‘My son was knocked off his bike and robbed on the way to work,’ the man said breathlessly. ‘Every time you think it can’t get worse …’

‘Very sorry to hear that,’ Duke said.

Duke doubted there would be post while the city was erupting, but it wasn’t worth arguing when it only took a few seconds to check. He pushed through a door and looked at the rows of numbered boxes alongside the building’s reception desk.

The doorman hadn’t come to work and Duke felt a jolt when he saw three young toughs just inside the main door. Luckily, all three had eyes on their phones, and Duke stared at his feet and crept back through the door, without checking the mailbox.

The basement was near-dark and puddled. The daily garbage run hadn’t happened in a week and a huge rat slunk between overstuffed containers as Duke flung his load towards a heap of split, maggoty bags.

Unusually, the electricity had been steady all morning. Seven floors would punish his aching hip and he was wondering if he should risk the elevator when a shaft of light broke from the top of the stairs.

‘Balogun?’ a man asked.

Duke almost inhaled his tongue. Fear muted the pain in his hip as he jumped a puddle and charged for the basement exit.

‘Where you going, homo?’ the man demanded as the three heavy bodies rushed down the stairs.

Duke’s thong skidded as he made it to the door, palming a green button to release the lock.

‘We just want to ask where Uncle Remi is,’ the man shouted. ‘It’s best if you don’t upset me …’

Duke’s eyes were shocked by sunlight as he stepped out onto the concourse behind the apartment block. He couldn’t see himself winning a foot race with three fit men, but he knew a gap in the wire fence. The drop into the neighbouring lot would be brutal on the bad hip, but making the gap before they saw where he went seemed his only realistic chance.

But a muscular figure shot out from against the back wall, barging Duke into a concrete pillar and doubling him with a massive fist in the gut.

‘Old friend!’ Collins said cheerily, as the other three men burst out of the door. ‘I thought you might come this way …’

Duke slid down the post onto his bum. He saw Collins in all his nightmares and now he was living it. The heavy-built seventeen-year-old looked like he’d been on the rampage, in black boots, and camouflage trousers with a big holstered knife. His eyes were wild, like he was high on something. His vest was soaked in sweat and his nose mangled, despite the efforts of Lagos’s best plastic surgeons.

‘Where’s your uncle?’ Collins demanded.

‘I don’t know,’ Duke said. ‘He keeps his work close to his chest.’