‘Do they believe it?’

‘Some do. It fits our custom to think that fortune comes from the ancestors and our behaviour. Ideas like that can get twisted. They see what’s happening down on the flat, they go down to the town and see trade stores, they see kago come for us on the plane, and they have nothing and don’t understand why. They’re easy prey for a mission that preaches rules and rewards.’

The rumble of voices from the church was low and mournful. Beyond, the dark forest, and Leonard.

‘There’s bad feeling. That’s why your husband has gone up. Custom is strong up on the mountain. The Anglicans still go up there, but the villages don’t take much from them. They like the stories and disregard the rest. When the priests go up, which isn’t often, they’re more concerned with how they treat their pigs than converting them. It’s a powerful place. I hold clinics up there sometimes.’

‘How hard is the walk?’

‘Hard enough to put me off. I’m sending some medicines up with the boys. There’s a woman called Janape – you’ll meet her. She’s a natural nurse. She came down for school here when she was in her teens, and spent most of her time at the aid post. The best assistant I’ve had!’ There was warmth in his laugh. ‘I trained her so there’d be someone on the mountain with basic skills. Lucas says she should have gone on to high school.’

‘Why didn’t she?’

‘She didn’t want to.’

‘Because of the church?’

‘No. What I’m saying is that they’re different up there. They don’t like being away from the mountain.’

Rika slept that night in a narrow bed in the empty aid post. No one from the mountain would sleep in there for fear of the spirits that could enter, unimpeded, through the windows that regulations required. The blankets were damp and musty, the pillow was hard. The weight of what she was doing lay heavily with her. In Moresby, the prospect of being here, on the mountain, had been abstract. Now Leonard was close, and she had to face what lay ahead – and behind.

Outside, the moon was a thin slice of light in the sky. The church seemed to have emptied out. She could hear nothing but the scratching of bush-rats in the walls.

AT DAWN THE SMALL TROUPE OF GUIDES LED RIKA THROUGH THE village. Hunter wasn’t with them. The village was already awake; she could hear the murmur of women’s voices in the houses and smell the morning fires. There were men in the church as they passed.

‘Those men sleep in the church?’ she asked.

‘Maybe,’ Obi said, giving a shrug, a smile. ‘Sometimes.’ His face was as smooth as a girl’s. He was sixteen maybe, no more. He took her rucksack and then held out his hand for the basket that had come with her from Leiden. When she resisted, another boy mimicked her walk with a large exaggerated basket bowing her down. She laughed, put her camera in her string bag, and gave the basket to the mimic. ‘His name is Albert,’ Obi said.