Langdon made things worse by saying, ‘Obviously Caleb’s been on safari before. He can show you the ropes.’

Caleb, who was smiling at Amelia now, had definitely decided the plan wasn’t a bad one. If I hadn’t known how much it would disappoint Mum, I’d probably have chosen not to go at all rather than have him tagging along thinking he was remotely in charge. But the arrangement already had a sort of bike-crash inevitability. It felt like that split second when you lose control and time slows down to give you a chance to wonder, before you hit the ground, how much it’s going to hurt.

Langdon went on. ‘Yes, despite my reservations about your little eco-crusade –’ he looked from Mum to Dad and back to Caleb again – ‘it won’t do you any harm to see the flora and fauna everyone, including those of us who mine responsibly – in fact especially us, for the sake of business as well as the chimps and whatnot – wants to protect. You need to learn about the industry from all sides after all.’

The fire in Mum’s eyes had turned to ice. She looked away from Langdon. ‘This will be a chance for you boys to get to know each other better,’ she said hopefully. She could tell I wasn’t overjoyed, I know, because now that she was focusing on me, her face wore the anxious expression that always makes me feel a bit sorry for her.

‘Sure,’ I said, and patted her hand.

‘That’s settled then,’ said Langdon. He added, ‘I’ll dock the cost of the safari from your first pay cheque, Caleb,’ and chomped down on another prawn.

9.

A couple of days later we flew from Kinshasa to a town called Goma, having spent most of the intervening time in the hotel games room or at the pool. Fun enough with Caleb out of the picture, but I kept asking to see something of the place, so eventually Mum organised for an armed hotel guard to ferry us out on one brief trip to the national museum. The place was tiny, and I mean that as a compliment. In standard-size museums I generally feel like lying down for a sleep before I’ve even started. Here I more or less made it to the end, though I was a bit vague about what we were looking at, since the signs were all in French. Xander did some translating. There were some tribal masks in the gallery, and a couple of statues outside. One was of an explorer called Stanley who discovered Congo. I’m pretty sure it was here before he found it, but still. Then Amelia gave us a fascinating – it actually was – lecture about another man made out of bronze, King Leopold II of Belgium. This guy was on a massive horse and had a huge, wedge-shaped beard. Needless to say, Amelia knew a load of dates about him, but all I can remember is that he helped put ‘Belgian’ before ‘Congo’ after Stanley ‘found’ it, declared the entire country was his, and ran the place for a while until they kicked him out.