They searched for the leopard in the days that followed, but they never saw him again. On the last morning, light flooded the river as the sun burst into view, hot and yellow on the horizon. Camilla stared at the grazing plains game and envied them the calm order of their lives. Tomorrow Anthony would drive them to Langani and then he would be gone, back to Nairobi and the preparations for his next clients. An American couple with their recently divorced daughter who needed a consolation present, a starting point in her new, solitary life. Camilla hated the whole family, envied and feared the people who would take him away from her. The daughter was probably on the lookout for an affair, to salvage her damaged ego. Anthony had said nothing about the future, except for a vague reference to a marketing trip that would take him to the United States in November. Last night she had hoped he would ask her to go with him. She was sure she could charm any number of possible clients in New York and San Francisco, and Beverly Hills. But he had said nothing to reassure her, or to indicate that he envisioned a future they could share.

During the day she tried to retain her sense of hope, to ensure that he would always remember these last moments, and all their moments, when he was alone in his tent. She made love to him with a savage passion which surprised and then aroused him to a pitch he had never experienced before. Then she lay beside him in the burning afternoon, stroking his long body, massaging his shoulders and his head with probing, insistent fingers, licking and kissing away the small trickles of sweat that appeared on his temples as he looked at her, dazed and exhausted but insatiably hungry for her. She waited for him to draw her close, to tell her that he loved her. But he stared at her in silence for a while and then he turned away and slept.