At Quo Boon’s table sat his bodyguards and members of his own family, the new Chief and himself, so that no spies would tell the jungle what was said under the drowning noise of the banquet. But Quo Boon was too politic to pursue business other than by hints at the dinner table. He knew Englishmen considered it bad form. So waving his hand amiably, he added: ‘But we’ll discuss it later,’ and rapped the table for silence, got up, and made the usual speech of welcome to a new government official … ‘How pleasant it was to have Mr Stallart, with his long experience of Malaya … he fully understood the local situation, hope he will not be transferred away too quickly …’ (At this dig even the government officials present permitted themselves a bleak smile.)

The new Police Chief also got up and made a speech praising the loyal cooperation of Quo Boon with the government. And then the party broke up. But The Abacus said to Luke: ‘My father’s secretary will come to your office tomorrow about the special constables,’ and Luke knew he was to brief the Chief for the coming interview. And Lam Teck shook Luke by the hand, as a signal that he might come that night, with some information. The gentle small Malay whispered something in The Abacus’s ear and she went on picking her teeth with a wooden toothpick from the pink plastic holder on the table.

*  *  *

‘I’ve arranged,’ said Sir Moksa, ‘for pip to hold an inaugural ceremony to open a Branch in Johore Bahru next year. I talked about it to the Police Chief. Two hundred policemen will be on guard duty that day … we’ll get good protection.’

Lady Moksa’s Chinese name was Fragrant Orchid, her nickname Moonface, and her English name Alice. Her sister, Musical Orchid, Sir Moksa’s other wife, had been permanently retired to Switzerland upon Sir Moksa’s elevation to the knighthood, and spent her time in a flat with windows shut, gambling incessantly. Alice-Moonface-Fragrant Orchid shrugged. ‘Politics,’ she said. ‘No use to anyone. Why don’t you stick to business and make money?’

‘It is my duty,’ replied Sir Moksa.

‘And what if the communists come? You’ll be shot … It’s all because the whites were stingy,’ said Fragrant Orchid. ‘If they’d offered the Anti-Japanese Army some land and a thousand dollars each for their guns in 1945, there would have been no Emergency. And now it’s bandits, bandits, bandits, but we all know they’re not bandits. They’re soldiers, too. The more of them they kill, the more they are … I don’t think this will ever end.’

‘Do you think,’ asked Sir Moksa, who never listened to his wife, ‘they’ll make me a Legislative Councillor soon?’