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Donaldson. Serves the Yank right.
    The air in the car was starting to stink of exhaust fumes but it was so hot that Donaldson didn’t want to wind up the window. Instead he took his handkerchief out and held it over his mouth. It didn’t seem to make any difference. He tried holding his breath but that made him feel even dizzier than the fumes.
    Eventually they left the strip of shops and plunged into darkness again. The headlights picked out three roadside signs pointing the way to hotels on the left and then they stopped. The driver pointed through the windshield. ‘Oberoi,’ he said.
    ‘OK,’ said Donaldson. ‘Drive straight on.’
    ‘Straight on?’
    ‘Just drive,’ he said, waving his hand towards the bonnet of the car. He peered at the speedometer. It was in kilometres and Grey had said to drive for one mile past the hotel turn-off. They hit the crossroad at 1.4 kilometres and Donaldson told the driver to turn left. The man was starting to get uneasy, but he remembered the pile of foreign money Donaldson had changed. Just another crazy tourist. Probably just had a bit too much to drink on the plane.
    The road quickly became a single track, and from what Donaldson could see in the lights of the car there were fields on either side with a scattering of tall trees. It felt a little cooler and once or twice he thought he could smell the sea, and then he saw thirty yards or so to the right of the track, a pointed roof atop what looked like a square building, silhouetted against the stars.
    Donaldson tapped the driver on the shoulder. ‘Stop here,’ he said.
    ‘Here?’ echoed the driver, but saw from the look on Donaldson’s face that the answer was yes so he slammed on the brakes.
    ‘How much?’ asked Donaldson, suddenly realizing that he hadn’t agreed a price before getting into the cab. The driver’s eyes lit up, too, as he remembered the same thing. The driver mumbled a figure with a lot of zeros on the end and Donaldson was too damn tired to try and convert it into real money. He quickly counted out a handful of notes and threw them on to the front seat.
    ‘Thanks a bunch,’ he said.
    ‘Don’t mention it,’ said the driver, nodding his head in time with each word. ‘Good English, yes?’
    ‘Marvellous,’ agreed Donaldson, grabbing his bag and staggering out of the car. His right leg seemed to have gone to sleep.
    The car did a jerky four-point turn and then lurched back down the track, leaving Donaldson alone in the dark with his sleepy leg. He limped towards the house.
    As he got closer to the house he noticed that the bottom of the roof was illuminated with a warm glow, though the top was shrouded in darkness. Then he realized that what he was looking at was a wall, half as tall again as a man, which ran around the house itself. The light was inside. There was no doorway in the side of the wall he was approaching, so he followed it around to the left. Still no door. He was walking towards the sea, the waves breaking on the shore like thunder. He was walking on grass, but as his eyes became more accustomed to the starlight he could see a strip of white that must be the beach.
    Donaldson stopped and listened. In between the watery crashes he could hear music. Pink Floyd. Dark Side of the Moon. God, that took him back.
    He turned right and found the door, two slabs of weathered wood set into a stone arch. To the left was a brass bell-pull, like a stirrup attached to a long rod. Donaldson reached out his hand, then noticed that the door wasn’t closed; light was shining through a two-inch gap. He pushed gently and the gap grew silently wider. He could hear the music more clearly now. Facing the doorway was another wall made of the same rough-hewn stones as the outer barrier, but about five feet tall. Sitting on top of it was a stone eagle, or chicken, or angel. Or perhaps it was a combination of all three, it was difficult to tell with the light behind it.
    Donaldson had to turn sharp left for