On her last night, Mr Leng picked her up at the hotel and took her to dinner. She tried afterwards to remember the name of the place but never could. It was hard to tell how posh it was, rickety tables beneath trees with fairy lights threaded through their branches, stray cats gnawing at discarded bones in the ditch. Revathi slapped at mosquitoes and ate delicious things tasting of coconut and shrimp, flavoured with spices she couldn’t identify. She asked what each dish was called, intending to ask her parents about it afterwards, but by the time she got back to London, she’d forgotten all the names.

This isn’t real, she thought, this is a respite. Heavy air prickled against her skin as she smiled at Mr Leng. He was so pleased she’d found what she needed, he told her, a voice of the Malaysian people on the other side, someone who could tell the British what really happened in their name, not just here but all over the world.

There were too many strands, all the threads of history, everything that ever happened, more than a single person could grasp. The settled story was only one version. She’d seen how the game played out, the Herald did it sometimes, deciding to support Tollingforth in Tollingforth vs. Conswith, just because the Times was supporting Conswith, Lars arguing that the public deserved to hear the other side.

She allowed herself to daydream a little. Perhaps she could ask to stay out here for a while, maybe even write a book. So many compelling stories here, had anyone done a history of the region? One step at a time. Get this done first.

There would be more work to do over the next few days, facts to check and more sources to pursue, but with Mrs Wong she knew she had dynamite, a compelling voice to put at the centre of her story. A human face for the tragedy. The dead husband, the missing son. It would be hard to mess this one up. Whatever else might have gone wrong with her career, Revathi had a newswoman’s instincts, and she knew this was absolutely red hot. She smiled and clinked her glass against Mr Leng’s, scribbling sentences in her head, each one pinging off every bell in her mind.

•

As she’d known would happen, the article caused a sensation. They had to run a special reprint, and more than one MP raised it in parliament, calling for an enquiry. She was giddy with it, allowing herself the pleasure of having it framed over her desk, so she could look up at it when she should be working. Her parents bought every copy at the newsagent’s and spent the next month distributing them amongst friends and relatives. Her mother stopped suggesting she might look for a more respectable profession in order to attract a husband.