The daughters of Quo Boon were numerous as were his sons; in police files their numbers, their multiple names (ungraciously labelled aliases by a Force complacently ignorant of Chinese name-customs) were often preceded or followed by question marks. Two informers had been planted in the household to follow its tangle of relationships. But the more information crept between the tan covers of the personal files, the more bewildering it all became. Quo Boon’s children were not always his children; some were adopted children of impecunious friends; others had been given to him by members of his clan who knew the future of their sons and daughters brighter in his hands than in theirs. During the Japanese occupation, one of his energetic wives had rescued from starvation and adopted eighteen waifs and strays, among whom were four Tamils. All had been given Chinese names. It was a tribe, and not a family, which went under the name of ‘offspring of subject Quo Boon’, and no one had as yet been able to number them all.

An American journalist, on one of those hasty tours of South East Asia, once asked Quo Boon what was the secret of his success: Quo Boon looked pensive, smiled charmingly, and replied: ‘Investment. The best investment of mankind is man.’ Quo Boon never went outside his own kin and clan for managers, secretaries, and book-keepers of his many concerns; even his bodyguards were, in emotion if not in blood, related to him: their grandfathers had been servants of his grandfather, back in the ancestors’ country, a century ago.

The woman next to whom Luke sat was a blood daughter of Quo Boon. In her face, the massive yet cherubic features of the father had shrunk, like those heads manipulated to a diminutive replica of themselves by some wild tribe of the Amazon basin. Her nickname was The Abacus, her Chinese name Intellectual Orchid, and her English name Betty. The Abacus, renowned for her mathematical ability, was honoured as a financial genius by the men of her clan. Two of her teeth were edged with gold, which gave her a deceptively outmoded look. Gold teeth had been the fashion for wealthy debutantes in her youth. She had just returned from a fleeting trip round the world, which she discussed with sharp humour with Luke, and her latest venture was a company of taxis to run between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. ‘The train is derailed every night, and the planes are crowded. My taxis can do it in a day, easy.’

But will anyone dare to board these taxis of yours? Suppose they get ambushed and burnt down, like the buses?’

Her long eyelids like willow leaves fluttered. ‘There will always be business men in a hurry, who will want a taxi … too bad not any red-hairs,’ she added, demure and malicious.

‘Wouldn’t you just love a red-haired devil like me to be shot up in a taxi of yours?’