Mollie’s brother Jason was in his office on Connaught Drive when the first reports came on the radio, a few minutes after the explosion itself. There was a moment of absolute stillness in the room before Jason was down the stairs and on his bicycle, pedalling past the Padang and then down Penang Road. Traffic thickened on his approach to the red brick building, as drivers stopped to stare and abandoned cars littered the street.

Rain made the scene dreamlike. Bank workers stood calmly on the pavement, many of them bleeding from small cuts. The tall white men from the Australian High Commission, which occupied rooms above the bank, looked unhurt but far angrier. A thin old woman lay on a stretcher as ambulance workers tried to staunch the blood seeping from her forehead. The building looked undamaged from the outside, apart from the windows, which had sprayed their glass outward for a hundred feet around and now gaped black and empty.

A policeman in khaki shorts stood in front of Jason as he tried to approach the building. Stop, he said, grabbing Jason’s shoulder so he almost fell off his bike—no entry permitted. He stumbled over the English words. My sister, said Jason, trying to keep his voice calm. My sister inside. But the policeman merely repeated, as if from a script, Awas, danger, the building is unsafe.

Men with notebooks and cameras circled the wreckage warily. Rumours rippled through the crowd: a burst gas main, structural defects, and then, with more and more resonance, the word bomb.

When the police grudgingly confirmed this, reporters formed a queue behind the two working telephone booths, and photographers sped off in taxis to get their pictures developed before the print deadline. Everyone seemed aware the story now being created would eventually work its way into the new national mythology. This was the worst incident yet of Konfrontasi, the confrontation with Indonesia. This was Sukarno tightening the screws, and there would have to be some kind of response.

Police fanned out on both sides of the road to prevent looting. Jason clung to his bicycle, saying over and over, my sister, my sister, until they left him alone. He found himself marooned on the black sea of rain-slick road, shards of glass glistening at his feet like stars. The British bomb disposal squad arrived, men with brave voices. They looked more confident than the local police, but there was little for them to do except mark off the perimeter with little flags and speak urgently into their walkie-talkies. They sounded like people in films.