‘You’d turn a few heads on the King’s Road, if they saw you now.’ Anthony watched as Camilla wiped a trickle of sweat from her face, leaving a trail of dust across her cheek. He laughed out loud. ‘Only an hour till we reach the camp. Then you have the choice of a shower, or a swim with the crocodiles in the river. And believe me, you’ve never seen crocs like these.’

They stopped at the headquarters of the reserve to check in. Anthony drove slowly now, following a winding track that meandered through several miles of thick bush before opening out into areas of bleached grass and stands of doum palms. The game was sparse, most creatures having taken refuge in the shade to sleep away the ferocity of midday. Sarah’s eyes were beginning to close, and she had the unwelcome sensation of being unable to control her nodding head when Anthony pulled up and pointed into the bushes at the side of the road.

‘Gerenuk,’ he said. ‘Swala twiga, it’s called in Swahili – giraffe gazelle.’

They watched admiringly as the gerenuk turned its head to look at them, sounding a soft call of alarm, curious enough to remain stationary but poised for flight.

‘Look at that long, delicate neck with the small head balanced so gracefully on the top. And the ears are very wide and white inside, with black markings like the veins in a leaf.’ Anthony said in a low voice. ‘Easy to identify with the neck and the handsome horns sweeping backwards. You only see gerenuks here in the north. They can survive for a long time without water, and they’re able to reach higher into the trees for grazing, way above smaller gazelles and antelopes.’

Sarah lifted her camera and made a small sound of satisfaction as the gerenuk reared up, balancing its forelegs on a branch, nibbling with dainty precision on a mixture of thorns and young leaves. Behind them Piet and Hannah had also stopped to admire the animal’s coppery coat and white belly. Camilla stole a sideways look at Anthony as he raised his binoculars, holding them with the same hands that had caressed her into a state of willing surrender. The memory of it made her breath catch in her throat. It seemed so long ago. She wanted to wind her fingers around his wrist, with its band of bracelets made from leather and copper and coloured beads. A nomad’s bracelets, fitting for a man who lived most of his life in the bush, moving from place to place, with no permanence of the kind that she knew. She wondered what his house in Nairobi was like, and whether he had asked some past girlfriend to decorate it for him.