“He’s fine. He’s just having a little holiday. Like me.”

“Obviously,” Amber said. “First class to Bali. Goodness. I saw your name on the manifest, so I thought I’d come and say hi.” She grinned, showing Sakura a perfect set of straight white teeth. “You must be doing all right if you can afford to turn left.”

“I’m doing okay,” Sakura said, determined to change the subject from the lies about her husband and her son. “What about you? What are you up to?”

Two men in navy-blue suits and white-topped peaked hats walked past them to the door. The pilot and co-pilot. Amber glanced at the one with four gold rings on the cuffs of his jacket.

“Not much,” she replied.

Sakura followed her eyes, saw the pilot give Amber a wink, and realised what was going on.

“Amber!” she hissed playfully. “That is such a cliché. Are you serious?”

“For the moment? Yeah. Why not?”

“Is he married?”

“Probably. I’ve never asked.”

They both laughed. Sakura realised that this meeting, although it was by chance, had presented her with an opportunity. Amber had been something of a party animal when they had been crewing together for All Nippon, and there had been more than one occasion when Sakura had rescued her from a sticky situation into which her drunkenness had deposited her. One, in particular, stood out: a man they had met in a bar in Phuket had offered to buy them both drinks. Sakura had immediately pegged him as a creep and had declined, but Amber—who had been drunk—had said yes. She went from mildly pissed to helplessly paralytic within fifteen minutes and had been about to go home with the man when Sakura stepped in and stopped her. She suspected that the man had doped her drink, and it had been a shock—although not a surprise—when, upon their next visit to the bar, a waitress had told them that the man had subsequently been arrested for rape. There had been other incidents, too, and Sakura knew that, with those in mind, Amber would likely be predisposed now to helping her out.

“What is it?” Amber asked her.

“Sorry?”

“You’re a million miles away.”

“It’s nothing,” Sakura said. “Look—actually, there is something. Could I ask you for a tiny favour?”

7

Milton’s patience was wearing thin and the plane hadn’t even left the gate. The co-pilot had welcomed passengers to the flight over the PA and explained that there would be a slight delay before they took off. The flight attendants circulated with bottles of water and complimentary magazines, but Milton wasn’t particularly interested in either. He just wanted to get going.