I looked across Amelia at Marcel. He was leaning forward in his seat, squinting as he wove the pickup through a chicane of potholes filled with water the colour of mustard. ‘It’s very kind of Marcel to help,’ I said. And more quietly, to Amelia, ‘What’s in it for him exactly?’

‘You’ve lost your parents. He wants to help find them. He’s one of the good guys,’ she said, adding, to Marcel, ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’

‘Peut-être,’ he answered, smiling sideways at her.

‘Also money,’ Amelia said matter-of-factly. ‘I offered him double his normal day rate.’

We drove for a good couple of hours down that appalling dirt road without making it particularly far, and finally wound up in a village – just a few huts really – beyond which the truck couldn’t go. This was where Marcel had arranged to pick up the motorbikes, two old scramblers: all I saw at first glance was dented fuel tanks, a bent brake lever and half a front mudguard. The guy who owned the bikes was tinkering with the more beaten-up of the two, though the distinction was marginal. I didn’t know whether it was a good or a bad sign that he was working on the bike right before handing it over, but he gave the keys to Marcel confidently enough.

Marcel immediately tossed one of the sets of keys to me. ‘Amelia dit que tu montes,’ he said.

Amelia, deadpan: ‘You do, right, ride something like this?’

‘A mountain bike, yes, but not one of these,’ I said quietly.

‘You’ll get the hang of it, I’m sure,’ she said, climbing onto the back of Marcel’s bike.

‘Mine has pedals,’ I muttered under my breath.