Zoe’s absence alarmed him; he wondered how much her mother knew about last night’s escapade. Rapturously treed as they had been by Father McGoohan and colleague, they had not been able to change their clothes and leave the pagoda much before two in the morning. They found the Nirvana’s kitchen door locked and had been forced to go in round the front, astonishing Raju. The night porter, mildly drunk, pulled himself together enough to say, ‘Good evening, miss,’ in English. Laki had winked at him with the insolence of the self-pleased and Raju added in broadest Saramu dialect: ‘Huh. Sweet fruit, sore belly … Can’t see you. You’re not here.’ In the light of early day as he set off for the bakery, Laki began to have doubts about old Raju. They were comrades, right enough. Fellow-exiles and all that. But even comrades had their price and he was not convinced the old man was proof against Mr Muffy. He was never going to find another job at his age. Loyalty, Laki knew, had a way of flexing under the right pressure.
