'What, then?'

One of the kitchen boys stood in the doorway, white slivers of wood from the smashed frame scattered around his feet.

'Get Lily up here,' Al told him. 'Lily Ling. Now-la!'

The boy flapped away in his rubber sandals.

'A fucking rope,' I heard Al saying softly though his clenched teeth, 'they gave him a fucking rope.'' He went on stroking the woman's hair, his face bunched and his eyes flickering. Voices began in the narrow street three floors below, the rattle of carts, a man's sudden laughter.

'You want me, boss?' Lily Ling asked him.

'Yes,' Al said. 'Stay with her, okay?' He stopped stroking the woman's hair, looking relieved, a man awkward in the presence of suffering. 'Stay with her the whole time, Lily. Don't leave her unless you get someone else in here to take over.'

The Chinese girl came and sat on the bed, taking the woman's head in her hands, laying her face against the other's. 'What happen?'

Quietly Al said, 'She tried jumping out of the window. So watch her, okay?'

'She Mrs Seng. She say a man come to see her, maybe. Last night.'

Al's mouth tightened. 'And did a man come?'

'No.'

'Good.' He relaxed again, touching my arm. 'Let's go, I feel like a drink.'

In the bar he said, 'They swung a few guys over there this morning. Like I said, he was one of them. Her son.'

'And the man who said he'd come to see her?'

His eyes went hard. 'Those bastards move in whenever there's trouble. He'd have told her he could pull strings, see, get him off, get him just a prison term. He'd have taken her life savings.' He broke off to call to a boy going through the lobby. 'Mahmood - there's a door needs fixing up there, Number 37, okay? Go and check it out, need some tools." He poured himself another Scotch. 'Three ounces of heroin and they get a life term over there. Four ounces and they swing. Malaysia's trying to beat the drug problem and I guess that's the way they do it. Month back they swung a couple Australians, you read about that? Everybody sent in an appeal - the Australian Prime Minister, Amnesty International, Margaret Thatcher. Those boys were caught with just six ounces of the stuff, they weren't trading a truck-load, but they swung.' He hit a mosquito that had settled on his arm, leaving a smear of blood. 'They give it a lot of publicity, so people are going to get the message - they'll give these kids headlines in the evening papers over here.' He took a swig at his drink. 'Her son couldn't read.'

The sound of boots came from the lobby.

'Police!'

'Shit,' Al said under his breath, and went to stand in the archway. 'So what's up?'

'Somebody reported a woman screaming.'

'They're always screaming.'

The young cop stood there hard-faced and angular, sharp creases in his uniform, the holster shining. 'They said the sound came from this hotel.'

'Sure. People laughing, it sounds the same. Always a party going on at the Red Orchid, right?' He shook his head. 'Anything wrong, I'd know it, okay?'

The Chinese stood looking around the ceiling, waiting to hear if the screaming came again, and when nothing happened for a minute he gave Al a bright stare and then turned on his heel and went out through the swing door, his polished boots clumping and his leather belt creaking, his cap set dead flat on his head. Other sounds came in from the narrow street: cyclo bells, chickens, someone beating a gong. Then the door swung shut.

'Tell me about the drug scene,' I said to Al, 'in this region.'

He swung his head. 'All of it? Jesus, take some time.'

Two days later the rain came pelting down out of a black sky on to the roof of the car with a noise like massed drums. The windscreen wipers were only just clearing the glass enough for the driver to see through, and from the rear seat I watched the thick steel-grey haze on the bonnet as we crossed the river and headed for Orchard Road.

The Thai security man sitting next to the driver said something to him, a quick word or two, and the driver nodded without turning. They were professionals, these two: they'd come to the Red Orchid on foot to meet me because the market street was too cluttered for the embassy limousine to pass, and as soon as I'd come into the lobby they'd hijacked a cyclo and put me into it to keep me more or less dry, hurrying alongside like well-trained bodyguards to where the car was parked, checking the environment the whole time whole the cyclo bell cleared the way.

It had been like that yesterday when the two embassy officials had come to find me - two, not just one - both stone-faced, asking me for my identity papers first and then presenting their own with a curt formality before they gave me the embossed card. His Highness the Crown Prince Sonthee Sirindhorn requests the pleasure of your company at 8 p.m. on the evening of 15 April 1987, at the Embassy of Thailand, on the occasion of his birthday.

Obviously the man hadn't contrived to celebrate his birth precisely two days after this lone spook had landed in Singapore; the Thais had simply thought it a good opportunity to bring me into the centre of things and check me out from there. Pepperidge, tossing the last crust into the lake, had said, 'As to access, they'll come to you, don't worry. Just go and see them, and listen to what they have to say. If you don't like it, you're not committed - I gave them no guarantee.'

