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her, but he was persistent and finally won through. They married in 1974, had a two day honeymoon in Zanzibar and then came out here to work, founding Tetro-Meyer’s monkey colony. The first year was the worst. The conditions were squalid, they were frequently ill, the local people were suspicious and their employers seemed to have forgotten them. Yet already they knew they were happy. I looked at Sophie’s unconscious form while he talked. She seemed to have a slight smile on her face.
    About nine o’clock Georg uttered an oath and slammed on the brakes. Ahead were a dozen hyena tearing at the carcass of a little antelope called a duiker. Their evil yellow eyes reflected the headlamps, and they showed no fear, sniffing the air as we passed as if they could sense we were something more tender.
    By midnight Georg passed over the driving to Jarman, but when the doctor himself drifted off to sleep and ploughed us into a thicket at five in the morning I knew it was my turn to take the wheel.
    It was when we changed over that we noticed. My hands were stained dark, and so were the seats and the floor. Georg’s torch revealed that Sophie’s blanket was drenched in dark blood, almost black. It seemed she was passing it in her urine. With the movement of the vehicle it had got everywhere. Sophie herself was delirious and didn’t even recognise her husband. He seemed close to panic, and no-one could say anything to reassure him. We cleaned up in a gloomy silence and set off. There was nothing more we could do.
    Sister Margaret kept talking to me as I drove, but it was fear that really kept sleep away. While Jarman slept I had heard Amy and Georg reviewing Sophie’s symptoms and the worst-case causes: lassa fever, haemorrhagic fever, ebola, green monkey disease. Each was highly infectious, frequently fatal, and difficult or impossible to treat even in a western hospital. The discussion became still more surreal as we discussed the trade off between quarantine for us and trying to save Sophie. We exhausted ourselves before we came to any conclusions.
    It was with some surprise that at half past six in the morning we passed a few shacks and a metalled road, before arriving at the overgrown concrete of the airstrip at Ubulu.
    It was deserted, so we waited. The sun rose, blazing across the forest canopy and the crickets quietened. A man appeared with a broom and swept the verandah of the airstrip’s whitewashed shack, before disappearing again. Seven o’clock came and went and Georg got on to Kisangani on the radio. They said the Cessna should already have arrived.
    Jarman set up a makeshift bed beside the Land Rover and carried Sophie onto it like a sleeping child. Amy walked up to me and whispered into my ear. ‘She’s gone into a coma. I’m frightened to tell Jarman, but she’s not going to make it.’
    Sister Margaret sat with Sophie and got out her rosary while Jarman frenetically scanned the empty sky, shading his eyes while he strained for the tiniest distant dot. Just before eight Sister Margaret took Jarman on a short walk, with her arm cupping his shoulder like they were old friends. All we could see was his head shaking slowly from side to side. When he returned, his face streaked with tears, they knelt together over Sophie. Sister Margaret read the last rites. At 8.17am, in the shade of the Land Rover under an empty blue sky, Sophie Hofhaus let out a deep sigh and passed away.
    (Erica’s Diary 1992)

    Max looked at his watch. Almost ten. Erica’s conference began at four. Max knew she would be there early. Erica might have cut him out of her heart, but parasites, worms and bugs would be wriggling there forever. Besides, there might be a chance to find Professor Jürgen Friederikson and get some clues about who this old friend was that he had mentioned at the restaurant. The absence of the laptop was a hint that this was all to do with her paper. Why else would