‘Oh, thank goodness!’ Sybil exclaimed. ‘Amah will be so pleased to see them. And is there any further news of Jock or Philip?’ she asked fearfully.

‘Not as yet, but there are rumours that they were rounded up in 1944 with seven thousand other prisoners deemed fit enough, and sent into Thailand as slave labour.’

Sybil covered her mouth with a trembling hand. ‘Please tell me they weren’t sent to work on that awful railway,’ she begged.

Elsa squeezed her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, Sybil. I shouldn’t have said anything. There’s no hard evidence that they were sent there, and as I said, it was just a rumour – and they’re as numerous as the flies around here.’

Sybil realised Elsa was trying to sweeten the bitter pill. ‘How soon will we know if those rumours were true or not?’

Elsa turned her back and began to unpack the bag of shopping, but Sybil noticed that her hands weren’t quite steady and her voice was hesitant. ‘The teams are out there now searching the jungle between Bangkok and Moulmein in Burma for the camps. Reports coming in are brief and rather confusing, but it seems the first transport of prisoners will be flown in within the next few days.’

Sybil’s pulse was racing as hope and dread battled within her. Suddenly she didn’t want to be here – didn’t want to know what had happened to her darling Jock. The walls of the bungalow closed in on her, the warm, damp air stifling her until she could barely breathe. She turned away swiftly to find refuge in the garden and stood there gasping for breath as the soft rain mingled with her tears.

19

The rain had finally stopped and the sun had broken through, making the wet road and sodden greenery steam in the rising heat of that early morning. The mosquitoes were out in force as were the flies, and Sybil was struggling to keep her temper as she alighted from the rickshaw and told the boy to wait for her.

She regarded the tiny sari shop the boy had recommended, which didn’t look too prepossessing, being squashed between a bank and a post office. She stepped inside to be greeted by the smiling but clearly puzzled owner. ‘I’d like to buy three saris,’ she said. ‘They are for a friend of mine and I’d like them to be very colourful as she’s not feeling well at the moment.’ Sybil realised she was babbling and fell silent.

‘We have many beautiful saris, memsahib,’ he replied with a bow. ‘May I ask the age and size of your friend?’

‘She is an elderly lady, very small and slight, and I would guess no more than five feet tall.’

An array of glorious silks in a rainbow of colours was brought out and unfurled for her to peruse, and Sybil eyed them all, unable to choose. They were so beautiful, so delicately woven, some edged with gold or silver, others bearing intricate hand-stitched designs. All the colours should have clashed, but strangely enough they didn’t, and Sybil eventually chose a lime silk striped with deep purple and edged with gold; a scarlet and silver one; and a midnight blue shot through with silver and turquoise. She selected the close-fitting short-sleeved tops to go with them as well as two pairs of sandals, and waited in the blissful coolness of the shop’s fans as the owner cut the lengths of silk and parcelled everything up.