Si pregamo i passeggieri per Bangkok di recarsi all' entrata d'imbarco numero uno.

Final check for messages. Negative.

Bangkok and the heat of a humid noon burnishing the gilded cupolas; palms and tamarinds and somewhere in the reek of kerosene a hint of sandalwood. Inside the building a bunch of people, mainly Japanese, were crowding the Royal Bank of Thailand counter: that would be the devaluazione monetaria featured in La Strada.

Nothing on the message board for Clive Wing.

There was a twenty-minute delay on the screen at China Airlines and I asked about it and they said the plane had come in late from Tokyo avoiding a typhoon that was now moving north-eastwards towards Korea, so I had time to walk around, stiff as a board after twenty-one hours up there and already feeling the disorientation as the metabolism struggled to adjust, the windows full of jade and teak and silk, the smell of incense and a display of gold pieces on black velvet and a board showing the world market: Mexico 50 Pesos 1.21 tr. oz. US $242 Bid, $249 Asked, Austria 100 Corona .980 tr. oz. US $190 Bid, $797 Asked, the only two that interested me, the prices much lower than in London or New York.

Will passengers for Hong Kong please go to Gate No. 1.

Twelve-twenty-five and the air steamy across the tarmac, tso sun, tso sun, music tinkling from the speakers, no smoking, seat-belts, so forth, the thing was he probably thought I'd blow up in his face if all they'd had for me was a routine investigation into Tewson's death and he was absolutely right, I would have. So he'd had to catch me softlee, softlee, and not the first time, it was Egerton's speciality, and I would have walked out on him flat at London Airport the minute I knew about the reservation except for two possibilities: either George Henry Tewson was a top kick in some kind of specialized field or this operation was just too sticky or tricky or hair-trigger sensitive for anyone else to want to take on. He could have gone right through the list without getting a bite - because we can refuse a mission and there's nothing they can do about it - so he'd come down to the one man who might conceivably be persuaded, the one who'd been out of ops for nearly two months and was ready to take anything, anything, so long as they wrapped it up to look fancy.

Silk and small hands, a cherry-red mouth.

'Would you like some tea?'

Eighteen-forty and a cloth of gold flung across the window where I sat, the humped green hills of two hundred islands growing night-black before their time as the day lingered along the Tropic of Cancer, we hope that you enjoyed your flight, a rhythmic vibration setting in and the weight coming off the seat, and will fly with us again on China Airlines, fishing junks below on the flat gold water, sampans and a submarine and the chalk-white wake of a hydrofoil as it settled to the surface, in from Macau.

'Will you be staying long in Hong Kong?'

'It depends on what business I find.'

'Oh yes, you told me - you deal in coins.'

'Coins and bullion, they're the best hedge against inflation.'

'Ah yes.' He undipped his seat-belt, smiling. 'In Tokyo we put our faith in transistors..'

The white Tiger Balm pagoda across the window, and Victoria Peak, then boats coming past in a swinging blur as we flattened along the approach path, tankers, freighters, two destroyers of the US 7th Fleet and a group of junks from Canton with the Chinese Communist yellow-starred flag and then the sub again, 'S' class with the Union Jack, belts until the plane has come to a stop, the hollow roar as the jets reversed and then the unaccustomed silence as the power came off, leaving conversations suddenly exposed.

. . . but heroin's their worst problem, even the schoolkids have started using it.., . . , they're not really poor, darling, I think they just like living on boats ...

. . . the prettiest girls in Asia, Joe, and I'm not kidding , . .

Warmth underfoot across the tarmac and the air clammy against the face, the end of a long day's heat, the sinuous flicker of her cheongsam ahead of us as she led the way against the frieze of ponderously moving shapes, Swissair, Lufthansa, Transworld, and beyond them a curtain of jewels across the harbour as the island began burning in the dusk.

'Taxi?'

'Cathay Hotel.'

'Take ferry?'

'No, tunnel.'

The Cathay because in the_ dossier of Nora Millicent Tewson her present address was given as 403 Jade Imperial Mansion, ten minutes' walk away. Besides, if I chose anything more than seventy dollars a day those arthritic old tarts in Accounts would bust a corset.

The place was near Cat Street and there was a boy outside roasting a duck over charcoal, with a woman already waiting. The clatter of a mah-jong game sounded from a doorway farther along, where a letter-writer sat with an upturned keg for her table.

I passed the shop twice, wanting to familiarize myself with its environs, and then went in. The place was full of snakes, a hundred of them, I can't stand the bloody things.

'Mr Kwan?'

'No, Younger Born. I am Mr Chiang.'

He came out from behind his jars of snakes and stood with his hands together, short and at first glance fat, then if you looked again, muscular.

'Will it rain, Mr Chiang?'

'It has rained.'

'Will the typhoon come?'

'It has gone.'

'How many brothers have you?'

'Seven.'

'And sisters?'

'Seven thousand.'

'What is the goose?'

'It is gold.'

I showed him the scar under my wrist and he nodded, going to the door of the shop and closing it and coming back. The sizzling of the duck was no longer audible but the clack of the mah-jong pieces came faintly through the walls.

'Don't these bloody things ever get out?'

'They have no wish. They are fat now, and ready soon to hibernate. That is when the price will be high.'

'I'm happy for you.'

He led me through the bead curtain and up some pitch-dark stairs to a room under the roof, the air heady with herbs. There was dust everywhere from the sacks filling the shelves, except on the radio, which was as clean as if he polished it every day.

'What are your main stations, Mr Chiang?'

'Pekin and of course Taipei.'

'The Embassies?'

'Your Embassy in Pekin, your Consulate in Taipei.' He went over to the set, soft-footed and eager to please. 'You wish to make contact?'

'Not now.'

He was disappointed, stepping back but still looking at the set as if it had suddenly stopped working.