‘You should check the plants. Isn’t that where they usually hide them?’

If there were microphones, they could be anywhere - in the ceiling, the walls, the furniture. It would take at least an hour to turn over the place, and I didn’t know how long we had.

‘The radio is fine,’ I said. ‘Where are you?’

‘Here!’ she said, leaping out from behind the wall. ‘So what do you think?’ Instead of her usual Zazou black, she was now in a turquoise ankle-length dress.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

‘You don’t like?’ she said angelically. ‘I could no longer wear those wet clothes.’ She scrunched up her nose in disgust, then raised a finger. ‘I find something for you also.’ She vanished behind the wall again for a few seconds, then reappeared clutching a pair of silk turquoise trousers and a white tennis shirt. ‘Voilà! You will match me perfectly.’

I took her by the wrist and exerted some pressure. ‘We’re not going to a bloody fashion show,’ I said.

She pulled away. ‘What happened to those jokes you promised me?’ she said. She walked back into the living room, seated herself in one of the armchairs and pouted.

I didn’t have time to waste on games - somewhere in this compound, Gunner and his men were being interrogated. And any minute now, it could be our turn.

‘Listen,’ I said. ‘Do you have your press accreditation from Lagos?’

She looked up. ‘No - it was in my bag. Why?’

That was what I’d been afraid of. ‘Here’s what we’re going to do,’ I said. ‘I’m working with The Times, but at the last moment I got ordered to the front, and we decided to work together. All right?’

She took it in, then nodded. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘But I think you should relax. We’re not in danger now. It’s a story for your friends back in London, I think. A story for myself also - my office will be very pleased to hear it. Some of the photographs I took in the hut may change the course of the war. This level of suffering - it will shock people into action.’

She looked so smug, I could have smacked her. I pointed out that Alebayo might not be too keen to let her call her office, or hand back her camera. She didn’t hear me, so I moved closer and said it again.

She laughed, smoothing the pleats of her new dress with one hand. ‘I think he will give it back. He can be tough when he’s ordering his men to kill innocent Biafrans - I would like to see how tough he is in front of a member of the world’s press.’

‘These ones aren’t all innocent, though,’ I said. ‘The men are deserters.’

She looked at me, aghast.