'You alone in jeep?'

'Yes. Look, I'm sorry if I was trespassing, but — '

'Yes. Will be sorry. Yes.'

'For God's sake, can't anyone lose their way in this country?'

Choen looked quickly at the private, and as his hand came up and across I turned my head away just late enough to let him feel he'd made an impact; then I went through the business of crashing against the wall and hitting the floor and grunting in pain and so on, which was easy enough to do with my arms still pinned behind me.

'Why you come to Kampuchea?'

I got onto my feet again. 'Well, quite a few reasons. For — '

'Why you come?'

The private's hand moved and I waited but he didn't do anything this time. 'I was with the UN, originally, and then when I — '

'UN stupid idiots!' He spat, accurately, at my face, and I would have done a great deal to be able to wipe it off. 'This not their country! This Kampuchea! What this country?' It sounded like a question, and he came forward a step, chest out, one eye staring, brighter than the other. 'What this country?'

The private lifted his hand in readiness.

'What? Oh. Right. Kampuchea. Kampuchea.' It was the name they preferred, these people: when the Khmer Rouge had been in control of the country they'd insisted on it, then it was changed back to Cambodia after their defeat. They hadn't liked that. This man didn't like it. His spittle was drying on my face: think of something else.

'UN stupid!' he barked again. 'You English?'

'Yes.' I'd told him that already.

'English stupid idiots! Queen of England stupid cow!'

'I rather think otherwise,' I said.

'You meet Queen of England?'

'Actually, no.'

I could really use a glass of water.

'You fuck Princess Diana?'

'I've yet to enjoy that privilege.'

Knew his London tabloids, kept up with high society.

Suddenly he turned at right angles and strutted to the wall and back to the one opposite, boots grating on the concrete, back to the door, turned, looked at me. 'Who know you in jeep?'

'I'm sorry, I don't quite follow.'

'Who know you in jeep? Answer!'

'Who knew I was driving the jeep?' Oh, right, this was rather important. 'Who knew I was going to the Tonle Sap?'

'Yes.'

'My manager,' I said, 'and the head of the airline, some of the staff, two of my friends, a few other people. I was given the assignment, you understand.'

'When they last see you?'

Things didn't sound terribly good. 'When I left our office. That was — oh, about one o'clock.'

British agent for Trans-Kampuchean Air Services reported missing. Just joking; the only person who'd miss me was Pringle, biding his time in the Hotel Lafayette, ready to pick up on the first ring: I hadn't signalled at noon, so I was technically overdue.

Choen was eyeing me steadily, his mouth pulled down. 'Jeep rented, or belong to airline?'

'It belongs to the airline. Look, I happen to be a man who can keep his mouth shut, Colonel. I strayed onto your territory by accident, but there's no need for me to tell anybody I saw anything; it's none of my business — or theirs. All I'm interested in is working out how we can fly fish to the capital from the lake.'

He didn't say anything, seemed to be waiting to hear more, stood watching my face, one eye filmy, the other bright, deep now, concentrating. So I took it from there, because maybe there was a chance he'd just leave me here in the cell without water or food for a couple of days, have me roughed up a little to warn me off and then kick me out, have me dropped back on the main road.

'I agree the UN was wrong,' I told him reasonably, 'to come busting in to your country, and quite frankly I wasn't sorry when they pulled out. But I'd got to know the place by then, and' — with a shrug — 'I'd met a Kampuchean woman here, you know? I'm seeing her again… she's very pretty.'

The private was staring at me too with his lidless eyes, probably didn't understand what I was saying, was just watching for a wrong move. I didn't have one in mind.

'I was a bit embarrassed, I suppose,' I told the colonel, 'to give you my real reason at first for coming back to Kampuchea. Cherchez la femme, right?'

A diesel rumbled past, one of its tyres sending a stone banging against the metal door. The noise was unexpected and hellishly loud in these close confines but the colonel didn't flinch.

I left it at that, didn't want to overdo things. I was interested now in how Choen was going to answer me. A lot depended on it.

But he didn't say anything at all. He turned to the private and barked some Khmer at him and the private swung round and pulled the door open and yelled something and another man came trotting up with his assault rifle and gave the colonel the revolutionary salute with his fist, but Choen didn't respond. He just looked at me and then at the two men and raised his elbow to the side and held one finger straight against his temple for an instant and took it away with a little jerk and walked out of the cell.

Let there be a rose, then, for Moira.

12: EXECUTION

Three half-tracks, two personnel carriers, a dozen Chinese-built jeeps and an armoured car. Five or six rows of bamboo huts, a concrete building next to the cell, a big wood-fired stove with a corrugated iron roof over it to protect the camouflage net.

A dozen rebels standing around leaning on their vehicles, laughing and chattering in Khmer when they saw me led out of the cell by the two guards: a round-eye in the camp was an event.

I couldn't see my jeep anywhere; maybe it was still out there on the track through the mountains, and they were going to bring it in later.

My guards hadn't put the blindfold back on; I don't think they'd forgotten to; it was just that they knew it didn't matter now what I saw here, I wasn't going to tell anybody.

They pushed me into the jeep, my arms still tied behind me by the sleeves of my jacket. One of them got behind the wheel and the other sat beside me with the muzzle of his assault rifle dug into my side. I could smell his hair oil: he was the one who'd spoken in French when they'd seized me.

The air came in hot waves against my face as we set off, and when we left the shade of the camouflage net the sun was below the foothills and the sky deepening towards the west. The infra-red had been pouring into the canyon all day long, leaving a flood of heat for us to drive through.

'I told your colonel the truth, you know,' I called in French to the man next to me above the rattling of the jeep. 'I haven't any interest in politics, or who runs this country.'

He didn't answer, dug the gun harder into my side. The driver twisted his head round and called out something in Khmer, asking what I'd said, I suppose. I was glad he was interested: it could make a difference.

'All I want is to increase my employer's business. The airline's doing pretty well already, and this would make me quite a bit of money, as a bonus.'

The shadow of the jeep ran ahead of us, twenty or thirty feet long, rippling over the stones and the tufts of scrub in the middle of the track. Farther ahead I saw my jeep, standing where I'd left it, and we began slowing. So it had just been a joke on the part of Colonel Choen when he'd put his finger against his head like that: what he'd barked to the soldier in Khmer was an order for him to take me back to my jeep and let me go, because I'd convinced him I'd lost my way.

Then there's the one about little Red Riding Hood and the wicked wolf who dressed up as her grandmother and everything.

'So I'm just a business man,' I said to the guard, 'that's all, looking for profit. Are you a business man?'

The gun prodded. He knew perfectly well what I was saying: his French had been fluent, idiomatic, the few times he'd spoken.