Milton collected the suitcase and slid it beneath one of the lightweight aluminium seats. Sakura watched as he reached into his pack and took out a bundle of banknotes. The tender was crewed by two men, and one of them came over and put out his hand. Milton gave him the money, exchanged a few words, and then sat down. Sakura sat next to him.

“You had to pay them?”

He nodded. “Claude arranged it. These guys are local. They’ll get us ashore without anyone seeing us.”

“Are you worried about that?”

“I think it’s a good idea to be careful.”

The outboard engine whined as the pilot twisted the throttle and the tender sped away from the freighter. Sakura wrapped her arms around Milton’s abdomen and held on tight; her skirt had ridden up almost to the top of her thighs. There wasn’t any way of sitting in the boat in a more dignified fashion, but neither the pilot nor his colleague seemed to be paying her any attention.

The boat shot across the calm water between the freighter and the shoreline, ripping through the small waves with barely a shudder. Sakura’s hair streamed behind her in the wind. They slowed as they entered a small marina with a variety of boats moored up against the dock. The rigid inflatable pulled alongside a small wooden jetty and the second crew member hopped out to tie them up. Sakura unwrapped her arms from Milton’s midriff and got to her feet, adjusting her skirt for the sake of her modesty. She wanted to get to a mirror to see what sort of state her hair was in, but that would have to wait. The crewman put out his hand and helped her to cross over to the jetty. Milton handed their luggage over to the crewman, who set it down beside Sakura, then jumped over to the jetty. He turned to thank the two men.

“We all set?” Milton asked.

“No immigration?”

“We’re not in that part of the dock,” he said. “They told me the way to get through without being stopped. We should be fine.”

He picked up the suitcase in one hand and Sakura linked her arm through the crook of his other elbow.

“That’s the terminal building just there,” Milton said, nodding at the modern building to the north. It looked incongruous and was surrounded by large shipping containers. “We’ll avoid that and get a taxi somewhere else.”

“And then?”

“We’ve got a plane to catch,” he said.

70