When I enquired whether we could return to Kathmandu and fly back to the UK, he simply shrugged his shoulders; and when Al asked what would happen to Johan’s body, we were told his family would have to make arrangements for it to be flown back to Sweden. We shared a look. With no passport and no surname, we knew the chances of Johan’s family being found were almost nil, but we had to try. That’s why, two days later, I rang my mum and asked her to wire some money to me so we could fly back to Kathmandu. There was no way Al and I were up for another six-hour bus trip, but we had no money left to pay for a flight back to the Nepalese capital. I was in no state to tell Mum what had really happened, so I made up a story about a pickpocket in a bar in Pokhara. Thankfully, she didn’t ask too many questions, so we got to buy fresh clothes and fly to Kathmandu, where we visited the Swedish and British Embassies.

We told the Swedish Embassy everything we knew about Johan and they assured us they’d do all they could to try to find his family. I’ve got no idea if they did, but I can’t bear the thought that Johan never found his way back home.

Neither Al nor I wanted to stay in Nepal longer than we had to, and we certainly had no interest now in the Chitwan jungle trek, so we brought our return flights forward a day. As they’d been booked online, it didn’t matter that our physical tickets were still with our passports and visas – locked away in Isaac’s study. The British Embassy in Kathmandu helped us sort everything out, and now we just wanted to go home.

We were standing outside the airport before our flight, sucking down cigarette and after cigarette, when we overheard a middle-aged couple talking as they got out of a taxi.

“Sorry?” Al said as they walked past us, dragging their suitcases behind them. “I just heard you say something about a fire on the Annapurna range.”

They paused to look us up and down. “Haven’t you heard? It was some kind of lodge or religious retreat, or something. Burned to the ground, and between ten and twenty people died. Nothing left but bones by the time the police got there, apparently. All of those young people with their lives ahead of them. Awful tragedy. They don’t know if it was accident or arson. Either way, it’s a terrible, terrible shame.”

They stared at us, as though waiting for a response, then, when neither of us said a word, they simply nodded and continued on into the airport.