Kiama’s door is open. The bed is stripped and a clear carrier bag by the entrance is filled with his rubbish; a shampoo bottle, scribbled on pieces of paper and several empty packets of crisps.

‘Excuse me,’ the maid says as she stands next to Yvonne in the doorway. ‘Do you need help?’

Yvonne steps inside and looks around the room. He’s gone.

‘Ma’am?’ the woman asks her forehead etched in concern.

‘Sorry,’ Yvonne says, ‘sorry, I made a mistake.’

Yvonne sits across from Purity at the dining table. She and Kiama had planned on returning to Kikuyu today, to visit a local ancient forest which Delia described as ‘Insta worthy’ and of course, to visit the orphanage one last time to make a final decision. But he wasn’t there. He wasn’t anywhere and it worried Yvonne.

‘I’m so stressed,’ she says. How many times has she said this, thought this, already today?

Purity indulges her. ‘He is fine.’ She refills the blue plastic coffee cups.

Yvonne knows all this caffeine must be causing her to feel worse, more jittery and anxious, but she can’t help it. She needs something to occupy her hands and to keep the hangover at bay.

‘Should we call Simeon again? Maybe Kiama went straight to the orphanage.’

Purity shakes her head. ‘You believe he will go there alone? I am not sure he could find it again.’

‘He did it before. We got a matatu.’

Purity laughs. Why does the idea of Kiama disappearing concern her so little? Doesn’t she realise how serious this is? The fact that he just walks out of his hotel room and tells no one where he’s going?

When Yvonne arrived earlier today she went straight to the house expecting him to be there, but no one had heard from him, even Delia pouted like she’d already forgotten who Kiama was. Yvonne had then made Joe drive her by the guest house, the chicken shop and even the bar, where she crossed the fingers on one hand as they walked up the dirty red staircase hoping to find him, perched on one of the stalls drowning his sorrows with Tusker beer. But it was all in vain. The barman remembered Kiama clearly as ‘the tattooed boy with all the hair’ and promised to pass on a message if he saw him again. She even called Neil, who laughed and asked if perhaps Kiama had chosen to spend his last few days in Kenya ‘finding himself on a safari’.

The longer they looked the more convinced Yvonne became that he had left the area altogether. Over breakfast the other day he had spoken again about Mombasa, the place where he and Emma spent their only beach holiday together.