Soon I saw waves crashing against the shore on my right, the road rising and falling with the contours of the land. At one point I saw the wreck of a trawler beached close to the coast road, tipped over on one side and resting on pebbly sand, its hull broken in half and dark shadows within. It soon slid out of sight behind me, and I kept my foot pressed hard on the accelerator, relenting only on the sharper turns in the road. I narrowed my eyes as the wind whipped at my hair, and the engine built to an angry whine.

Much too soon, I ran out of island.

I came to a stop, staring out across the ocean beyond the island’s northernmost point, listening to the quiet grumble of the engine. Then I reached down and turned it off.

I glanced inland, to where I could see a row of moai – enormous stone heads, built by the original islanders to revere their ancestors. Half a dozen were arranged on top of a massive stone plinth. This was the first time I’d seen them first hand, though I knew there were hundreds more scattered all across the island, their backs turned to the ocean as if refusing to acknowledge the world beyond the horizon.

On a whim, I made my way across the loamy soil to the row of moai. I soon saw that the statues were far larger than they appeared from the road. The tallest I estimated to be at least a dozen metres in height, while even the smallest towered above me. They looked, I thought, like toy soldiers abandoned by some gigantic child.

I came up to the great stone plinth and sank down with my back to it, staring out at the Pacific and feeling exhausted beyond imagining.

All I could think about was how long they had all been lying to me. What else, I wondered, had they been hiding?

I watched the clouds scud over the horizon for what must have been a good long while, a warm breeze blowing in from the ocean, because by the time I heard the sound of an approaching engine the sun had moved a fair distance across the sky. I sat up, seeing a lone figure on a motorbike sweeping along the coast road, before pulling up next to my parked jeep.

It was Yuichi. He looked all around until he saw me over by the statues, then started to make his way towards me on foot.

‘I heard what happened,’ he said, once he reached me. The wind had picked up. I noticed he had a bottle of home-brewed whisky in one hand. ‘That’s really shitty, especially about what happened to Nadia. That’s just . . .’ He looked lost for words for a moment. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said finally.

I nodded. ‘What are you even doing here?’