Jim and Marvin went back a way. They’d shared a house in Vientiane in the sixties. They’d seen the country at its most corrupt and now they were seeing it at its most repressed. Both men were confident that it wouldn’t be long before the repression subsided and the corruption made a triumphant comeback. Dtui had immediately recalled Civilai’s description of the Customs department at Tar Deua.

“So, my boy, you’re a plumber?” said Jim with his arm around Phosy’s shoulder as they walked into the street.

It wasn’t an outright lie. Phosy was very handy with a wrench and undertook most of the repairs at the police dormitory bathroom. He’d decided nothing would be gained by announcing who he was to the group. But he was with a canny crew of journalistic vagabonds. Jim sniggered.

“Something funny?” Phosy asked.

“Nothing at all,” said Jim.

Phosy knew his cover was blown.

“What gave me away?” he asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps the manager calling you chief inspector?”

“I didn’t think anyone heard.”

“We’re daft. Not deaf.”

Phosy raised his voice for the crowd on the grassy pavement.

“Then I want you all to know I’m only here to chaperone my wife, for obvious reasons. I’m not spying. I’m off duty.”

“Relax, Constable,” said Marvin. “We’ve been riding around on bicycles all day. Nobody followed us. No guard post stopped us. I got the feeling nobody was interested in us at all.”

“I imagine that’s what the Soviets want us to write,” said Bjorn, the oldest and most opinionated of the Swedes. “How free this place is. No shadowy characters taking notes. No hidden cameras. No bugs in the rooms.”

“I got bugs,” said Jim. “Big bastards in the bathroom.”

“All we get is a jolly drunk policeman and his pretty wife,” Bjorn continued. “How can we not write lovingly about this lie?”

“Here he goes again,” said Marvin.