As Lila turned off the motorway onto the road to Ban Bueng, a small village in which she lived, it was five o'clock in the afternoon, but already the sun was falling behind the hills. At this time in December, it would be completely dark by six o'clock. Lila shivered. The interior of the car was not cold, but the trees bending in harsh wind and yesterday's heavy rain still seen in the fields made her feel chilly inside. It was about twenty kilometers to the cottage where she lived with her husband Poom. The dim light and wintry weather made her feel a little lonely. She would have like listened to the radio, but it had been stolen from her car when she parked outside her office in Pattaya about two weeks ago, and she hed not got around to replacing it.