‘No, you don’t,’ was the reply he shouted, and the next moment he was fighting for dear life with the steering wheel, brakes and gear-lever, as he struggled to fit the car into a gap between the rock side of the road and an articulated fuel-tanker that was also playing boy-racer through the corner in the oncoming direction. There was a bang, followed by the sound of rock ripping open metal as the near-side of the car rubbed itself against a piece of protruding cliff-face, but the driver didn’t even bother to slow down.

It was to my great relief that we finally rounded a corner and could see a large valley a short way to the right, with buildings and machinery. ‘Dambe Mine,’ said the driver, sweeping off the road and stopping what remained of the Peugeot at a perimeter gate. Two men in white uniforms, with white blancoed webbing, and machine-guns hanging from their shoulders, looked in through the car windows and then waved us on. Just beyond the guards was a huge notice-board, at the top of which was the round, three-bladed, black-and-yellow, international radiation warning symbol, and underneath the words in red: Danger. Radioactive materials mined here. No unauthorized persons permitted. Protective clothing must be worn at all times in controlled areas. The message was repeated underneath in Afrikaans and in German.

We drove over to a large prefabricated but permanent-looking two-storey building, and the driver leaned back to me. ‘You go through there.’ He pointed to a doorway.

I got out, very relieved to be standing once again on terra firma, and looked around for a moment. We were in a huge bowl that appeared to have been hewn out of the rock. Apart from the fact there was no music and no jolly lights, the place had the atmosphere of a fairground. It was a massive complex of pipes, cranes, wires, overhead conveyors, pylons, vehicles and buildings, and the noise was deafening. I went in through the doorway, and gave my name. A few minutes later a blond-haired man with a thin, wrinkled face and clear blue eyes strode in. He was very tall, standing a good six inches above me, and he stretched out a hand the size of a boxing glove. I took a good look at my own hand, in case it was the last time I ever saw it, and offered it up like a sacrificial lamb. As he crushed it, I attempted to crush his back, but there was nothing to grip on at all; it was like trying to crush a block of polished granite.

‘Nice to meet you, Mr Flynn. You had a good drive out here?’

‘I got here in one piece – but I’m not quite sure how.’