'All right,' I said.

'I will need to know where to telephone to you, when you will leave your hotel.'

I was going to ground now as soon as I could but it wouldn't be to any kind of safe-house because I didn't know of one, and in any case you don't give away the phone-number of your safe-house even to someone who's just saved your life. But a temporary number would work.

'How do I contact you?' I asked her.

'Write your new number down and place into an envelope with name Sayako on. Deposit in night safe at Bank of Singapore, in Empress Place.' She added quietly, 'I will call.'

She knew some of the rules. 'I'll do that,' I told her.

'Very well. Now please listen to me, Mr Jordan. Manif Kishnar is to leave Bangkok by air, at some time on day after tomorrow, which is Thursday. I will find out his movements for you, and tell you what I can. But please believe me that you must do everything possible to protect your life. This man succeed to kill always. Always.' Noted.

13 ZABAGLIONE.

Bolognaise. 'Too much garlic?" 'Not for me. It's excellent.'

'I didn't think you'd come.'

'Why not?'

She spilled some spaghetti from her fork. 'God, I've always been a messy eater. Because you put me through the third degree the other day at the embassy.'

'That day I wouldn't have trusted my own mother.'

Day of the plane crash.

'Yes, I understand that now, but it took a bit of time. I was furious when I left there.'

'Then it didn't show.'

'That's not bad, for me. Have you still got a mother?'

'What? Oh. No.'

'Father?'

'No.'

'I thought not.' She gave me her level stare, her blue-grey eyes narrowing as they focused. 'You come across like an orphan.'

What can you say to a thing like that?

The shutters were still open to the last of the daylight; if I asked her to close them now it'd be too early. She was looking particularly sensual this evening, not exactly looking but behaving, with slight body movements, bringing her thin shoulders forward in that now-familiar way, her head tilting in brief gestures as she left things unsaid, her hand brushing the air when she couldn't find the word she wanted. Sensual because intimate, knowing I trusted her again.

'Did you lose them when you were young?'

Mother, father. 'I don't remember.'

She puffed out a little laugh. 'Or anything about your past at all. Sorry.'

A shutter or something banged on the other side of the street and she caught my reaction and said quietly, 'Martin, do you enjoy living like that?'

'It's not that I'm paranoid, it's just that everybody's trying to get at me.' But she didn't think it was funny.

I poured her some more wine.

'You sure you won't have any?'

'Not just now.'

'You're safe here, darling.' Then she said, 'Or are you?' She turned to glance across the windows.

'I wouldn't have come near you if I weren't.'

'I don't mind catching some flak.'

'I'd rather you didn't.'

I'd given it a whole hour before I'd rung the bell downstairs, taking it street by street, house by house, melting and emerging and melting from cover to cover, drawn blank. It had surprised me; I'd thought I'd pick up ticks and have to get clear and call her with an excuse. It told me a lot about Shoda: all she could think about was killing off any kind of opposition. The women she used for tagging were good, once they'd seen the target, but there was no real field work. They should have tagged Katie too, the day we'd had lunch at Empress Place, and seen where she worked and put a peep on her night and day on the assumption that she'd meet me again. That was basic surveillance work.

Sayako was different.

'You go to the Thai Embassy quite a bit, don't you?'

She looked at me steadily. 'We liaise with them. Why?'

'Do you talk about me there?'

'I'm not exactly a gossip.'

'I know. But don't assume that because I'm in with them they can be totally trusted to look after me.'

It was the closest I could go to the truth.

Her glass remained poised halfway to her mouth. 'This is important, isn't it?'

'Fairly.'

'All right.' She put down her wine and put a thin ringless hand on the table for me to take. 'So you really do trust me now.'

Was that true? I wasn't sure. 'I don't think you'd do me any intentional damage.'

She took her hand away and I saw that her eyes were moist. 'You really are a bastard,' she said lightly. 'I'd do bloody well anything for you.'

'I can't think why.'