Milton made his way back to the main road and stood for a moment to take in downtown Kuta. The street was loud with a barrage of competing sounds. Taxis crawled along the kerbs, drivers leaning on their horns to attract passengers. Hookers strutted up and down the sidewalk, seeking a different type of client. Cicadas provided an ever-present accompaniment to the man-made racket.

Milton stood by the kerb and waited until a blue taxi approached him. The car stopped and the driver’s window jerked down.

“Where you go?”

Milton found himself looking at a middle-aged man with buck teeth and an optimistic but enthusiastic comb-over. He had to raise his voice to make himself heard over the gamelan music that was blaring from the radio. Milton ignored the incomprehensible—to his ears, at least—mixture of metallophones, drums, gongs, and bamboo flutes.

“Nusa Dua. The Hilton?”

“Of course. How much you pay?”

Milton peeled a twenty-dollar bill from the roll in his pocket. “You take dollars?”

The driver’s smile broadened, his misshapen teeth evident despite the poor light inside the car. “Everyone take dollar. Get in.”

Milton climbed inside, and the driver pulled out into the heavy traffic along Ngurah Rai before muscling his way into the outer lane, ignoring the blasts of horns as he did so. He made no effort at conversation, seemingly content to just nod his head in time to the music.

Milton watched the streets of Kuta pass by. He saw street vendors selling everything from magazines to motorcycles, with a different stall every few metres, the traders sheltering in the shade of the palm trees that lined the road. The driver slowed for a bottleneck that had formed in the run-up to a bridge, and Milton noticed an elaborate temple on the banks of the river. They cleared the bridge, and the road gave way to the Nusa Dua road; the driver accelerated toward Bualu. The journey took another fifteen minutes, and then the driver pulled up outside the entrance to a private road. A large block of stone divided the road ahead, HILTON inscribed on it. The road proceeded beneath a stone archway that was laden down with purple frangipani and hibiscus.

The driver edged up to the archway and stopped in front of a lowered barrier. A uniformed security guard approached, a Glock stowed in a holster that was clipped to his belt. He spoke to the driver in Indonesian.

“You stay here?” the driver asked, turning to Milton.

“No,” he said. “Tell him I’m here to see Victoria Deschamps.”

The guard caught that. “You said Deschamps?”

“That’s right.”

“Your name, please?”

“John Smith.”

“Very good, Mr. Smith. She called and said to expect you.”