“I didn’t say goodbye,” said Siew Li woodenly, not as a protest, just a statement of fact. She tried to remember if she’d kissed the twins this morning. Had she ruffled Janet’s hair just before going? She tried to hang on to it, that last touch.

“Unity,” said Lina, clenching her fist for a moment, then she was gone in a flurry of skirts. Siew Li stared after her for a moment, then walked away as fast as she could, her face turned down in case anyone should spot her. Would they come in uniform, she wondered, or just normal office clothes? Were the others at Special Branch on Robinson Road, or had they gone straight to Outram Prison? She kept putting one foot in front of the other, no destination in mind, glancing out into the road in case a free taxi came along.

For the rest of the day, she kept forgetting to breathe. So many hours to kill. She ended up at the Galaxy Cinema, reasoning that a darkened room was probably the safest place to be. They were screening an English film, and she wasn’t entirely able to follow the plot, but at least there wasn’t much talking. A pretty woman with yellow hair seemed unhappy, despite apparently having lots of money, maybe because she kept getting attacked by birds. Siew Li wasn’t sure what she’d done to make the birds angry, but maybe there wasn’t a reason, who knows how bird brains work.

When she came out, the kacang putih uncle was listening to the news on a little transistor radio. She bought a cone of chickpeas as an excuse to linger, uncertain what she was hoping to hear. The stream of crisp English words flowed past, then Lay Kuan’s name, and some others. Three members of parliament detained. A mopping up exercise, to get all the leftists they’d missed during Coldstore. This one was called Operation Pechah. It took her a minute to summon the meaning of the Malay word. Pechah. Smash. She finished her snack and moved on, quickly. Poor Lay Kuan, she thought. All that effort, and she would never take her seat.

The afternoon slipped past, somehow. She wished they’d had a phone put in, like Jason kept talking about. It would have been nice to hear the children’s voices again. Maybe she could call the shop downstairs, leave a message? But she didn’t know the number by heart, and anyway it was too dangerous. Time was doing strange things. She looked at her watch and two minutes had passed, then suddenly it had been almost an hour. She hoped Jason would be able to take care of the children. He’d know to ask his mother for help, and Mollie. It wouldn’t be easy, and he’d blame her for that, but he was so competent. They would turn out all right.