She tailed off. Looking at the calm green landscape beneath us, it was hard to believe the scale of the issues. But Amelia doesn’t lie – it’s one of the things I like best about her – and Mum and Dad wouldn’t be focusing their efforts here if it wasn’t necessary.

The pilot hit the brakes hard when we did finally touch down. That was the scariest moment for me. As with any jump, landing is the hardest part. We juddered to a crawl at the end of the runway, the seat belt tight across my lap, and then doubled back to the little terminal.

Passport control was two guys. Ours was wearing a hat about four sizes too small for his head. When I made the mistake of nodding for Amelia to check him out she said aloud, ‘That’s for a child; it must be uncomfortable,’ and for an awful moment I thought the man had heard, since he gave us one of those very hard stares, and what Dad had told me about the country being sketchy – skirmishing militia, tourist kidnappings and an epidemic of street robberies – came to mind. Apparently Dad had arranged for us to be chaperoned on our safari by ex-military guides, to head off any threat. ‘We Courtneys will not be intimidated, but I’ve taken every precaution to make sure you kids are kept safe. We can’t be too careful here,’ he’d said.

3.

It soon turned out that Dad needed to take his own advice. We collected our luggage (from the squeakiest baggage-reclaim carousel ever) and stumbled onto the hot concrete apron beyond the airport building, where a colourfully dressed crowd seemed, from the sound of things, to want something quite badly. Money, of course, in exchange for taxi rides, hotel rooms, bananas, fake DVD box sets, and even, according to the little old lady wearing odd trainers, tins of glue. Fellow passengers from our diverted flight stood blinking in the harsh sunlight, trying to work out their next move. We fought our way through the throng to the kerb. The guy standing next to us looked as if he had brought everything he owned on the trip, including a set of golf clubs that toppled off his airport trolley when Amelia bumped into it. Clubs slid out, balls bounced away.

I helped her retrieve them while Dad, hands on his hips, legs apart, argued that we should check in to a hotel before deciding what to do. Mum wouldn’t hear of that though. ‘We have to charter a plane to get us to the capital right away,’ she said.

‘But the weather …’ Dad was drowned out by the harsh rattle of an approaching motorbike.

‘It will probably have cleared by the time we’re back there!’ Mum hollered over the noise. She’d changed her tune, fear of flying being no match for her commitment to getting on.

As I often do, I sensed something was wrong before it happened. The motorbike veered towards us. Neither of the guys on it were wearing helmets. I learned later that’s the norm in Africa, but in that moment I was surprised to see beaded sweat on the driver’s brow. His pillion passenger leaned out towards Dad as they got close. Dad goes to the gym three times a week and his reactions are still quick enough for him to beat me at ping-pong half the time, but he cottoned on to what was happening here as if underwater, and did nothing sensible to protect himself; he just stood there. The motorbike cut in and Dad staggered forward as the thief, having yanked his briefcase from his hand, shoved him to the ground.