The next incident was at Vaughan Road, a little before Christmas. Others followed, so many that they came to seem commonplace. An explosion at Meyer Road shattered all the windows of the Ambassador Hotel, and a year later another caused minor damage to the Raffles Hotel. In between, there were false alarms, mistaken reports of troop landings all over the peninsula, rumours of commandos parachuting in and blanketing the east coast.

It was like a game, at first—long enough after the war for people to enjoy the whiff of danger. (“It feels like living in a novel. A thriller,” said Mollie, when the news first broke. She was fascinated by the whole affair.) Yet despite the new safety measures, life had to continue for the economy to keep growing. There was so much money to be made in this new country, dazzling new buildings and wide roads funded by the ships that streamed in and out of the harbour, the planeloads of brightly-clothed visitors with full wallets. The Tourist Board waited with impatience for the British to withdraw so their military base, already surrounded by every imaginable security feature, could be turned into a fine new airport. (And Jason was busy, in his corner office, completing the paperwork for these transformations.)

The merciful thing about this time was that no foreigners were killed. With no resources to speak of, none of the rubber and tin that fuelled Malaysia, none of the oil which sent Brunei into its careless spendthrift decline, Singapore depended on its fledgling hospitality industry. This was a different Singapore, an island of white beaches and coconut trees. MacDonald House, constructed in 1946 by Palmer & Turner, was the first large office building of the post-war era, one of the tallest on the island. Perhaps its very prominence made it a target for the saboteurs who didn’t know the island at all, and so headed with their fatal cargo for the bank that stood out proud and red against the grey storm clouds.

More than forty bombs in a year and a half, but the one most people remember even now was at MacDonald House. This explosion was surprising not for the mere fact that it happened, but for the success and efficiency with which it was brought off. True, had detonation been delayed ten minutes, a score of mechanics from the workshop next door would have been enjoying their coffee break in the alleyway beside the bank; and true, the culprits made a particularly amateurish job of covering their tracks (and they were killed for it, and Jason waited outside the prison for their deaths). But people had died and property was damaged, and that was seen as evidence that the conflict was deepening.