‘Nothing. But he’s not one to waste words, my brother, unless he has definite progress to report. You know that boy,’ Hannah said. ‘He’ll drive straight back when he gets finished, unless the rain is too heavy. Honestly, I’ve stopped hoping for any support from government departments, or big organisations. They don’t want to know about us. Our problems are too small, we’re the wrong colour, and we’re bloody Afrikaners.’

‘Anthony told me about the poachers.’

‘Well, they don’t confine themselves to Langani,’ Hannah said, bitterly. ‘Killing animals is rife all over the country. Jeremy has a vendetta theory, but I don’t believe in it. We’re good employers. Our watu know it. They’re better off than a lot of labour on other farms. The conservation area is going to bring in tourists and generate more jobs. Why will no one help us?’

‘Everything is bottle-necked,’ Lars remarked. ‘These new politicians and government officials are having a fine time throwing their weight around, enjoying their power and importance, blocking anything and everything. It’s going to be like this for a while. Everyone is suffering the results.’

‘Maybe,’ Hannah said, turning her back on him. ‘I still think we’re worse off because they see us as Afrikaners – stupid and thick-skinned, like the oxen that carried us up here. We’re still outsiders, just as we always were. Even though Piet and I were born here and we’re Kenya citizens. There’s no excuse for it.’

‘Irish characters are looked at in the same way, you know,’ Sarah said with sympathy. ‘At least we can be considered stupid together.’

Hannah was not to be mollified. ‘These days you can’t be Afrikaans or Indian in this country. You have to be black, or British, or from the UN, otherwise you don’t count. And certainly not if you’re some domkop yaapie. It’s the same “old-boy connections” that applied before Uhuru.’

‘I think Lars is right,’ Anthony said. ‘It’s wholesale bribery and corruption and everyone has to deal with it at some level. I have endless shauris with permits and licences. There’s chaos in every department of the administration.’

‘Allie Briggs told me they have the same problems at Buffalo Springs,’ Sarah said. ‘Poachers and cattle rustlers and Somali bandits all over the place, and no proper patrols to go after them. Plus politicians who look the other way for all sorts of reasons, but mostly for cash.’

‘So. Am I getting paranoid from thinking about it too much?’ Hannah’s question was like a challenge. Then she sighed. ‘It’s probably true. Even Viktor says so. He’s trying to see if any of his government contacts might be able to push things along. But it makes me mad to see how they give Piet the run-around.’