And the silence, the frightful listening silence, expectant, breath-withheld. Crufts knew as he bore the load, and heard his steps biting into that knowing silence, that all the village knew and had known already before he had, while he was still sitting on his veranda. And in the blossom-bright night the disjointed plywood planks seemed to flower with invisible and peering eyes. There they were, holding their breath, immured by law, by the curfew, within their huts, not allowed on pain of being shot on sight to leave the suffocating smallness within. And so in the moon-filled night he knew the breathing inside, breathing knowingly the whole eight thousand of them, without a word.

‘Now let me see,’ Bob’s voice, ‘how soon after discovery did you say it was when you rang me up?’

He is trying to pin something on me, thought Crufts.

It had taken nearly half an hour to get the body back to the police post, and only then had he thought to ring Headquarters.

‘As soon as I found the body, sir,’ said Crufts.

Ringing up Headquarters, and now Headquarters was here, and not only Police, but also Army, a full battalion with armoured cars on the move, preparing to comb the country round Todak. It had been difficult getting the Army last night, for it was Saturday night and the liaison officer had been away in Singapore, but they’d discovered him at last, at Prince’s Restaurant. And then there was the R.A.F., always keen to harass the enemy and drop a few bombs among the trees to smash hideouts. Already a report had come that two miles from Todak along the road an abandoned car had been found, and there were six hip pits, three on each side of the road, covered with leaves. No sign of struggle. They must have marched him into the jungle and finished him off there, and then dragged him across the swamp to hang him on the fence so that the people of Todak would know: the people – those impassive, stony-faced, surly and silent and dumb people of Todak.

‘Hell of a lot of women,’ said Bob, looking at the crowd, ‘very few men. It’s one of those villages, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said Crufts, ‘they came like that.’

‘Female of the species, eh?’ said Bob. He spoke lower, although no one was there to hear, out of respect for the dead. ‘I don’t suppose there was any girl mixed up in this, was there?’

‘Not in these parts, sir,’ said Crufts. ‘Uxbridge went to Singapore.’

*  *  *