Jesus Christ, he called that access? On the other hand there was no actual mission running yet. I'd done all I could do for now: I'd seen the shadow someone had thrown across me on the flight into Singapore and got rid of him, and since then I'd put the Red Orchid through routine analysis and found it safe - there was no covert or oven surveillance on the place, no bugs, no manned observation vectors, no one in the bar watching the fly-blown mirrors, no one cooling his heels in the street outside, nothing. I'd also got a lot of information on the Southeast Asian drug scene from Al. From what he'd told me about his background he seemed a safe man to talk to, inside the parameters of my cover; otherwise Pepperidge wouldn't have sent me to the Red Orchid. But how reliable was Pepperidge? Good question. 'As far as liaison goes, you'll have to pick a few people yourself, if you can find anyone you can trust. Not quite the service you're used to. Sorry.'

The car slowed, passing a line of others and slotting in to a roped-off space outside No. 370 Orchard Street, the building ablaze with light, the Thai flag floodlit but hanging like a wrung-out dishcloth in the downpour. Umbrellas everywhere, bouncing off each other as the security man snapped open a big one above my head and steered me across the flooded pavement and up the steps, our shoes already waterlogged before we got inside, two white-haired diplomats tugging off their macs with the help of the embassy servants, peeling off their galoshes. 'Hello, George, where did you moor your car?' Gusty laughter, drinks in the offing. 'Where's Daphne, isn't she here?' A gold cufflink came off with the mackintosh sleeve and someone dived for it. 'Her mother didn't feel like turning out on a night like this.' A man with a mole, an Asian, suddenly close, watching. 'Then you're off the hook, old boy - make the most of it!'

An Asian with a small mole below the left ear, now speaking to one of the security men and then melting, not glancing at me, a bit embarrassed, probably; he should have kept up with his assignment a little more efficiently between the fish stalls and under the bead curtain and past the grain merchant's can and through the alley full of bicycles and cane-work and dustbins into New Bridge Road. But it was reassuring to see him again: I knew now that it hadn't been some kind of opposition cell that had thrown him across me on the flight out; it must have been the Thais who'd sent him over to London to shepherd me across and make sure I wasn't got at. Civil of them.

The security man took me smoothly through the crowd of people under the dazzling chandeliers and edged me into the receiving line ahead of the rest; only three in front of me now, the Crown Prince sporting a sash and cluster, his hand moist with sweat 'How kind of you to come, Mr Jordan, and at such short notice!'

'A pleasure, Your Highness, and allow me to offer my congratulations.'

The security man steered me deftly away and collared a flunky with a tray of champagne.

'Something soft.'

It took a bit of time and I eased my way to the silk-panelled wall and stood with my back to it, noting five or six more people from the Old Country, mildewed dinner-jackets and pinched-in satin, a shoulder-strap hanging down over a plump powdered arm; a small contingent of Japanese keeping close formation, beautifully-tailored; a couple of Filippinos standing stiffly with set faces, not touching their drinks -Radio Singapore had put out a news flash just before I'd left the hotel: a major coup on the part of the military was in full swing in Manila; a group of Chinese, all smiles, and some Frenchmen arguing energetically about cheese - 'Pas possible dans ce climat, pas du tout possible de le garder en bonne condition!' Four or five turbanned Pakistanis and a lone African in uniform and a rather tense-looking girl in a green button-through dress, her face pale under the chandeliers.

'Canada Dry, Mr Jordan.'

'Thank you.'

'This way, please.'

He took me down a long corridor lined with portraits in gilt frames; a potted palm ten feet tall stood at the end under a domed ceiling; then we were in a small ornate ante-room with a circle of brocade chairs and a polished mahogany side-table with a copy of The Times lying on it, and someone's horn-rimmed glasses.

'Please wait here, Mr Jordan.'

'All right.'

Jordan had been the name on the papers I'd got from the safe in my flat in London; they'd offered the nearest cover to the one Pepperidge had suggested. Martin Jordan was an overseas representative for a small arms-manufacturing company in Birmingham: Laker Foundry.

The security man had left the door open and I could still hear the distant murmur of the reception, but it only accentuated the stillness in this small room, which I found encapsulating, unnerving. There was no mission running yet and there might never be, with me in it, if I felt like turning it down; but Pepperidge and Floderus knew the kind of thing I liked doing and they wouldn't have sent me out here to waste my time. At this day's end I could be moving into something dangerous, something terminal.

'Mr Jordan, I appreciate your coming to see me.'

He was a small, bland, hesitant man, his eyes half-hidden behind tinted glasses, his hand outstretched, his body turning sideways a little, limping as he approached. Two other men came into the room with him, aides, not bodyguards, and one of them said quickly, 'His Highness Prince Kityakara, Minister of Defence.'

'How do you do, sir.'

'How do you do. Now let's sit down - there's no one with you, Mr Jordan?'