In fact it took Amelia and me an hour to reach the travel fixer’s office. There was a protest against the government going on that day, and our route took us straight into it, or it would have if we’d carried on blindly. Amelia wanted to cut through the crowd. But the chanting and jumping up and down had an electric, unpredictable feel to it, and the silent police chaperoning the march, with their sunglasses, batons and Perspex shields, made the whole atmosphere seem more rather than less volatile. We doubled back, cut across a dual carriageway baking in the sun and made it to the scraggy street the office was on eventually.

Sadly the metal grille fronting the little building was pulled down, the window behind it opaque with dust. The letter box in the front door was choked with flyers, some of which it had spat back out into the street. Never mind shut, it didn’t look as if anyone had been here for days. I wouldn’t have bothered, but Amelia, apparently oblivious to the signs, pressed the door buzzer. Surprisingly, this prompted a woman to exit the next-door shop. She was smoking a cigarette. ‘Oui?’ she said, without taking it out of her mouth.

Amelia replied, explaining in French who we’d come to visit. Had Monsieur Mugalia been here recently?

The woman dropped her cigarette and ground it into the pavement with her flip-flop. She then began a long monologue, speaking very fast and waving her plump hands as if swatting away flies. I couldn’t follow much of what she was saying – the longer she spoke, the less I seemed to get – but I caught one phrase that she repeated: ‘tragédie familiale’. She looked agitated, angry almost. Why hadn’t I concentrated in French lessons! I was desperate to understand her. Was the woman somehow talking about a family tragedy for me? It couldn’t be possible. I turned to Amelia for help, but she was listening with her head cocked on one side, concentrating. The woman went on and on. When she finally stopped speaking, Amelia was ready with a question: ‘Ce guide, est-ce qu’il s’appelle Innocent?’

‘Oui! C’est Innocent, le pauvre.’

With that the woman turned heavily on her heel and banged back through her shop’s front door. Looking at the display in the window, it seemed she sold second-hand electrical goods, mostly ancient TVs.

‘Innocent?’

‘He is – was – Yannick Mugalia’s brother,’ said Amelia quietly. ‘They ran their travel company together. It makes sense. Your parents organised the safari. Why wouldn’t they turn to the same outfit for help with their own trip?’

‘But where is he? Did she know?’

‘The last she heard he’d gone to Goma.’