I gaped at Innocent, who smiled proudly. ‘She’s the best at it,’ he said. ‘Also fishing fire ants from a nest with a fine twig … she’s champion of that too.’

‘They hunt meat as well though, right?’ said Caleb.

‘Nuts, fruit, leaves, colobus. They’re as omnivorous as you,’ Innocent replied.

‘We share ninety-seven per cent of our genes with higher primates,’ Amelia said, then corrected herself: ‘Actually it’s between ninety-six and ninety-eight per cent, depending on how you calculate it.’

‘Thanks for clarifying,’ said Xander.

Amelia, missing the gentle sarcasm, took Xander’s words as an invitation to expand, and started telling him about humans and chimpanzees sharing a common ancestor dating back just six-to-eight million years. That seemed a long time ago to me. I tuned them both out. Undoubtedly there was something human about the apes. But it was more complicated than that. Being in the jungle with them filled me with two contradictory emotions. On the one hand I felt as if I was connected, part of something larger than myself. On the other, looking through my zoom lens into the nearest chimp’s black-brown eyes, I felt very, very alone.

I became aware that Innocent had got to his feet. Patience stood up too, beside him. A general restlessness spread among the chimpanzees. Their chatter was more urgent. In seconds they had all moved away. Whether Innocent and his daughter had triggered the change or were responding to it, I didn’t know.

‘Quickly, we must leave,’ he said.

I turned just in time to see Marcel raise his gun to his shoulder. Something – or someone – was moving through the jungle towards us. One figure became two, five, six … nine men at least, half of them armed.

14.

Innocent said something in French and Marcel put his gun down.

‘What’s going on?’ said Caleb. ‘Who are these guys? What do they want?’

I took in the man nearest me. He was wearing stout rubber boots, a trucker’s cap, and an out-of-date Manchester United football shirt. I noticed all that before fixing upon the rifle slung across his chest, the muzzle of which was casually but definitely pointed at me. The situation didn’t seem real. It was laughable! Except that it was absolutely real and, I’ll admit, frightening. Unable to stop myself, I took a step nearer to Amelia, at which point another of the men, this one wearing a khaki shirt and sunglasses – in the gloom – shouted something and moved very quickly towards us, waving his gun at each of us in turn.

‘Let’s stay nice and still,’ sang Innocent. ‘Still is nice.’

The chimpanzee noise behind us evaporated as they moved off through the trees.

‘What do these people want?’ Caleb repeated. He was trying to sound authoritative but his voice was brittle.

By contrast, Innocent’s murmuring was calm. ‘Nice guys,’ he said. ‘Just hunters. Everything’s fine.’

Amelia couldn’t stop herself saying, ‘Not if they’re hunting us, it’s not!’ Her word choice was flippant but I could tell she was terrified. I was too: Dad had warned us about the kidnap threat here; were we about to experience it at first-hand?