Suzy was still in Catering Corps mode. 'Yeah, AWOL. But you know what? The strange thing is, until the day he died he'd sit in his chair and bang on about why they should bring back National Service to sort out the yobs.' She dumped her hemp beach bag on the table and fished out a purple disposable lighter, a fresh pack of duty-free Bensons, and a guidebook to Penang.

I looked around me as she lit up and started to flick through her book. A group of middle-aged Germans with shiny red faces wandered past, all dressed up for a night out. They reeked of scent and aftershave and looked far too hot for their own good. Coming the other way were half a dozen twentysomethings in faded T-shirts and shorts with Australian flags on their backpacks. One had an arm in plaster. Hiring a scooter was a big adventure until the rain got between the rubber and the tarmac, and we'd seen a constant stream of people coming back to the hotel with skin needing to be repaired.

The gold pack and purple disposable went back into the bag and Suzy blew a cloud of smoke in my direction. She sat back in her chair and grinned. 'Oh, stop whining. I have to pay for this stuff. You're getting nicotine for free. Besides, you're going to feel really stupid when you're lying in hospital dying of nothing.' She studied my face for a reaction, still smiling, her hand held high with the cigarette between her two fingers facing me. She soon realized she wasn't going to get one, so went back to thumbing through her guide. As I shifted to look up at the television I felt the small of my back sticking to the chair through my T-shirt.

My gaze wandered to the mosque. Set back about thirty or forty metres from the road, it was a one-level building, with a blue roof, a white muezzin tower with loudspeakers, and a couple of corrugated carports. It was definitely a working-man's mosque.