You've only got to make one little mistake with Pol Pot, and that's your lot. Tucker, drumming his fingers on the control column of the Siai-Marchetti. People have disappeared, you know what I'm saying?

Yes indeed.

Then one of them got behind the wheel and started up while the other dragged my jacket half off and used the sleeves to bind my arms behind me; then he whipped the krama offhis head and tied it round my eyes and pulled it tight; it smelled of sweat and something else — hair oil? Scents were important now because we were in a red sector and I couldn't see anything — scents, sounds, tactile impressions, whatever information I could pick up, however slight: I might need to recognize this man again, and the hair oil might do it for me if he came close enough.

Bloody gun in my ribs, to remind me not to do anything silly; he hadn't cleaned the barrel for God knew how long, I could smell it, these weren't the Queen's Light Infantry.

Stones pinging from under the tyres as we bumped our way down to the camp, the driver shouting something in Khmer and my escort shouting back, We going to put him against a wall, are we? But we must use the mind for preparation, yes, not for glum conjecture.

Twilight suddenly, cast by the camouflage net as we rolled to a halt, no more than a lessening of the light at the edges of the krama by a few degrees but enough to inform me. A strong smell of canvas — the camouflage net — and diesel oil, rubber, cooking stoves, tobacco smoke, chickens.

The rifle prodding again. 'Bouges pas!' Don't move, but of course not, with my arms bound, what would it profit me, you espece d'idiot?

The other man had gone off — to fetch someone in authority? — but my escort stayed close, the muzzle of his gun resting against my chest the whole time. There was a line of light along the top of the blindfold but even when I turned my eyes upward as far as they'd go there was no useful vision taking place: it was just peripheral, capable of detecting movement but no images.

'Look,' I said in French, 'you're making a mistake.'

The man didn't answer.

'And that's okay,' I said. 'People make mistakes. I do it all the time. But the thing is, my government isn't going to like — '

He told me to shut the fuck up and when the other man came back they hustled me across the camp to a concrete cell and threw me inside and slammed the door and locked it.

Bare walls, bare floor, cracks in the concrete, streaks of dried blood near the door, a sandal lying in a corner with the strap broken, human faeces, dried, not fresh, they hadn't put anyone else in here recently, the door made of metal, streaks of rust where rain had come in through the gap at the top, the lock massive, the only light coming through a grille in the ceiling.

I'd twisted my arms free of the jacket and taken the blindfold off as soon as my escorts had gone; that was some time ago, perhaps two hours. I hadn't untied the sleeves or the knot of the krama; when I heard them coming back I would restore the image of the helpless captive, because that was what I wanted to show them — a man who didn't even try to free himself when left on his own, who would not, therefore, be expected to make any attempt to escape.

There had been vehicle movement during the time I'd been here, regular, routine, as if base manoeuvres were being conducted under cover of the camouflage net. At least one of the vehicles was a half-track or a tank — I heard the links rolling — and once I caught the gear-whine of a gun turret swivelling. But most of it was light stuff, its exhaust gas smelling of petrol engines, not diesel.

In between the bursts of mechanical noise I'd heard chickens clucking, the falsely reassuring sound of a sleepy farmyard: those smooth brown eggs had supplied the fats and proteins to the human muscle that would keep this intruder overpowered, perhaps drag him to the wall and squeeze the trigger.

Getting thirsty.

In the small grille overhead there was no direct sunlight, but by the sun's waning strength I put the time at close to five, on the threshold of evening. They'd taken my watch, of course: the impoverished soldiery always enjoys toys. It's also the first and essential step in the process of disorientation, denying the captive the knowledge of time, but in this case I didn't think they'd be keeping me here long: if they thought I was an intelligence agent they'd do what they'd done to the one in the Piper Seneca at Phnom Penh airport.

Another diesel engine rattled suddenly into the first few hundred revs and stayed there, sending exhaust gas through the gap under the door, and of course I thought of Auschwitz and it didn't improve my day. Not that they'd take the time for that sort of thing if they decided to write me off: they'd use the bullet, their favourite toy of all.

Hot in here, and the thirst was getting worse. I would ask for some water when they came back: they'd expect me to, and that would conform to the first principles: Never worry your captors, we tell the neophytes at Norfolk. Do what they expect you to do, keep them relaxed, get them to trust you, so that when you make your break you'll surprise them. Never underestimate the value of surprise: in any delicate situation it can gain you at least a second, sometimes even more, and that can save your life if you've planned your break with care and the timing is critical. The 'delicate' is classic Holmes: he delights in understatement.

The drumming of the big diesel died away, and now I heard boots nearing, crunching over the stones. For the fifth time I twisted back into my jacket and slipped the krama over my eyes and waited, dropping and sitting against the wall with my head drooping, even when the door was banged open and the boots came in. Then I raised it, as if I could see.

'Who are you?' In French, with an atrocious accent. But it was the bark that got my attention.

'I gave them my papers,' I said. Tone weary, resigned.

A rush of Khmer and someone came and whipped the blindfold off, not Choen, one of his men — but on Choen's orders: he wanted to see my eyes, to tell when I lied.

'I not ask about your papers. I ask who you are.'

He wasn't a short man, for an Oriental, but stood with his chest out and his shoulders back as if he sensed he ought to put on a bit of height; or it was simply a caricature of the pigeon-chested parade-ground posture. His face was flat and his mouth pulled down in an expression of arrogance, inflexibility; his eyes were narrowed and unblinking, one of them not perfectly aligned with the other. His red check krama had some sort of emblem pinned at the side; perhaps it signified his rank.

I struggled onto my feet. 'Can I have a drink of water?'

'Who are you?'

'David Jones,' I said. 'And you?'

I didn't expect him to answer that one but he pulled his shoulders back another half inch and said, 'I am Colonel Choen of Khmer Rouge Army.'

'How do you do, Colonel?'

He ignored this, as expected. 'What are you doing on private road out there?' he asked me.

'I told your people — I lost my way.'

'What was destination when you "lose way"?'

'I was trying to find the lake.'

'In this direction?'

'Look, Colonel, I arrived in Cambodia only a — '

'In Kampuchea!'

'Oh, right, yes, Kampuchea. I've only been here a few days, so I haven't really got my bearings yet. I thought — '

'Why you want to find Tonle Sap?' The lake.

'I'm with Trans-Kampuchean Air Services. We're thinking of running a Beriev Tchaika amphibian service to the coast, bringing fish in to Phnom Penh, pretty well straight out of the nets. The hotels — '