‘What is it this time?’ Quo Boon sat, his guests gone, sipping his milk drink. He always had a glass of milk at night. He hated milk, but was told by his expensive doctor that it was good for him. Hence he drank it.

‘Passing messages, posting newspapers … the usual. Enche Ismail told me. His wife’s cousin works in the Police Registry in Singapore. She saw the informer’s report being translated, they know her name now as Pearl.’

Quo Boon sighed very softly. ‘These young ones … These foolish young ones … I will talk to her.’

‘You know why she does it …’ said The Abacus, ‘she always loved her brother, all these years, she has written to him.’

‘I’ll see her tomorrow,’ said Quo Boon. ‘I’ll tell her to stop. Find out if there’s anything definite against her. If there is, I’ll send her off to England, she could study there. Otherwise she’ll run away one day, to the jungle, and no one will bring my daughter back to me … not from the jungle …’

1. Babas and Nonyas: names given to Chinese men and women born in Malaya whose families have been resident for a century or more. ↵
2. Enche or Che: a Malay honorific for both men and women. ↵

6

MINOS DISCERNS

There was a picnic-with-charabancs air about the procession, but the charabancs were large, sleek cars, flanked by machine-gun turreted vehicles, front and back, and a jeep of mata-matas bristling with guns, thrown in for good measure. This was the official inspection committee on its once-a-year tour round the detention camp.

In the first car came Sir Moksa Bakrar, holding a striped blue Pyramid handkerchief in front of the lower half of his face. Next to him sat Mr Poh Cho-yee, a hilarious and benevolent gentleman whose sparkling eyes refuged behind thick Rayban sun-glasses. Mr Poh, owner of a string of pawnbroker shops and houses of dubious fame in the chief cities of Malaya, had been labelled ‘traitor’ by the guerrillas in the jungle for collaboration with the Japanese during the last war. This in turn had made him an earnest supporter of the British Military Administration when the British came back. The 200,000 dollars recently donated by Mr Poh towards charity placed him in the customary honours list, and on the Council of Inspection of Detention Camps, Malaya.

In the next car sat Mr Clerkwell, whose eager face looked younger than his years, possessed of charm, a candid glance, and a ruthless way of reporting everything he heard, and he heard a lot. Quo Boon, in a palm-beach suit; a Malay gentleman, distantly related to the Prime Minister of a State; the Chief Police Officer, Mr Stallart, filled the car.

‘We’re getting there,’ said Clerkwell, who believed in chatty conversation. ‘Just round that corner. Hope the driver knows the way. Hey! Stop! Stop!’