"That's why I'm here."
Raf looked at Eugenie.
"I thought you might do it."
"No way." He shook his head.
"I suppose I could appeal to your sense of family duty," Eugenie said. "Or mention the fact your aunt's debts seem to have swallowed what little money she left, while your salary from the Third Circle is worth less than nothing. Then there's your boredom . . . Which one would work?"
"None," Raf said.
"He is your father."
"My father was a backpacker from Sweden." Raf's voice was firm. "I'd give you more details but my mother forgot to get his name."
"Ah yes," said the woman, "Per Lindstrom. I've heard that version . . ." She looked at him. "Some people," she said, "would be proud to call the Emir of Tunis their father."
"A lunatic," said the fox. "Ruler of the only country not to sign the 2005 UN accord on biotechnology . . ."
"Some people aren't me," said Raf, which sounded either too smug or more bitter than he intended, but Raf let the words hang anyway.
It seemed that Eugenie was not looking for someone to guard the Emir, which had been Raf's first thought. He only understood why Eugenie was so offended by this idea when he realized she'd already taken that job for herself, along with her job as his head of security, not to mention his longest-serving aide.
"Just as well," said Raf. "My reputation is overrated."
For the first time since they'd met Eugenie smiled. "I've read your files," she said. "Explosives, counterintelligence, close-quarter combat . . ."
"And if I said it was all lies?"
"I wouldn't believe you. But those aren't the skills I need anyway. It's your other talents . . ."
Raf looked blank.
"You solved your aunt's murder," said Eugenie. "Faced down the Thiergarten. Got Zara's half brother aboard the Khedive's liner and had him take a war criminal into custody, in the face of Moscow, Paris and Berlin."
"Yeah, right," said the fox, sotto voce. "You want to tell her how it really happened?"
Raf shook his head.
"What?" asked Eugenie.
"I'm not doing it," Raf said.
And somewhere inside his skull the fox grinned and kept grinning while Eugenie told Raf what she wanted and Raf explained exactly why it wasn't going to happen.
"Wow," said the fox as they both watched Eugenie stalk away, slight heels clicking on the damp sidewalk. "That went well."
CHAPTER 7
Flashback
"You'll need shoes."
Somehow that wasn't quite what Sally had expected the Chinese man to say. Of course, at first, she didn't realize he was Chinese. She had that English ignorance of Far Eastern looks and took it for granted that as he was wearing a blue-checked sarong he had to be local, probably Malay and a fisherman. The fact his Ph.D. was in X-linked mutation and he'd been fired from Bayer-Rochelle for releasing details of his research on "GTPases and their influence on brain structure and cognitive ability," Sally didn't find out until later.
"Why shoes?"
"Because otherwise the coral will rip your feet to shreds." He nodded to a point a stone's throw out from the beach where the water switched from a medium to a pale blue. "The reef starts there," he said. "You'll be safe as long as you swim in shoes."
The man spoke with a California drawl, interspersed with occasional words that sounded unbelievably English, as if he'd once worked for the Home Service. His wispy white beard could be found on bamboo scrolls in hotel shops across Singapore, which was where she'd landed.
A taxi to Semberwang dropped her at the causeway, the stink of durian fruit and raw rubber thickening the air as she approached the Malay side of the straits and the jumbled buildings of Jahore Baru. A better smell altogether than the stink of hydrocarbons that had clung to her clothes in Singapore, that island of tigers where all the tigers were now dead.
As Sally wondered whether to explain she'd thrown away her shoes the better to get in touch with her instincts, she saw Wu Yung's eyes refocus.
"They with you?" he asked, glancing over her shoulder.
Sally shook her head, not even bothering to turn. No one was with her and she was with no one. And that was how she intended to remain. All three of her guidebooks dealt with how to keep at bay unwelcome attention from local men. Only the Rough Guide had thought to mention that her real problem was likely to be other backpackers.
"Hi . . ."
Rehab is for Quitters read the blond boy's T-shirt and his shorts were the kind with long pockets and tabs with buckles. Slivers of doubt flecked his blue eyes.
"How you doing?"
The black guy with him stared through aviator shades so cheap they had to have been given away with some magazine. His silence could have been intentional but more likely resulted from a battered iPod he wore clipped to the waistband of his cut-down Fat Boys.
"I'm Atal," said the blond boy and stuck out his hand. "Okay if we crash here too? We're out of dosh," he added by way of explanation.
If the Chinese man noticed the Oyster Perpetual on Atal's skinny wrist he didn't mention it. Sally, however, made her glance obvious.
"Fake," said Atal quickly, "from a market in Bangkok."
It wasn't.
"Pretty good copy," said Sally's companion and Atal blushed.
"I suppose the trainers are fake too," Sally said. They were airPower, the ones with scarlet kangaroo-skin inserts down both sides.
"This is Bozo," said Atal, ignoring the question. "He doesn't say much."
Bozo smiled, a slow and lazy smile that revealed his teeth, which were mostly gold with a hole in one canine where a diamond had worked loose.
"Sally," said Sally and turned towards the old man, realizing for the first time that he hadn't given his name.
"Wu Yung III."
"As in . . ." Atal stopped and did a double take, eyes widening. His next look at Sally was an attempt to work out their relationship.
"We've just met," said Sally.
Wu Yung smiled. "And you're all welcome," he said smoothly. "Please stay for as long as you like . . . This island is mine," he added when Atal stared blankly. "I take it none of you read Chinese or Malay?" Wu Yung nodded to a peeling sign nailed a nearby palm tree, half-buried behind a tumble of deep green.
The three backpackers looked at each other.
It seemed not.
"You asleep?"
"Not any longer . . ." Sally smiled to take the sting from her words and watched the elderly man duck his head under the low doorway and shut the door behind him. In one hand Wu Yung carried a bottle of white wine and in the other two glasses. A leather camera case hung from a strap about his neck, and stuck into the rolled waistband of his sarong nestled a smaller bottle, unlabelled.
This was the point that modesty demanded Sally drag her bed's thin cotton cover up to cover her small breasts or at the very least cross her arms.