‘How are you feeling?’

She closed her eyes and shook her head. ‘There are good days and bad days.’

She kept her hand out and I passed the box over then stood waiting; it took a moment for her to offer me a seat. I perched on the sofa opposite her, and she called for Waweru to bring us two Black Velvets.

‘What’s Freddie up to tonight?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know. Something at the Sports Club, I think.’ She passed a hand over her eyes. ‘I’ll tell him you stopped by.’

‘Will I miss him, then?’

‘Maybe. He’s got a lot on his plate at the moment.’

‘I know – he told me.’

‘He’ll be very grateful,’ she said. She leaned forwards and patted my knee. ‘He thinks the world of you, you know? He’s always said how helpful you are.’

‘I’m glad to do it.’

‘I’m –’

I waited for another few moments before realising she wasn’t going to continue. Her eyes had glazed over and beads of sweat stood out on her forehead. I stood up hurriedly. ‘Maybe I should let you rest.’

‘Are you leaving?’

‘Afraid so. Give my love to Freddie.’ I kissed her hand.

‘’Bye, Theo,’ she said.

I found Waweru in the bar and told him Martha had taken a bad turn.

‘I see to her,’ he said. ‘Goodbye, Bwana.’

I sat in my car for a few moments, wishing I’d stayed in Nairobi. Both Kiboko and Mahalbeth had changed in the space of half an hour, and I felt overwhelmed. I ran a hand through my hair, trying to calm down. At least there was still Freddie and Sylvie.

I turned on my engine, and drove home slowly.

Chapter Twenty

Freddie waited until November, as he’d said, before making his first public show of support for the BUF during a Caledonian Society supper in Nakuru. It was hard not to hear about it in the days afterwards, how he’d torn into Byrne’s Budget speech, and attacked the Governor, the Secretary of State for the Colonies – Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister – and the entire government, pointing to them as the reason the Colonial Empire was ‘staggering to the brink of destruction’.

‘It was brutal,’ Boy told me, when I ran into him at the Naivasha general store. ‘Byrne didn’t know how to respond. Freddie hadn’t shown him his speech beforehand, you see.’ He grinned. ‘I almost felt sorry for the blighter. Especially when Freddie laid into him as an Irishman.’

‘How did the rest of the Society take it?’

‘You know Freddie – he had them in stitches half the time. But it’s shocked some of the older members. The Mombasa chapter wrote Byrne a letter of apology.’

I took out my cigarette packet and offered him one. ‘I wish I’d been there. What now?’