To make matters worse, Amelia was still doing her thinking-out-loud thing: ‘Janine and Nicholas were due to meet some pretty important people in the run-up to the vote. By important I mean powerful, and by that I mean ruthless. We’ve discussed the endemic corruption in the DRC, its lawlessness. They could have crossed some proper villains, people prepared to go to any lengths –’

I cut her off. ‘We need to tell someone, raise the alarm,’ I said.

Langdon shifted in his seat.

‘They wouldn’t just go silent like this. Not if everything was OK. Even if their own phones weren’t working, after this long they’d have found a way of getting a message through.’ I bolstered myself with this, unable to look directly at Langdon as I built up to say, ‘I want go to the police. Right now.’

‘I understand,’ he said.

Caleb’s chin dropped and his head bobbed backwards, as if to say, Come again?

Ignoring Caleb I said, ‘Good,’ before Langdon could change his mind.

It seemed he wasn’t about to do that. In fact he gave his best impression of a sympathetic smile instead, saying, ‘I’m not sure they’ll be able to help, but if it will help put your mind at rest, Jack, that’s what we should do.’

It might just have been that I noticed Langdon was wearing a relatively sober, blue-on-blue patterned shirt that morning, but he sounded measured and sincere, and when he answered Amelia’s ‘Unless reporting them missing to the police makes the situation worse, we should do it even if the likely gain is minimal’ with, ‘You’re right, Amelia. It can’t hurt, can it?’ I realised I’d been holding my breath, and let it out. He patted me on the shoulder then, before leading us out to his SUV, parked across the street with its engine running, and even followed up with an offer to oversee the process.

Langdon’s truck was some sort of Hummer, I think, with three rows of seats. Caleb and I climbed into the back, leaving Amelia and Xander – struggling with his crutches – to the middle two seats. Caleb sat beside me with his head bowed. He seemed to have shrunk. Langdon rode up front next to the driver. He checked his watch before turning to explain that we’d head straight to the police station just as soon as we’d dropped off Caleb.

‘That’s not “straight” then, is it?’ said Amelia.

Langdon chuckled. ‘I suppose not, but you know what I mean. He’ll miss his plane though, if we don’t take him first. Not a good start to the world of work.’

‘Why did he come to the hotel with you in the first place?’ Amelia asked Langdon, though Caleb was right there with us.