“Promise that you won’t keep Mimi in Vientiane for a long time. She has to look after everyone. We need her here.”

“Oh, I promise,” said Phosy.

“Me too,” said Sihot.

“And me,” said Jiep, crossing his heart and hoping not to die.

“Did you really need to break the gun barrel over his head?” Roper asked.

“I’m sorry,” said Daeng. “I get jumpy when someone points a musket at me. Those things are notoriously sensitive. They go off at a sneeze.”

Daeng, Roper, and the pilot were sitting on a bench in the central pavilion. They now had three gun barrels pointed at them, and these were very serious AK-47s. No danger of them going off at a sneeze. The male villagers, comfortably back in their more natural state, sat around the hut chewing and spitting and picking their noses like the thugs they probably were.

“This is the point where you tell me I don’t understand ethnic culture,” said Daeng.

“You’ve placed us in a very difficult situation,” said Roper.

“Me? I’m the only one who understands what’s happening here.”

“Enlighten me.”

“This is not a poor village,” she said. “They have a Cummins generator that could only have been delivered here by helicopter. They have brand-new AK-47s. They’ve changed out of their flip-flops and are running around in Adidas sports shoes. In front of the huts I saw working boots but there are no farm implements to be seen. What do they do to sustain themselves? I think you know the answer to that. The girls we brought here don’t speak because they don’t have a common language. They’ve been bought or kidnapped from remote villages. Are you keeping up with me?”

She was expecting an argument but Roper shook his head and looked down at his leather loafers.

“The refugee camp security division suspected such a thing might happen again,” he said.

“Again?” said Daeng.

“Couriers bringing in children they claim to be their own,” said Roper. “They register as a family to get priority for resettlement overseas. The camp communities are usually very aware of what’s going on around them. A camp is essentially a large village where families mix and children play together. There were two occasions when residents reported suspected couriers, one of which turned out to be a correct call. The courier was sent home. The camp organized a program of awareness-raising, encouraging people to report suspicious behavior. I honestly believed the practice had been curtailed.”

“You knew all this but you didn’t see anything suspicious about these girls?”

“I’m not a child psychologist. I don’t know how children are likely to respond to the death of their mother.”

“Who probably wasn’t their mother.”

Roper’s face was lined with embarrassment. “I didn’t know that. I thought seeing their father would help. I assumed it was some sort of trauma.”