He stared at her, aware—but too late to preserve any pretence of nonchalance—that his jaw had dropped. The woman was wearing a simple, thin navy-blue lace dress decorated with coloured flower prints that did little to hide her figure. Milton could not help but look, something that he had in common with every other man within twenty yards. He saw the mother with the child staring hard at her partner as he ignored the toy that the infant had dropped to the floor.

The woman smiled at Milton and changed course so that she was heading for him. She was hāfu—half-Japanese and half-European—and looked to be in her late twenties. The effect of her mixed-race heritage was stunning. Her long black hair fell down to her mid-upper arms and was halfway between mussed and styled. She was wearing a pair of large dark sunglasses, which she pushed up onto her head as she drew nearer, revealing deep brown eyes that complemented the fine structure of her cheekbones and elfin oval face perfectly.

“Thank you,” she said in accentless English, widening her smile.

He smiled back. “My pleasure.”

She walked on toward the first-class desk. She had a swing to her hips that, either intentionally or accidentally, attracted the attention of every man old enough to have facial hair. The orderly parked the trolley next to the desk and Milton watched as two male Garuda Indonesia employees fell over themselves to book the woman into her flight. One of the two clerks tried to shoo the orderly away, but the woman held out a perfectly manicured hand to stop him. She opened a small clutch purse and pulled out a note. The porter’s eyes widened as he looked down at it: she had given him two hundred lire, and, as the orderly tucked it away in his uniform pocket, he clasped his hands together as if in prayer before bowing at the waist to thank her. Milton wasn’t surprised. The tip was generous.

The staff took no time at all to process the woman through the check-in gate, making short work of her suitcases. She walked toward a frosted glass door engraved with the words First Class Passengers Only, but then paused and turned. Her eyes ran down the ragtag queue of passengers until they found Milton. She smiled again, raised a hand in acknowledgement, slipped her round sunglasses back over her eyes, and turned to walk through the door.

“Bloody hell, mate.” Milton turned to see a sunburned middle-aged man standing behind him in the queue. He sounded Australian. “Think you pulled.”

“Just being helpful,” Milton said.

He shrugged it off and turned back to face the slow-moving queue.

5

The man at the check-in desk regarded Milton carefully, his eyes flicking between the passport photograph and Milton’s face.

“Flying to Bali, Mr. Smith?”

“I am.”