31.

Langdon ran us back to the hotel. En route he made it clear that he’d intended to fly east with Caleb that morning but would be staying in Kinshasa to help deal with what he called ‘the situation’. He said he was pleased I’d persuaded him to go to the police. It felt like he was on my side, genuinely trying to be helpful: there was no hint that he resented the inconvenience of my absent parents, but I still felt the need to apologise on their behalf for mucking up his schedule.

He waved the apology away. ‘I’ve got bags of things to be getting on with here,’ he said. ‘And anyway, it’ll be good for Caleb to make a start without me breathing down his neck.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, meaning it.

‘That’s OK. You have my number. Use it if you need to. I know it’ll be tough waiting here, but try not to worry. Think how much they’ll owe you when they show up again!’

With that he was off, leaving us on the steps of the luxury hotel I’d grown to hate more than boarding school. At least the days pass quickly there. That afternoon and evening in the hotel dragged by tortuously slowly. We were all up at daybreak, and after a morning spent failing to think of anything constructive to say to one another Amelia announced that she was going to cool off in the pool. She proceeded to swim lengths very quickly for a long time, which I happen to know is her way of venting her frustration. I sat with Xander, who pretended to read a book. He’s normally so laid back that some of it rubs off on me, but perhaps because his leg was hurting, he was in no mood to talk. I gnawed on the inside of my lower lip until it bled, trying to make myself believe in what Langdon and Detective Hubert had insisted, that Mum and Dad would stroll through the lobby doors any moment, or at least that the phone on my lap would light up with one of their numbers, but of course neither of those things happened. I could not will away my fears.

Eventually – and it took a while – Amelia wore herself out and joined us. She was red in the face with exertion. Her hair dripped on the stone floor. She didn’t bother drying it, just wrapped her towel around her middle and slumped into a seat next to Xander, who went on ‘reading’ for an awful long time without turning a page.

‘Good book?’ I asked him when the quiet – which had a wrong feeling about it – had gone on too long.

‘Riveting.’

The silence between us descended again, punctuated by a bit of traffic noise which filtered in over the hotel’s high walls.

‘I’m going to order some food,’ Amelia said.

‘I’m not hungry,’ I replied.

‘Me neither,’ said Xander without looking up.

‘Nor am I,’ said Amelia. ‘But we can’t live on air. Waiting on an empty stomach is worse than just waiting: fact. I’ll order.’

She called over a waitress who can’t have been much older than us. There were bright beads at the end of her cornrows and her fingernails were all painted a different colour, which you’d think might mean she was a playful person, but as Amelia established that the hotel served cheeseburgers and ordered three, clarifying that they weren’t all for her, the girl’s face stayed absolutely set, as if it was carved from marble. None of us said anything after she left, and we sat in that heavy silence for the fifteen or so minutes it took for her to bring us our order, which she set down solemnly on the glass tabletop, her face as expressionless as before. Even the cheeseburgers looked leaden in that atmosphere. None of us made a move towards them after the waitress had gone.

‘Who’s going to say it?’ said Xander.

‘Say what?’

‘Not you evidently, Jack. That’s understandable.’

Not knowing what he meant, I turned to Amelia.

‘I’m always saying the wrong thing these days,’ she said. ‘So not me.’

‘What are you guys talking about?’

Xander took a deep breath. ‘You obviously bought into that little stunt of your uncle’s.’

‘Stunt?’

‘Him finding a tame policeman who’d pretend to take you seriously.’

‘He did take me seriously!’

‘You’d want to believe that,’ said Amelia. ‘Wish fulfilment is a thing.’

‘He did enough to make you agree to park yourself here and wait it out. I’ll give him that,’ said Xander.

Amelia cut back in. ‘You have to admit his plan of action – spread some photos about among his policeman mates and hope – sounded pretty weak.’

‘Precisely,’ said Xander. ‘The first thing he should have done, if he wasn’t in Langdon’s pocket, is interview him properly, since your uncle is pretty much the last person to have seen your parents before they disappeared.’

Now that he pointed it out it seemed obvious, but I’d liked Detective Hubert and didn’t want to think he was somehow in my uncle’s thrall. ‘Langdon’s cancelled his plans to be here helping,’ I said lamely. ‘Maybe he’s giving the police the detail now.’

‘You think?’ said Amelia.

‘Langdon says there’s no problem,’ said Xander. ‘Your mum and dad will turn up eventually, he thinks, and that’s that. Somehow he got Detective Hubert to agree.’

I’d taken the policeman’s agreement as a positive thing, but according to my friends I was deluded. I felt my hackles rising even as I saw the sense of what they were saying.

‘We all want them simply to show up,’ said Xander. ‘Of course we do. But there has to be more we can do than just hanging around here, waiting.’ He reached towards the cheeseburgers but took the fork from beside the nearest plate instead of the burger on it, jammed the fork’s handle down the inside of his plaster cast, and wiggled it about.

‘Nice,’ said Amelia.

‘My shin is so itchy,’ he explained.

‘Scratching itches makes them worse.’

‘You’re wrong about one thing at least,’ he said, scratching harder. To me he went on, ‘If we could piece together their movements before they left, find out who they met with and what they talked about, we might come up with a lead. As I understand, it they were pitting themselves against some pretty powerful people who – I hate to say it, but there’s no point in pretending – might well have had good reason to want them out of the picture. Do you know the detail of this summit they’re attending in the run-up to the vote?’

‘Not really.’

Amelia said, ‘It’s called the Inaugural DRC Conference on Sustainable Development, and basically it’s an opportunity for environmental activists from around the world to persuade the Congolese government to regulate mining in and around the national parks. A lot of unscrupulous businesses, not to mention armed militia, want the opposite. There’s a big vote on a bit of legislation called Article 16B, which sets out what’s allowed and what’s not, coming up in thirteen days’ time, and the summit is an attempt to influence the outcome.’

‘Where does she get the detail from?’ Xander asked me.

‘Here and there,’ I said.

‘Actually, with this I googled it while we were in the police station,’ said Amelia.

‘Why?’

‘Because the one thing we know for sure is that Nicholas and Janine will want to be here to witness that vote. They’d also like to be around to meet with officials, ministers, businessmen et cetera in the run-up period, but knowing when the actual vote is happening gives us their absolute deadline: that’s when they have to be back.’

Having informed us of this, Amelia made a start on one of the cheeseburgers. She’s always had a good appetite, probably as a result of all the swimming training. Watching her eat stirred up my own hunger. Unexpectedly the burger itself was slathered in some sort of chilli sauce and the cheese was also pretty punchy: the food tasted better than it looked.

Between mouthfuls I said, ‘You guys are right. We should do something. I can’t just sit here waiting anyway: I’ll go mad. But I think you’ve got Detective Hubert wrong. Let’s pay him a visit without Langdon, tell him to investigate any enemies Mum and Dad might have made over this Article 16B thing and ask him what that missing-persons protocol he mentioned is all about.’ I know Amelia had already called me out for ‘wish fulfilment’, but as I took another bite of burger I felt genuinely optimistic. I gulped the mouthful down and said, ‘Who knows, he might already have turned up a lead.’