Hannah smiled in spite of herself. Sarah’s spiky handwriting fled along the pages of her letters as if her pen had trouble keeping up with her jostling ideas. Piet was such a fool, hankering after Camilla when he could have Sarah with the raising of an eyebrow, or a crook of his little finger. Why didn’t things ever work out in some simple, uncomplicated way? She wondered if Tim would ever write to her. Sarah said he’d enquired after her several times, and she had told him if he wanted to know how Hannah was, he should ask her himself. Except he was a doctor now, working round the clock, so he probably wouldn’t have the energy to write. Plus he was going out with a nurse from the hospital, but Camilla had made short work of her, whatever that meant. Camilla, of course, was far too taken up with her new life to write letters. For a time she’d sent postcards, with pictures of all the exotic places she was visiting, but the messages on the back were vague and brief. Then silence.

The old antipathy roiled up again, as she thought of the Broughton-Smiths. They did say like father like son. Who was Camilla like? Her father was a decent enough sort, but the mother was an evil bitch! If Camilla hadn’t come to the farm with Sarah, all those years ago, this might never have happened. No, that wasn’t fair. Whatever Pa had done would have come out sooner or later, no matter what. She just wished it hadn’t been her friend’s mother who had caused them so much pain. And George Broughton-Smith had done nothing to help them, even though he was back in London in a powerful job. He was still working with the Kenya government, Sarah said. Would he be in a position to help Piet, if there was a future showdown on land acquisition? Would he turn a blind eye while the new government seized their farm and parcelled it out to the natives?

Her thoughts constantly returned to Langani and what was happening there now. Before he left, Pa had taken on a young Norwegian manager. The man seemed to be doing well on his own since Piet went to Scotland. According to reports. But then he would say everything was fine, wouldn’t he? No one could tell, from this distance, if he was managing well or running the whole operation into the ground. There’d be no way of knowing if he was lining his own pockets while the owners were away. People did that. She had nightmares about Langani, its gates hanging crooked, the house crumbling, the farm machinery rusting in the yards, the cattle wasted by disease, and Lottie’s beautiful garden choked with weeds.