Excuse me, please, I began, but they neither looked at me nor faltered in their determined progress to a black Peugeot 504 with tinted windows parked by the roadside. As they approached, the back door opened and another black-dad, glasses-wearing figure stepped out and dragged Bola into the car, shutting the door after him. Now the two men turned and faced us; there was a large crowd behind us. They stood so that they blocked the car door, their hands in their coat pockets.

‘Please,’ I began, and stopped. I didn’t know what more to say. If only I could see their eyes, but their glasses were like walls separating them from us.

‘You can’t take him away!’ Peter interjected. ‘He is our brother! He is not well.’

‘He is not well,’ Paul echoed.

‘Please.’

Now one of them opened his mouth to a trap-like slit and hissed, ‘Get lost if you know what is good for you.’

‘You don’t understand…’ I began desperately, but before I could say more a stone whizzed past me from behind and exploded on the car’s windscreen. The two men ducked instinctively.

‘Thieves!’

‘Ole!’

‘Give them their brother, government boy-boy!’

I saw the men straighten up, their hands whipping out of their pockets simultaneously. I turned and followed the scattering crowd as I saw the guns. Shots rang in the air; the figure before me fell, I tripped over it and fell too, bruising my knees and elbows badly. When I got up the car was driving away. Some of the Area Boys were chasing after it, emptily cursing and throwing stones at its fast-disappearing back. Paul came and gave me his hand; I took it and stood up.

‘They are gone,’ he said. ‘They’ve taken him away.’ He spoke as if he couldn’t believe what had happened; as if hoping I’d contradict him. But I couldn’t. I nodded. He sat down abruptly, right there by the road. He held his head in his hands.

‘What are we going to do now?’ he said over and over. I looked around for Peter. I saw him coming from across the road; he was panting hard. ‘What are we going to do now?’ Paul repeated to him dully.

‘We’ll phone Daddy. I’ve got their car number.’ His voice tried hard to be optimistic. ‘Daddy will know what to do.’

I nodded. Paul stood up and we headed for the Estate gates.

The next day, in the evening, I returned to the university hostels. I walked slowly through the gates, lost in thought. Thoughts that converged in a confused, convoluted mass, then slowly receded, frittering away to nothingness. Flooding and ebbing, chafing at the seams of my sanity.