Anna approached the door and slid the card key into the reader. She must have detected his unease and, pausing in the doorway, she put a hand on his arm. “It’s a twin room,” she said, standing aside so that he could see into the large room. “Our cover need not extend any further than this.” She left her hand across his bicep and he knew what she was leaving unsaid: unless you want it to.

“This will be fine,” he said.

Milton stepped inside, and, unable to suppress the caution that had been drilled into him over the course of a decade, hundreds of nights spent in identikit rooms like this in countries where the local spooks made it a matter of routine to bug arriving travellers, he made a quick examination: the large en suite with a bath and shower; the twin beds; the large LCD screen on the bureau; the telephone beside the bed. He went back to the start and made a more detailed check. He dropped to his knees and checked under the beds, then he took out a dime from his pocket and used it to unscrew the plug sockets. He took the bulbs from the lights and dismantled the telephone handset. He opened the closet, lifted the television from the bureau and shut it away. It took him ten minutes to satisfy himself that everything was as it should be. Anna watched him quietly, saying nothing.

Milton wheeled his bag to the furthest bed, stood by the window and looked out. The window was high up and the view was impressive. The swarm of people in the street below hurried about their business, their umbrellas like tiny black mushrooms. The skyscrapers bristled, utilitarian and graceless, the tops muffled by low clouds. Lightning forked the sky and, seconds later, the answering boom of thunder rattled the glass in the window.

Seven million people, Milton thought.

He sat down on the edge of the bed, unable to ignore the fatigue that had sunk into his muscles and bones.

Seven million.

The sheer weight of the number pressed down on him oppressively. He had to find one person amid the mad tumult. That person, for all he knew, had been hiding in the city for ten years; hiding successfully, too, which was more than he could say for himself. Control and the Group had located him in just six months and the Russians had found him again soon after that. Beatrix Rose was better than he was. If she didn’t want to be found, Milton wouldn’t find her.

“When will you start?” Anna asked him.

Milton assessed his reserves of energy. The dream had exhausted him, as it always did, and the task could wait another day.

“Tomorrow,” he said.

He took off his shoes and shirt and went through into the bathroom. He closed the door, undressed and stood beneath the shower for twenty minutes, scrubbing the hot water into his scalp. He dried himself and pulled on the dressing gown embossed with the hotel’s logo. He stood before the mirror and regarded himself carefully. He did not inspect himself because of vanity, although pride would have been warranted if he was so inclined. He did so because he was an artisan; his body was his tool and his discipline demanded that it was always in good condition. The horizontal scar on his face seemed to have faded a little, as if blanched by the chill of Moscow, and the tattoo across his shoulders and back was more obvious now that his tan had faded almost completely.

He opened the door and went back into the bedroom. Anna had undressed, her clothes folded neatly on top of her suitcase. She was in bed, her chest rising and falling with the shallow susurration of her breath. Milton watched her sleeping: the long red hair; the full lips; the vulnerable, exposed neck; the slim body with the shape of her breasts perfectly obvious beneath the thin cotton sheet; the curve of her hip; the long legs; the porcelain white, ice-pale, skin. He wondered, for a moment, whether he could allow himself the luxury of accepting her unspoken and yet obvious offer.

No, he decided.

He could not.

He crossed the room quietly, removed the dressing gown and slid between the cool sheets of the other bed. He closed his eyes, listening to the hum of the air-conditioning and the exhalations of her breath.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Milton couldn’t sleep. His mind was turning this way and that and there was nothing that he could do to settle it. He got up and made his way quietly across the room to the chair where he had piled his clothes. He took them into the bathroom and dressed, took one of the keycards from the writing desk, left the room and took the elevator down to the lobby. There was a small business centre just away from the main desk with a couple of Macs, a fax machine and a printer. One of the computers was occupied and so Milton sat down next to the other one, opened the web browser and navigated to Google. He found the information he wanted, closed the browser down, cleared the history and went outside. It was still hot and humid, steam issuing from air vents and from the grates in the street. There was a taxi rank next to the hotel and he nodded to the driver of the one at the front of the queue; he nudged his car forwards and Milton got inside.

“Where to, sir?”

“Connaught Road West,” Milton said. “Sai Ying Pun.”

“Yes, sir.”

It was midnight. Milton had not been particularly surprised that there was an English speaking meeting, even at this hour. Hong Kong was a twenty-four hour city, after all, and being a drunk was a twenty-four hour problem. It was a closed meeting, which meant that only those in the fellowship were able to attend, and its title was Humble in HK. Milton had not been to a meeting for weeks and he knew that he made himself more vulnerable to the dream every extra day he missed. That, in turn, made him more vulnerable to the temptation of taking a first drink and everything he had learned in the months he had spent in the Rooms, all the way through South America and in San Francisco, made one thing perfectly clear: he would not stop at the first drink.

Connaught Road was a flyover that passed through an unlovely area of town in the Central district. Tall office buildings were to the left and a stretch of park was to the right. The driver exited the flyover and looped back around so that he could get to the maze of roads that ran beneath it. Po Fung Mansion was a three storey building with a shuttered takeaway on the ground floor. It was constructed from concrete and its walls were adorned with air conditioning units, a metal balustrade that prevented a drop from the first floor balcony and a collection of unhealthy looking pot plants. Traffic hummed across the flyover and the three-lane road beneath it. It was busy, smokey and noisy, and the three young men loitering outside the entrance to the nearby bar glared dolefully at Milton as he stepped out of the car. He paid the man and the taxi drove off. The men kept looking; Milton ignored them. He saw the familiar sign blowing in the breeze, attached with a piece of string to the door handle: two blue As, within a triangle, within a circle.

He crossed the street, opened the door and went up to the third floor. The meeting had just started: the secretary had welcomed the group and was about to lead them in the Serenity Prayer. He smiled at Milton and indicated an empty seat in the front row. Milton felt self-conscious as he picked his way towards it and sat down gratefully.

The secretary recited the prayer: “God, give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

He continued with the familiar preamble and introduced the member who had been asked to read from the Big Book. Milton closed his eyes and listened, gratefully aware that the tension and worry was seeping out of him.