53.

Amelia was still asking Beno questions. When had he last eaten, how many days a week did he spend here, what time did he start and stop, but although I wanted to know more about his life too, I sensed what she didn’t: if we stopped him working again, he’d probably pay for it. I shushed her and we both took a step back. But I couldn’t quite bring myself to just walk away. As I watched, a fly landed on the boy’s thin neck and crawled up towards his hairline. He didn’t bother to wave it off.

‘How can we help him?’ I said.

‘It’s not just him though, is it?’ said Amelia.

Of course it wasn’t. Beyond Beno, another slightly bigger boy was also sifting muck, and dotted around us there were other boys and girls mixed in with the adults.

Without consciously knowing why, I’d been digging around in my pockets. My hand emerged clutching one of Francis’s chocolate biscuits. I knelt down next to the boy and offered it to him. He took it very quickly, as if worried I might think twice about the offer if he hung around.

‘Merci,’ he added, once the biscuit was safely snatched.

Merci. Mercy. I gulped, fighting the comparison, but it came anyway. This kid had lost both his parents. For now, I’d also lost mine. Beno’s situation was beyond desperate, but I was desperate too, desperate to get Mum and Dad back.

‘I’m not sure a snack is going to solve much,’ said Amelia. She wasn’t being hostile, just stating the truth.

‘I know, but what else can I do?’

‘Your parents came out here to gather evidence, right? Of illegal mining. Seeing as you’re the one with the big camera, they should probably have brought you with them in the first place. I’d take as many pictures as you can, if I were you.’

The fact we still didn’t know who had hold of Mum and Dad must have played in my face. Amelia went on. ‘They’d want you to document this and put it the evidence in the right hands. Theirs, preferably. But if your parents don’t make it to the summit, they’d want you show people the photos there yourself, yes?’

The summit was still a way off and Mum and Dad would surely make it there in person. I couldn’t let myself think anything else, but said, ‘I suppose so,’ to Amelia all the same.

‘Get on with it then – take as many as you can before one of these guards realises Caleb’s not as important as he’s pretending to be.’

She was right of course. ‘I’ll take the kids’ photographs, you get their names and ages,’ I said, and we set to, working our way around the piles of rocks and puddles and holes and sacks and heaps of dirt, everything filthy and alive with apparently pointless physical work of some sort, a termite mound that only made sense when you thought of how all the backbreaking tasks – hacking and digging and shovelling and lifting and pouring and picking and sluicing and sifting – came together in the form of something valuable to sell.

I focused on the kids, tried to take photos that showed the punishing practicalities of what they were doing as well as who they were, and for each kid I photographed, Amelia asked their name. I remember a Fabrice and a Justin, a Gabriel and a Pierre, a Mpenda and even a Sublime, but to be honest I was more bothered about getting well-composed, properly lit, sharp photos than I was on who was who. After we’d photographed about fifteen kids I realised Amelia wasn’t writing down the names and made the mistake of suggesting it might be a good idea. She gave me a fake-withering glare and muttered, ‘For you, maybe. Just do your bit and let me do mine.’

I’m not sure how long we worked; I got so caught up in what I was doing that I lost track of time. It seemed ages, but probably wasn’t long. Still, Caleb managed to ask the gathered guards if they’d heard anything about a visit from a middle-aged white couple linked to his father, and the next thing I knew he was by my side, apologetically giving me the bad news: nobody knew anything at all.

‘Also, you should probably wrap it up with the camera. They’re getting pretty antsy.’

I glanced over to the gaggle of guards. Two of them were arguing with Francis while a third looked on, and the original man who’d stopped us, and was still hugging his rifle as if it was a cat, was giving me a proper thousand-yard death stare. Marcel, squatting next to this group, held up one big hand palm down and wobbled it from side to side, the universal ‘this is iffy’ signal. I turned away and took one last photograph – of the GPS screen, to pinpoint the location of this place for future investigation – before returning the camera to its padded pocket in the bottom of my rucksack. By the time I was done, the guards’ argument was audible over the squelching of feet and thump of spades in the hole I’d just photographed.

They wanted us gone, that much was clear. So Caleb and I hurried Amelia up the slope to where Francis and Marcel were now openly pleading with the guards, who’d sort of surrounded them, a bit like a crew of school bullies on the brink of making their move. Caleb either didn’t notice or decided not to care. Fair play to him: he barged right into the middle of the men, wagging his finger, and saying, ‘No, no, no!’ very loudly indeed. Again, it was an impressive act. He looked very entitled. But the guards seemed to have grown; for all his work in the gym, Caleb stood out as puny by comparison.

‘What’s he objecting to, precisely?’ Amelia asked me.

‘I’m not sure, but it seems to be working.’

The main guard had taken a couple of steps backwards. Now the others followed suit, the noose of their circle relaxing.

‘Take names,’ Caleb was telling Francis. ‘Tell them my father will be pleased to hear of their vigilance. Explain that we’ve undertaken this visit on his behalf. They’ll be rewarded.’

Francis began relaying all this before Caleb finished saying it, and Marcel somehow got himself between the guards and the three of us while the translation was going on, shepherding us away up the hill with an insistent, ‘Suivez-moi!’

We did as we were told and backed away further up the slope. I kept my eyes on the guard with the rifle. Mesmerised by those fidgety fingers, I wasn’t exactly focusing on where I was stepping, and I lost my footing on the uneven ground and sat down in a pool of sludge. The guards all looked my way when this happened and mercifully found it funny. I slapped my forehead, very clown-like, which made one of them laugh out loud. This gave Francis the opportunity to disentangle himself from the conversation.

‘Physical comedy is weird like that,’ Amelia said, helping me up. ‘I’ve no idea why, but it defuses tension.’

‘Deliberate ploy,’ I said.

‘Really?’ she asked, looking impressed.

I didn’t tell her the truth.