Ying is a stunner. A little over five feet tall with waist-length glossy black hair and cheekbones you could cut steel plate with, a trim waist and breasts that are, frankly, spectacular.

Whoa, hoss.

Stop right there.

I’m married and old enough to be her father.

And I’m her boss, hoss.

She looked over her shoulder and flashed her perfect white teeth at me as I walked into the shop.

My shop.

Dao-Nok Antiques. It’s sort of a pun on my name. Dao-Nok is Thai for turtle-bird and my name’s Turtledove. I’m not sure if anyone else gets it but it makes me smile.

Ying was carefully rolling bubble-wrap around a wooden Chinese screen that we were shipping to Belgium. ‘Good morning Khun Bob,’ she said.

Khun. It means mister, but it’s also a sign of respect. She respects me because I’m older than her and because I’m her boss.

‘You are late,’ she added, still smiling.

Not much respect there. But she wasn’t being critical, she was just stating a fact. I was normally in the shop by nine and it was now nine-thirty.

‘There was a mango queue,’ I said.

‘I see,’ she said, even though she didn’t.

‘All the way down Soi Thonglor.’

‘I told them you wouldn’t be long.’

‘I see,’ I said, even though I didn’t.

‘They’re waiting, in your office.’

I frowned. ‘And they would be…?’

‘An American couple. They need your help.’

There was a coffee maker by the cash register and I poured myself a cup and took it upstairs. The door to my office was open and my two visitors looked up, smiling hesitantly. He was a big man run to fat, in his mid to late forties. His wife was half his size, with wispy blonde hair, and probably five years younger. He pushed himself up out of his chair and offered me his hand. It was a big hand, almost square with the fingernails neatly-clipped, but it had no strength in it when we shook. ‘Jonathon Clare,’ he said in a Midwestern accent. ‘This is my wife Isabelle.’