Crossing the road is the only east west travel permitted to the clown, and his north south journeys contain many zigzags as he tacks from shore to shore. Crossing over to the west, he peers though the window of Woody’s Grill where Frazer Stockman, forty eight, sits phone in hand, studying the profile of a pretty twenty-seven-year-old real estate agent from Hong Kong, a half-eaten lamb shawarma in front of him. Weng Wei at a party, posing in a white one-piece at the pool of the Indigo Hotel, with her girlfriends at a restaurant in the Kwei Chung Plaza. Wei’s profile not set to private, which to Stockman means she is game; she wants to be seen and so approaching her is no different to walking up to her at a bar. He messages her, commenting on the hotel. How did she enjoy the Indicolite restaurant? What is the property market like in Kowloon? How’s the weather there in March? Stockman’s own profile picture ten years old now. Blond and strong-jawed, he no longer works for the MOD but Facebook doesn’t need to know that, and though he's greyer now, he’s still a catch. Stockman moves from Hong Kong to Thailand. Kalaya Pongprayoon seems nice. Petite, just how he likes them. He has a trip to Asia planned for July, destination thus far unknown, to be dictated by the willingness of any potential playmate to meet him. And though he’s had adventures, he rarely gets beyond dinner and drinks and listening to stories. A girl in Ho Chi Minh brought her cat on the date; a physiotherapist in Manila put her leg behind her head in a nightclub, and a beautiful lawyer in Macau reeked of onions. Stockman always picking up the cheque and brushing himself down because one of them, one day will be the one. The waitress at Woody’s asks if he has finished his lunch. He has. As she walks away, he watches her; admiring her figure though he’s not really into Turkish girls. Even so, he wouldn’t say no. Back to his phone; Kalaya Kalaya Kalaya. Bit too skinny. He keeps scrolling.