‘Paludrine. Anti-malaria. Take them once a day. It’s all there in the instructions: “Best absorbed with evening G and T.”’ He had another chuckle, and I began to wonder if he might simply be drunk. He caught my look. ‘Sorry. But see it from my view, if you can.’ He gestured at the Lagos night. ‘Stuck out here in the sticks miles from the bloody war and suddenly people start flying in looking for Chief - this is the most excitement we’ve had in yonks.’

I nodded, and packed the medicine in my hold-all.

‘Seems we’re in luck,’ said Manning, pointing ahead. The cars were starting to move.

The hotel was a horrendous white modernist building that looked like a collection of giant window-boxes, but the car park was stuffed with diplomatic plates and flagpoles jutted importantly from the entrance marquee, so it was clearly the right spot. I told Manning to wait for me and walked through to the reception, where a sullen-looking young woman behind a marble counter sold me an air-conditioned double room for a hundred and eighty Nigerian shillings a night - the single rooms were all gone, she claimed. After filling in the registry and handing over my passport, I took the stairs to my room on the third floor.

It didn’t quite live up to the picture I’d been given in reception, but it looked like it had the basics: the air conditioning worked, and there was a telephone and a radio. Was it secure, though? I threw my bag and jacket onto the mattress and checked the strength of the door from the outside. After a few minutes, I was satisfied that anyone wanting to break it down would have to make a hell of a noise to do so. The windows also shut firmly, and I rigged an elastic band across the two handles to make sure. They led out onto a fire escape, which would come in handy if anyone tried anything. I was directly above the swimming pool. Despite the lateness of the hour, there were still a few people lounging on deckchairs sipping from long-stemmed glasses: diplomats, or aid workers. Nice life. Not mine.

There was a tiny en suite bathroom with a sink that trickled lukewarm water, and a cracked mirror above it. After splashing my face and drying it on my shirt - towels didn’t appear to be part of the service - I called reception and asked them to put me through to the Soviet Embassy. Amazingly, this took only a couple of minutes.

‘Da?’ The voice was cold. Night shift.

‘Hello,’ I said in Russian, but playing up my English accent. ‘Could you put me through to Third Secretary Irina Grigorieva, please?’

‘Everyone’s gone home,’ she said. ‘Do you want to leave a message?’