‘But now Mr Stallart knows that I was only trying to help, to render service once again.’

And how could she fulfil this purpose, how could she induce someone to surrender if she did not keep in touch? If she did not try to see someone and persuade him?

‘But when they … misunderstood, then somehow the information leaked through, and someone did not turn up. So the whole plan failed.’

Pityingly, Ah Mei put all the blame for the failure to capture the man in the jungle upon Luke Davis and Che Ahmad. If only they had not been so precipitate …

I sat and listened. Inside me something, what was left of dream and trust, shrivelled, died quietly, like the sensitive weed which grows among the grass of our gardens folds at a touch, disappears, leaving behind a bare and thorny red stem.

I watched Small Cloud die and Ah Mei survive. I watched myself, too, become someone else. Someone who, perhaps, would never believe wholeheartedly in anyone again.

‘What a misunderstanding … and all the time I was trying to help the Police …’ Ah Mei shook her head, sorrowfully.

Then I noticed that she had a permanent. Her hair was wavy at the back, the curls brushed the edge of her small collar as she turned her head. Vindicated, assured, justified in her betrayal (which was called loyalty), smooth of brow, having deposited in triplicate upon foolscap the whole of herself, she sat and smiled. Nothing was left.

‘Wasn’t it silly, to suspect me, doctor? Me?’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’

‘These letters … doctor must not think I was trying to cheat.’

‘I don’t.’

‘How could I lie when doctor has been so kind to me?’

And then she broke down, uncontrollably weeping, lost in sorrow, her hands upon her face, rocking her body, abandoned to despair, and her curls tumbled forward and hid her face and hands.

‘You don’t have to explain, Ah Mei … don’t …’

But she shook her locks back and lifted her face and said: ‘It is true.’

‘What is true?’

‘That I am engaged. I am going to be married. I am marrying Tong. He is a surrendered one. He surrendered two years ago.’

*  *  *

Tong was a dark-skinned and handsome young man with four years of jungle war behind him. His capacity for absolute devotion, a personal loyalty feudal in its wholeness, was his main feature. Once it had centred on his company leader in the Malayan Races Liberation Army. Now it would fasten upon Ah Mei.

Tong surrendered when his company leader was executed by the Party for deviationism. A few hours after surrender he led a patrol of the Fijians who had taken him prisoner back into the jungle to ambush his erstwhile comrades. Two of them had been killed in the encounter, and Tong had collected three hundred dollars for each one.