She stared at him. “Why would you do this for me?”

“Because you needed a break.”

“But you don’t know me.”

He looked at her earnestly. “You think I was going to forget about you after what you did?”

She frowned, puzzled. “What? What did I do?”

“Upgraded me.”

She frowned at him before realising that he was joking. “I’m serious,” she scolded him. “Why would you do this?”

Milton sat down on the chair. “Because it was the right thing to do. You needed someone to look out for you today and I was able to help. There’s nothing more to it than that.”

She bit her lip, as if weighing up what else to say. After a moment, she sighed, scrubbed her nails against her scalp and stood up. “I need a shower. Would that be okay?”

“Of course,” Milton replied. He needed one, too, but he could wait. “There are toiletries in the bathroom. I’ll hop in when you’re done.”

Sakura looked at him bleakly, the vigour in her eyes that he remembered from their first meeting all gone. She looked bone-tired.

“What happens next?”

“We get showered and then we get something to eat.”

“And then?”

“And then we talk.”

III. Tuesday

Part III

Tuesday

43

Milton rolled off the sofa and stood, moving as quietly as he could. He checked his watch: it was six in the morning. He crossed the lounge and peeked through the open door into the bedroom. Sakura was still asleep. He wasn’t surprised that she was tired. She had been through an ordeal, both physical and mental, and it was going to take her a little while to recover.

Milton pulled on a T-shirt and a pair of shorts and went outside. He closed the door and walked down through the hotel’s lush gardens to the beach. He didn’t have his running shoes with him, but the prospect of a barefoot run on the sand was a pleasant one. He had always found exercise to be meditative, and he needed some time to himself to work through what might come next.

* * *

Lizards basked in the early heat and a boisterous lorikeet landed in the branches of a palm tree overhead. Milton made his way to the water’s edge and looked out over the ocean. It looked as if it was going to be another glorious day. Any sign of the storm that had rolled across the bay the previous evening was long gone, and now the skies were a deep blue, and the sun, rising above the horizon, was a fiery orange.