‘Remember, I’m next door if you need anything during the night,’ he said, as they finished a simple supper beside the fire. ‘All you have to do is call out, Sis. Mwangi and Kipchoge are both sleeping in the house for now. I’ve fixed up temporary quarters for them beside the pantry. Plus there are two of Juma’s sons on patrol outside.’

‘It’s wonderful that we’re forced to turn our home into a state of siege,’ Hannah said. She saw his expression and relented. ‘I know. It’s just until they find those bloody savages,’ she said. ‘But it’s my first night home, and it’s hard. I’ll manage better tomorrow, when I’ve had some sleep. I think I’ll go to bed now.’

‘Han, take this.’ He handed her a loaded revolver. ‘It’s for insurance. You might feel better having it by you. You can keep it under your pillow at night.’

She took the gun without a word and went to her bedroom, closing and locking the door behind her. But when she stood alone at last, she was overcome by an uncontrollable avalanche of emotion, and she collapsed on to her bed, buckling under the force of it. She longed for someone to lean on, to confide in, because she did not think she could hold out on her own. Her mind felt as though it had splintered into shards, exposing her cowardice and her fears. She dried her eyes and went to sit down in her favourite chair but within moments she stood up again, afraid of being so close to the window. Before turning out the light she searched frantically in the drawer of her bedside table for a torch and placed it under her pillow, next to the gun. All around her the sounds of night were changed, as every creak and shift of the old house became a threat. The generator sputtered and the lights dimmed so that she was surrounded by total darkness. At four o’clock in the morning she was still awake, her limbs aching with anxiety, her eyes dry and raw and burning in their sockets. She felt as though she was strung out on some instrument of torture that had stretched her mind and body to a state of unbearable exhaustion. And she was angry with herself. If she could not adjust, if she could not find the courage to go on, if she could not lie in the bed she had occupied for most of her twenty-one years, then they had won. She would not allow that, would not be defeated. At last she slept, mercifully free of dreams and visions, until the dawn crept in through a chink in the curtains and she awoke to find that the world was a place of astounding beauty.