Caleb had messaged Amelia Langdon’s address. My recharged phone said it was about five kilometres away. Once she and I had washed, changed and eaten – Xander had thought to liberate a bag of bread rolls and sliced cheese from the hotel’s breakfast buffet before he jumped ship – we headed out to flag down a motorcycle taxi. I had some of Xander’s dollars safely stowed in the bottom of my backpack. The first bloke we asked wasn’t interested, but the second – an old guy with a greasy Lakers cap and remarkably white teeth – I wondered if they were real – took the offer seriously: $200 to borrow his bike.

‘Montrez-moi l’argent,’ he said with a smile.

‘Go on then,’ Amelia said to me. ‘Show him.’

I dug out some of the cash.

Temptation played across his face.

‘Plus one hundred deposit,’ I said to Amelia. ‘Tell him it’s just for a day. We’ll return the bike to him outside the People’s Palace at 3 p.m. tomorrow.’

Amelia relayed all this, but the guy seemed to be weighing up whether or not we were serious, so I added an extra $100 and said, ‘Monsieur, please.’

The bike was a wreck: for $400 he could probably buy a better one. This sunk in. With a shrug he handed me the key.