Henry waited exactly where we’d left him, perfectly oblivious to his fate. We rode him back to the alleyway of tents and gave him a little wash with some rags and water from a leaking tap. We were so scared he’d be stolen that Henry got to sleep his last night in the tent with us.

The next day we wheeled him to a trade-in centre on the edge of the city that had a terrible record of ripping refugees off but wasn’t prone to checking for identification.

Ayamin waited in the street as I took the scooter in. The large sliding door to the shop was open. In one corner of the shop sat fifteen Japanese made scooters with hefty price tags attached.

‘Hello?’ I called out.

The head of a greasy looking man appeared from beneath a car.

‘Hey there, you speak English?’ I called, ‘I’ve got a trade for you.’

The man wheeled himself out from under the car. He was short, sweaty and his skin was slightly blackened from all the grease in his workshop.

‘I’ve got a scooter here, how much can I get for it?’

He paused for a moment as if deciding whether or not he would talk to me, ‘Cash?’ he asked.

‘Cash.’

The man walked past me and gave Henry’s front tire a sharp kick which Henry wouldn’t have liked at all. Without pausing to ask he climbed onto Henry’s seat, started the engine, and revved the poor little scooter half to death.

This confirms it, I thought, he’s an asshole.

The man wiped his face with the oily sleeve of his overalls, ‘It’s a Vespa trash, the engine on this thing will be useless.’

He glanced at me for a moment before shrugging, ‘I’ll give you two hundred euros to take it off your hands.’

That made my heart sink, no way would we be able to afford the smugglers’ fee.

‘Actually, I was looking for more like a thousand euros,’ I said, ‘This Vespa is worth double those imports you’re robbing people with.’

The man snorted but couldn’t keep a smile from his lips. When dealing with an asshole it can be useful to be an asshole yourself.

‘Three hundred,’ he said, ‘And I give you one jap imports, I can’t sell them here.’

‘Nine hundred and you can keep your import.’

The man went back to Henry, felt the handlebars, rubbed his hand over a few of the dents in it.

‘Listen,’ I said, ‘I’m in a hurry,’ I pointed to Ayamin, ‘You see that girl over there? She asked me to sell the scooter. I’m going to say it went for a hundred euros and I’ll keep the rest, but you’d better make it worth my while. Eight hundred and fifty or I’m going to the next store.’

The man looked taken aback that I was being so direct, but then he saw Ayamin and his face changed.

‘Eight hundred,’ he grinned. I paused for a moment, let him think he was getting away with something, then sighed and shook his hand.

I nodded to the little scooter that had carried me so far. Henry had strips of grease on him from where the man had touched him. I hoped he’d find a nice home.