“It’s called the tap code,” said Daeng. “It’s like Morse Code for beginners. The POWs in the camps developed it when they were banned from speaking. It’s alphabetical. You have a letter grid in your head and you count the number of taps you hear until you’ve spelled out a word. One quiet night Siri and I developed a French language version.”

“Why?” asked Dtui.

“You never know when you’re going to be incarcerated and have your tongue cut out,” said Siri.

“He’s right,” said Daeng, “You don’t.”

“So Daeng’s there tapping away, and I’m doing my best to keep a count and concentrate and talk to a maniac at the same time,” said Siri. “And after a very long time I realize my wife was putting our lives in the hands . . . the paws of a neurotic mongrel.”

There came a muted howl from the street.

“I put a lot of faith in our dog,” said Daeng. “I hoped he might sense our fear. He’d stood looking at the dog door many times, but I’d never managed to coax him inside. I guess a building’s a frightening proposition for a dog that spent most of his life in the jungle.”

“I hoped we’d built up enough gratitude points from all the meals and affection for him to break his rule just that once,” said Siri. “Then I get the second plan tap coming through explaining the two-man Bruce Lee kick. But tapping’s a painfully slow process so we hadn’t really outlined the whole thing. And then it was too late. Ugly was there and we just relied on the warrior spirit to make it work. And there’s Daeng flying through the air.”

“Not bad for a woman with chronic arthritis,” said Phosy. He’d read Dr. Porn’s files.

“It was the sedative,” said Daeng. “I could feel nothing below my waist.”

“It hadn’t occurred to us that Crazy Rajhid would be skinny enough to get through the dog door,” said Siri, keen to get off the topic of arthritis. “But given his girth I shouldn’t have been surprised. He’d seen the noodle crowd gathering and heard the whistle and the shouts from upstairs. He leaped three garden fences to get here. He should get a medal.”

“Where would we pin it?” asked Tukta.

She didn’t say much, but what she did say usually hit the spot. They drained a lot of laughs out of that, had one more drink and found other things to laugh about. Then they had one more drink. All but Civilai, who was on water. Served him right.

“And why,” asked Phosy, “did your stash of antique sins not go up in flames at the mere scent of fire?”