'When did you come to Hong Kong?'

He swung his large head to look at me. 'A long time ago.'

'From the mainland?'

He looked away, and in a moment went down the steep flight of stairs ahead of me, his stubby hand on the rail. 'Yes, from the mainland. We swam across Deep Bay, one night. But I reached the shore alone.'

'Who was with you?'

'My wife.'

One of the snakes rose heavily as our shadows passed over it, and spiralled round the big glass jar; I could hear the dry scuffing sound of its skin as it moved. Mr Chiang stood with his short black shoes neatly together.

'That is all?'

'Yes, Elder Born.'

He unbolted the door and I left him. The duck was done but the boy and the woman were arguing about the price. On the other side from where the letter-writer sat there was a jeweller's and I went in and asked if I could use the phone. Mr Chiang's number was among those I'd memorized from the briefing material and dialled it.

Wai?'

'Lee seen-saang hai-shue ma?'

'Nee-shue mo yon sing Lee.'

'Doei m-jue. Ngaw daap chaw seen.'

I hung up and put a dollar on the counter but the girl shook her head so I circumspectly picked it up and thanked her and turned left outside the jeweller's so as not to pass the snake-shop again. When London sets up a safe-house abroad it doesn't fool around because the whole mission can sometimes be thrown in jeopardy by an unreliable contact and of course blown up if he's a double, and they know that, they've known it for so long that a lot of us still survive. It was just a reflex that made me do it and anyway it wasn't conclusive because if he'd wanted to phone anyone to say that Wing had arrived in Hong Kong he needn't have done it within three minutes of my leaving the place: but that was when he'd be most likely to do it. I'd lowered my voice and all he knew was that one of the thirty thousand foreign devils in Hong Kong speaking atrocious Cantonese had got the wrong number.

And all I knew was that for a period of ten seconds during the critical three minutes when he'd been most likely to inform a contact that Clive Wing had arrived on the island his phone had been innocently disengaged. Most of us work on the principle that if you've got the time and the chance to check every step of the way, it's worth doing. It's a bore checking the ignition wires for tampering every time you get back into your car after you've had to leave it in a suspected area and I must have done it a couple of hundred times, including the time in Calcutta when I found they'd rigged a bomb.

I picked up a dark-blue Capri from Fleetway Rent-a-Car in Watson Road and took it past the Cathay and found some shadow where the trees in the park hid some of the light from the lamps. Jade Imperial Mansion was one block distant and 1 went there on foot and saw him sitting in a Hillman with the visor down but I didn't stop because this was completely unknown territory and I needed to feel my way in.

I didn't stop at the board in the lobby either because there were people about and I noted them. There was enough light on the board to confirm in passing that 403 was on the fourth floor and I took the lift to the top and went down seven floors by the emergency exit stairs, finding the back entrance and going through the service complex and coming out by the park and getting into the Capri, putting the window up to leave a reflection and checking the time, 8.44. The parking slot for 403 was on the far side of the building but there was only one exit and at 9.21 I heard the Hillman start up and a minute later the Jensen came through the gates and turned west and then north and then west again into Gloucester Road and we were in business, the traffic fairly thin because most people were in the theatres and restaurants and supper-clubs at this hour, and the only one I didn't like was the Taiwan-registered Toyota and 1 took a right and a left and a left and came up on the lights at red and watched him go past, no reaction whatsoever, too far behind the Hillman to be tagging that, but it had been worth the risk of losing the Jensen and having to find it again because the opposition-in-place in whatever city are very watchful and you can pick up ticks just by stopping to tie your shoe-lace.

In six blocks I came up on the Hillman again and this time overtook it, slotting in behind the Jensen and noting the ash-blonde Peter Pan head that never turned to look sideways, the occasional glint of emerald below her ear, the way her eyes flicked obliquely upwards at the mirror and down again, once the flash of a gold lighter, her movements deft and her driving calculated as we ran into Harcourt Road and bore left along Cotton Tree Drive. At the next set of lights I went past her and got a clear visual impression in profile, thin, bony, rat-faced attractive, her head not turning, the flash of an emerald ring as she used the ashtray, then I was past and put three private cars and a taxi between us before I peeled off and made a U-turn and came back to wait.

Flower should have been on to me by now but he was looking straight ahead as he cleared the lights and I made the turn and fell in two cars behind, beginning to worry because he'd looked so young: the top security departments were taking them straight out of school these days and letting them loose too soon.

A right into Garden Road and past the Hilton and left again and slowing, taking the smaller streets: she knew her way and didn't hesitate, any more than Nora Millicent Tewson ever hesitated, I was beginning to think, about anything.

The Hillman tried to stop in time to pull in somewhere behind her when she began slowing but there wasn't enough room so he went on past and left her looking for a slot. I backed up and couldn't find one and put the Capri under a Strictly No Parking sign and found cover and waited. There were a few people about and Flower wasn't far behind her when she came into view and crossed the road and went into the Orient Club. I gave it ten minutes and followed.

'You are a member, sir?'

All smiles but standing right in my path.

'No.'

'Would you care to take out a membership?'

'Please.'

He went on talking while I signed the form, nothing more than a formality of course, police regulations, licensed as a private club, many apologies for the necessity, so forth, one hundred Hong Kong dollars.

Imperceptibly he had moved out of my path as I reached for my wallet, and I was ushered between heavy curtains into the traditional ambience of incense and candlelight, not a large place but pretty full, the tables mostly in alcoves, the waitresses Eurasian and topless, the men mostly in white suits and DJ's, the women discreetly glittering, some of them wives. Imported floor-show, Edwardian vaudeville, half a dozen long-legged girls kicking their net stockings out, those were the days and all that.

They got me a table and I began working, picked her out over there near the band, still alone at a table for three, watching the floor-show, smoking, smoking rather hard and sometimes looking around, the earrings catching the light, not looking for anyone, but at them. Flower was nowhere near her but perched at the far end of the bar looking bored. When I was sure I asked for a telephone and a girl came and plugged one in.

'Directory Enquiry - can I help you?'

'Please. I'd like the Orient Club.'

'Which club?'

'The Orient.'

'Just a moment'

Across in the alcove she was lighting another cigarette, looking up, looking around, but not at people coming in through the curtains: she wasn't waiting for anyone. They were bringing her first drink, no cherries or anything fancy for Nora Tewson: it looked like straight Scotch.

Enquiry gave me the number and I dialled.

She began on the drink straight away, she's still very cut up, Macklin had told me.

'Orient Club.'

'I'd like to speak to Mr Flower.'

Had to repeat it, then had to spell it 'He is a member?'

'Yes.' He'd come straight in.

It wasn't the kind of place where you went up to lonely-looking women and asked them for a dance but someone was doing it, an elderly and elegant Chinese. She was shaking her head a little too emphatically and he took a step back, bowing quickly, dissembling. I suppose he'd thought that by her looks she had more breeding, not a very good judge.

'Mister Fowler not here, sir.'

So I spelt it again and said he should be there because he'd asked me to telephone him. There were probably a hundred people here, a lot of them on the small dance-floor now the girls were taking a break, and they didn't want to go and look, I quite saw their point. In five minutes they got him, and the bartender showed him the phone in the corner, just inside the curtains.

'Hello?'

'I'm from London,' I said. 'I came in on Flight fifty-three.'

The code-introduction for the first to the fifteenth was to throw in a random number and listen for two below and four above, world-wide, all missions, it saved trouble.

'That's how we missed each other,' he said. 'I was on three seven.'

He was turning round slightly, just enough to keep his eye on Nora Tewson. I asked him: