63.

I resisted the temptation to speed us to the People’s Palace; Kinshasa’s streets, I’d noticed, are full of traffic police just looking for a reason to stop cars, motorbikes, even cyclists, and demand a payment. Better to make like a tortoise than a hare. That also gave Xander time to work out that chairman Mukwege would likely be arriving by car also, since the summit was taking place across town. When we spoke, on our arrival, he had a plan all worked out.

‘Get rid of the bike and act like a tourist; work your way as close to the entrance as you can and if – no, when – you see him, try shouting, “Cloudburst!”’

‘Why?’

‘It’s what I labelled the file.’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Wish me luck.’

‘Make your own!’ he said, trying to buoy me up.

Amelia had been listening in. ‘Instead of talking about something that doesn’t exist, let’s get in position, shall we?’

Mercifully there were no big crowds of protestors, or indeed tourists, clogging up the front of the People’s Palace. The great oblong building sat flat on its enormous apron of tarmac beneath a felt-grey sky. A steady stream of cars was rolling up in front of the main steps to deposit important people, however, and there were guards stationed there. To get to that point the cars had to filter through a roadblock of sorts. It was Amelia’s idea to station ourselves there. Had Mukwege already arrived? I wondered. Hopefully not, since the summit he was apparently closing wasn’t due to end until roughly now. We sidled as close to the pinch point as we dared, and stood inspecting the cars as they came. It seemed a ridiculously long shot, and yet I knew Xander wouldn’t have suggested it without having done his best to research the chairman’s schedule and movements. Some of the cars had heavily tinted windows. They were agony to let pass. As more and more time ticked away I felt hope draining through the soles of my trainers into the warm tarmac. Twelve o’clock turned to twelve fifteen turned to half past.

‘He’s late if he’s coming this way at all,’ I muttered, turning to Amelia.

Her face was screwed up in concentration. ‘If I wasn’t here,’ she said, ‘you’d have given up and missed him.’

I snapped back to look at the next approaching car, and sure enough, behind the driver, was an enormous figure crowned with that distinctive shock of white hair. It had to be him. The car, a huge silver limo, with at least three rows of seats, was rolling along quite slowly. It just kept coming. I approached its side, waving at the driver to stop. In response the car eased forward faster. In desperation, I dashed to the front of the limo and slid across the bonnet: I had to put myself between it and the gate. To avoid running me over, the car had to jerk to a stop. Immediately the front passenger door flung open and a guy with a gun, screaming in French, took a step towards me with the barrel aimed straight at my face.

‘Non, arrêtez, non!’ shouted Amelia.

Her words had no effect; the man just kept coming. He had a crooked nose. Flattened, almost. He wouldn’t shoot me there and then, would he? That was a gamble I had to take. I moved towards him – and his open door – yelling, ‘Cloudburst, Cloudburst!’ at the top of my voice. The bodyguard got hold of me, tried to haul me away. I felt my T-shirt ripping as I struggled, still hollering, ‘Cloudburst!’ for everything I was worth, which, in that moment, felt like nothing at all. I had hold of the door frame somehow and wasn’t about to let go of it: the guy could rip my T-shirt clean off for all I cared.

Lazily, the rear window of the limo lowered, revealing a concerned broad face beneath a white cloud.

‘Qu’est-ce que vous avez dit?’ he said gently, and in accented English, ‘What did you say?’

Amelia stepped in. With a showstopping smile and her perfect French she held the big man’s attention. I heard my parents’ names, the word enfants repeated, and a load of other stuff whose gist I could follow without understanding all the words. The bodyguard melted away. The chairman climbed out of the limo, towering above us both, six foot eight at least.

Offering us his hand the big man said, ‘Martin Mukwege,’ his voice velvet. We shook it and did what he said, which was simply, ‘Walk with me.’

In English and French, speaking one after the other, fighting to get everything out, we told our story. Our words poured into Mukwege as if into a vault: here was somebody we both had complete trust in, instantly. I pulled out my camera and thrust screen showing the photos I’d taken up at him. He waved it away, saying, ‘I received the email, don’t worry. Its contents are in circulation as we speak.’

‘So you believe us?’

‘Of course. The pictures don’t lie. The coordinates don’t either.’

‘And it’ll do some good?’

‘If I have a say in things,’ he said with a smile.

I could have hugged him. With my parents missing, Langdon an enemy, Innocent dead, and distanced from pretty much every other adult I’d encountered on this miserable trip by my poor French, Mukwege seemed a god. There was something absolute about him. He believed us.

‘And you say your parents are being held against their will, that you know where they are, that you need help to secure their release?’

I blurted out the street name.

‘After the vote,’ he said, ‘I’ll be leaving the way I arrived. Wait for me.’

At that he shot his cuffs and checked the time on his watch. It was plastic and orange and massive, bright against his huge black wrist. He gave us both a friendly nod and strode toward the parliament building.

As Mukwege disappeared inside, taking our story with him, I suddenly felt very alone with Amelia. We stood facing each other before the massive facade of the People’s Palace. I felt lightheaded, dizzy with something more than relief and tiredness. Together, along with Xander, we’d achieved something. We may well have done some actual good.