children of Calcutta, they are preparing them for war. The children of Calcutta have just been issued with satchels for any bombing, gas masks and rubber for their mouth in case a bomb shakes their teeth around… They’ve dug trenches in the Maiden for children caught playing if the enemy strike. At the moment the children jump in and out of them as if they’re at a playground, but as I’ve said, if Rangoon falls - the Japanese will be in Calcutta by spring.’

He was looking at his glass of whiskey and refused to look at Bit who was cross that he had answered so provokingly. The fact was Dutch had spoken like a true-outsider; someone who had no stake in the results of conflict at all, as if they even amused him.

I BEGIN TO EXPLAIN

1945

Before we go any further, I suppose I should explain a few things.

I join you as a narrator - not officially a partaker – three years on from that first meeting, and all these pages that you are reading form part of an investigation into the deaths of certain people, one night less than four months ago. At least we presume they are all dead – only one body has been recovered.

When I say recovered I mean found mysteriously half way through the jungle on the edges of a royal estate, too destroyed by wild life for identification, though entirely dressed for dinner and clearly drunk at the time of death.