Out of his pocket Pang now drew one of these snapshots and pointed to the third face on the second row. ‘This chap,’ he said, ‘I’ve been working on him, in a nice way, of course, in my spare time … his uncle I used to know a little.’ (Pang did not add that it was while he had been a Party member himself.) ‘He has a young brother, a waiter in a coffee shop here …’

He paused, a consummate artist of suspense, his bright eyes upon the perspiring white man.

‘And he tells me his brother is one of the links for the couriers to Singapore …’

Luke beamed. ‘That’s good, that’s wonderful, Pang, we must get on to him quick.’

‘We have already. I’ve detained the whole coffee shop, the towkay, his wife, everybody, even some people who sat there drinking coffee … one of them might be another link … but we’ll sort them out gradually within the next few weeks. I thought you’d be pleased,’ he added, modestly.

‘Am I pleased? Why, that’s great, Pang, that’s wonderful …’

‘I’ve put the waiter in special. He looks like his brother, thinner, and wears a large aluminium clip in his hair. He doesn’t look very tough. He’ll probably give quite soon. I’ll work on him tonight.’

‘Go right ahead.’ There wasn’t much more any white officer could do about this questioning business, except be present and watch that the man wasn’t bashed about too much. Only very occasionally did a white man go in for a spot of bashing, and it was officially discouraged.

He was in luck. The joy of the hunt was upon Luke, and he strode out with Pang to inspect the new batch of detainees, and especially the thin young waiter with the large clip in his hair.

*  *  *

Silent and dark is the undisturbed, the rainforest, the jungle, with its large mute lords the trees upsoaring like cathedral pillars to burst two hundred feet above into many-layered ceilings of foliage and tangled vine and creeper, orchids and monkeys and birds.

Through this sieve of roofs the sun seeps, rain filters finely to mingle with the perpetual steaming from the boggy ground. Heaven-warded by the thick shield of leaf, the inflexible white sky of noon beats down upon the flowers of the forest which swing their faces upwards to the light.