It was the first time we'd been together longer than a night; our jobs got in the way, but we were working on that.

Well, that was the cover story, anyway.

The flat in Shepherd's Bush really existed, and so did the two women who lived there – it was her CA [cover address]. The travel agent would vouch for Suzy.

The market was petering out and we'd got to where we wanted to be. Our rented Suzuki 250 was parked where we'd left it, between the roadside cafe and the Palace restaurant, which was just starting to get a few tourists for the evening. Maybe they were lured by the sign promising 'The Magic of Fine Indian and Western Cuisine'. The roadside caff suited us better. Opposite it, on the other side of the road, was the mosque, a solid brick-and-plaster building in the middle of the shanty town. Right now, though, I was more interested in the lone old, white and rusty Toyota Lite Ace people-carrier that was parked on the hard compacted mud alongside.

It seemed all you needed to set up in the catering trade round here were some corrugated-iron sheets, a few concrete slabs to cover the storm drains and a couple of rusty birdcages filled with little green birds that couldn't be arsed to sing. Suzy and I pulled out plastic garden chairs and faced each other across a long, flower-patterned Formica trestle table. As we sat down, someone inside the Palace began to knock out 'Climb Every Mountain' on an electric keyboard.

A barefooted Indian girl appeared and I asked for two orange juices. There was no need to ask Suzy what she wanted; we'd both been drinking gallons of the stuff since we'd arrived.

The smell of kebabs from a street stall fought its way through the diesel fumes and the stench of the drains as the English commentary blared from a TV set fixed on a bracket above our heads. Leeds United were playing someone or other, and a few British lads a couple of tables along were up for it.