But before he could ask for her phone number, something shifted in the air, a slight hum of tension, and self-preservation told him to slip around the corner at once. There was shouting behind him as he strolled away, trying to look casual. He wasn’t the only one, he noticed—a handful of the Chinese students were also leaving the scene, not ready yet to be martyrs for the cause. He didn’t blame them. Protesting was one thing, but getting arrested was serious business.

A safe distance away, he turned back and saw her, at least he thought it was her, held in an armlock by two policemen, refusing to let go of her banner—it trailed by her side. She looked serene, almost mischievous, a still point amidst this hurly-burly. Something wilted inside him. He had to meet her again. Already he was thinking how best to find her. He could still see her face. What is it, he wondered, that made you look at another human being, and somehow just know?

•

Even though he can barely manage a shuffle, the nurses encourage him to get up and walk around, because otherwise his muscles will atrophy and he might get bedsores. He obliges with his ungainly walking frame, sometimes making it as far as the rooftop garden with its reflexology path and sterile little flower boxes. The main attraction is the view—it’s high enough here to look over the city, the tall colourful blocks and, in the distance, what he imagines to be the grey mass of Malaysia.

If he gets out of here, he decides, he will travel. See a bit more of the world in the time left to him. Why didn’t he do it when he could? There were the children, of course, but when they were grown, when he was still healthy and could easily have afforded it, why did he never seek out the unfamiliar?

When he visited Siew Li in prison, they promised each other so many things. She needed to look forward to something, but so did he, because the present was so unbearable. He felt guilty, each time, that he got to leave her behind and go out into the bright world. He told her what he’d done and seen, embellishing the details a little if it didn’t seem exciting enough. Best not to ask her about herself: it depressed her to have nothing new to report, just the dank walls of her cell, maybe a mild improvement in the food or a nastier interrogation than usual.

The pain of those three years might be why he never visited his niece Stella, not once the whole time she was put away. He feels bad about this, as he does about so much else. He could have spoken to her after, could have sent a message, but he did nothing. Luckily he was already estranged from Barnaby at that point, otherwise this would surely have been the last straw.