempt to keep me here in Singapore and on treacherous open ground instead of going to the gate and apologizing to the girl and slipping through to the safety of clandestine operations, but I listened to the voice - not hers, not the voice on the line, but the one in my head, in the primitive brain stem, the seat of intuition.

'I'm taking the flight,' I said, on the principle that if you change direction you must cover your tracks. Then I put the phone down and went over to the gate and showed my Thai Government credentials and told the girl that I'd learned from an unidentifiable source that Flight 306 to Bangkok was compromised.

She phoned the agent at the other end of the runnel and I was put on to the captain direct as I watched the starboard wing moving slowly past the window; the 727 was backing under tow and over the phone I could catch the co-pilot going through the routine checks with the tower. The captain asked me the expected questions and I hadn't got any answers. I told him that to satisfy myself I wanted him to know that an unidentified woman's voice on a paging-phone had told me that his aircraft would 'have an accident'.

Two of the airline's officials came along to the gate and talked to me but there wasn't anything I could add and they finally told me that the security checks at this airport were the most sophisticated in the world and that I'd probably been the victim of a hoax. My name was noted and I was thanked for my concern.

Eleven minutes later I watched Flight 306 turn heavily at the end of the taxiing road and line up with the runway and wait for the green and then gun up and start rolling. It was airborne at 10:17, on schedule.

It was then that I knew that because of touchy nerves I'd let Shoda set me up, and that my chances of seeing nightfall would have been infinitely greater on Flight 306 than here on the ground in Singapore where she knew how to find me.

She swung round on the staircase.

'Martin?

Framed by the light from a high window, her hair was still moving, her lips parted, her eyes wide, shadowed.

I said hello.

She came down slowly, not looking away from me, one foot faltering in its high-heeled sandal, her thin hand sliding down the banister-rail as if she were feeling her way. When she came down the last step she was still watching me, mesmerised; then she just look a pace and leaned against me with her head on my shoulder and stayed perfectly still. In a whisper, 'Oh, thank God?

I held her until in a minute she straightened up; her eyes were wet and she lifted a cupped hand, tilting her head, 'Oh bugger, can you help me? Bloody contacts, they always float loose when I cry.'

We found it in the palm of her hand and she got it back deftly on the tip of her finger, and I wondered how much practice she'd had, how often she'd cried, because of Stephen.

She looked at me steadily again. 'Why weren't you on board?'

I didn't answer. There was a lot to work out.

'You do know it crashed, I suppose?'

'Yes.'

It had been on the radio an hour ago. No survivors.

'My God, it's a miracle. I mean' - she brushed the air helplessly - 'I was sitting there in my office today for about half an hour - for exactly half an hour, because I remember looking at the clock, sitting there knowing you were dead.'

I didn't know if the timing was accurate, because I didn't know when she'd heard the news of the crash. But I wanted to.

'When did you hear about it?'

'About an hour ago. They said you'd phoned -'

'No. When did you hear it had crashed?'

She looked confused. 'About - I'm not sure - soon after noon, I think.'

'And when did you hear I was still alive?'

'I told you - an hour ago. Why?'

'And how did you know that?'

She was watching me with her eyes narrowing. 'They phoned me. The people here.'

One of the staff came down the stairs, a Thai girl, loaded with files, dropping a pencil. I picked it up.

'Thank you. Are you being helped?'

'Yes,' Katie said. Tip from the British High Commission.'

When the girl had gone she said, 'There's a little office here where we can talk.'

'No, let's go up there,' I told her. There was a gallery on the floor above, overlooking the entrance and the staircase. Rooms, even small rooms, in embassies - even the embassies on friendly territory - are notorious for being bugged. We went up the stairs together.

Her timing was probably accurate, then, because as soon as I'd heard the news of the crash I'd phoned the Thai Embassy, because Lafarge was dead and my access was cut off, but there was a chance I could rescue just a thread.

'Why did the people here phone you?' I asked her.

She looked surprised. 'Because you were on the passenger list.'

There were windows along the gallery, facing the buildings on the other side of the street. The strong afternoon light streamed in, throwing thick shadows across the carpeting, glowing on some crimson leather-bound books. I sat clear of the window.

'How did you know I was on the passenger list?'

She pulled her soft briefcase closer to her on her lap, hesitating before she spoke, but not because she didn't know what to say, I sensed, but half-deciding not to answer at all. 'Whenever there's a transport accident,' she said deliberately, 'we always check on the passengers, in case there's a British national involved, so that we can help relatives. I think we do quite a good job, at the High Commission, looking after our people.'

It was very quiet here, and motes of dust floated in the sunshine; there were the distant sounds of a telephone in someone's office; Thai voices, muted; quick footsteps across marble. I supposed most people were at lunch at this hour.

'Why did this embassy call the High Commission to say I wasn't on Flight 306?'

She said carefully, 'They're friendly to us. Thailand is an ally of the West.' Her eyes were still narrowed, and I didn't think it was anything to do with the contact lenses.

'How did they know I hadn't gone on board?'

I knew, but I wanted to know if she did.