Sadly not. The guard spoke only to make it clear we had to leave the bikes at the entrance to the compound. Then he marched us straight through the big gates, past a gaggle of men who barely looked up as he led us along a dirt track lined with huts. The track led to a row of shipping containers plonked on breeze blocks in the mud. One had its door open. The guard stood back from this and, though Amelia and Marcel were both pleading with him for a chance to explain ourselves, he didn’t listen. Instead he told us to get in the container. There was something completely unarguable-with about this guy. He was a robot with a screw loose, not exactly threatening to shoot us, but apparently unhinged enough for it to be a possibility if we annoyed him. ‘It’s OK,’ I found myself whispering to Amelia. ‘He’s probably just parking us here while he goes to fetch someone.’ I wasn’t convinced by this myself, but she was shaking beside me and it was all I could think of to persuade her that we should comply and step inside.

As soon as we did, he slammed the door with a great metallic clang. A rusty screech followed as he locked it. Mercifully we weren’t plunged into complete darkness. Though there were no windows, somebody had drilled a few holes through the sides and top of the container. Pencils of light speared though these in all directions, more than enough beams for us to see by, but menacing somehow: it was as if we were pinned down by snipers. That imaginary horror wasn’t as bad as the real problem though. It was muggy outside and hotter in the container. If the sun came out properly, we’d bake to death.

‘What do we do now?’ said Amelia.

It was a fair question.

Dust motes swam in the beams while I thought.

‘I’ll try Langdon,’ I replied eventually, pulling out my phone. Though we’d gone behind his back to come here, he was the only solution I could think of, the only person who might be able to get us out of the mess we – by which I mean I – had created. ‘This is his mine after all.’

I ignited my phone with a sense of dread, doubting there’d be a signal somewhere this remote, let alone one strong enough to penetrate the metal box we’d managed to get ourselves shut in. But there was. A solid three bars at that. I breathed out and hit Langdon’s number with a different sense of trepidation. How angry would he be that I’d cut him out of the loop and set off to find my folks myself?

I needn’t have worried.