I knew Xander was clutching at straws with this news, but even so it made me realise how much I wanted to get back to Kinshasa, not just to check out the footage, but to make sure the photos I’d taken of the kids in the mine made it into the right hands. I owed that to Mum and Dad: the fact they were out of the picture for now meant I had to step up. To be speeding anywhere other than the airport, in the hands of a man I didn’t trust, was a kind of torture.

We roared back into the Canonhead compound late in the afternoon. I was hungry and tired and simmering with resentment. Caleb trotted over to Francis and Marcel immediately we arrived, and they all sidled off, keen to avoid his father no doubt. Langdon, focusing on Amelia and me, made a great show of taking us to what he called the canteen, a clutch of plastic tables and chairs set beneath a corrugated roof on stilts. It was empty at this hour. Somebody had wiped down all the tables, but not very well. You could see the patterns where the cloth had cut through the grime. They reminded me of Langdon’s shirt. Nobody had bothered to wipe the chairs he pulled out for us though. They were filthy with orange dirt, and the bottles of lemonade and Coke he rustled up from somewhere were also filmed with dust. There was grit in the leftover lunch of chilli con carne and rice as well, I’m sure of it. Caleb joined us as we ate. I was biding my time, watching my uncle. He polished off two bowls of the chilli-slop and tipped half the contents of his hip flask – Jack Daniels, I bet – into his own drink before gulping it down.

‘You said you’ve work to get on with here,’ I ventured. ‘How long will it take?’

‘Not long. A few days. A week tops.’

‘Non-specific: unconvincing,’ muttered Amelia under her breath.

‘You don’t want us here that long, getting in the way,’ I said quickly.

‘Nonsense. You can help Caleb. Think of it as a learning opportunity.’

‘Thanks, but surely we’d be better off back in Kinshasa, waiting for news there.’

Langdon tipped his plastic chair onto its back legs, planted his drink on his belly and smiled. ‘You decided to take this little trip. You have to live with the consequences,’ he said.

‘Dad,’ said Caleb.

Langdon swivelled towards his son, the fake cheer draining from his face.

‘Come on,’ said Caleb. ‘If you went missing you’d want me to do all I could to find you, wouldn’t you?’

From away in the mine a heavy thumping noise struck up.

‘What I want you to do, now and always, is exactly what I say,’ Langdon stamped the words down in time with the pile-driver, or whatever it was.