Cavalier spoke of the strange call from Al Haut. Like most Thais, Pin was spiritual.

‘Serena and I think you’re right. Pon will be fine.’

Cavalier smiled. He had always disliked Pin’s obsession with her scruffy, weird, lifelike doll. But this time, he would settle for the comfort Serena seemed to bring her.

‘Tell me about this pastor,’ she said.

‘All I know is that he was with Wombat in Melbourne when he called me.’

‘Must be some sort of faith healer.’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘You know I lost my firstborn?’

‘You told me very little. It was too painful to discuss.’

‘I try to forget. She was the reason I married my first ex. Serena had a few complications at birth.’

‘Serena?’

‘Yes,’ Pin said quietly. Cavalier didn’t have to ask why her beloved doll had the same name as her lost child.

*

Cavalier sped the bike even through the tortuous mountain barrier that had to be negotiated after the city of Tak to reach the town of Mae Sot. He manoeuvred his way past trucks and other vehicles. Few drivers seemed to be paying respect to the woeful conditions that caused him to make sliding skids as he ducked in and out of the traffic.

He arrived at the town’s main hospital at 1.30 a.m. and hurried through a maze of corridors reeking with antiseptic to a ward populated with road accident victims. Most of the patients were young; many had been in motorbike crashes. It was the first day of the school holidays and teenagers had been celebrating, some with more gusto than they should have.

Pon was lying on her back, tubes attached to saline drips, her bed surrounded by relatives, including her grandmother, with whom she had been staying.

Cavalier kissed his daughter on the cheek. His eyes were moist, his emotions mixed. For a few moments he recalled seeing her for the first time in seven years in a terrible state on the Bangkok Express, where she had been drugged and beaten by her captor. Again, Cavalier was grateful that she was alive, but distressed to see her in this state. He had visited her at the Chiang Rai hospital where she had recovered slowly from a long ordeal. Pon had begged her parents to let her travel to Mae Sot to see her grandmother, whom she had not seen for so long. Pin had relented, much against Cavalier’s wishes. Eager to resume a normal life, Pon had borrowed the bike that had led to the accident. Now she was motionless and helpless again. He squeezed her long-fingered hand. There was no response, just the steady beep of the machine monitoring her pulse.