He sat down with them and ordered Tusker beers all round. Sarah was instantly taken with his straightforward manner and the way he looked at her, his gaze direct. His brown eyes were hooded and an aquiline nose made him seem a little aloof, but his smile emphasised a sensuous mouth. He had reddish hair that was rather too long and curled over his shirt collar at the back, and his face and hands were tanned and peppered with freckles. He sat absolutely still while he was listening, like an animal in the wild, using his every instinct to absorb and understand the sounds and implications of his surroundings. But his laugh was uninhibited and she plied him with questions about his life in the bush, listening with rapt attention as he described the days in camp.

‘I’ve been on safari,’ Sarah said, ‘but only in our family car, and just a few days at a time. We stayed at self-catering bandas in Tsavo and Amboseli and I never wanted to come home. The shooting part seems sad, though. Cruel, too. I’m surprised you can do it, if you really care about the game.’

‘Hunting is carefully controlled, you know. You can’t go out into the bush and just bang away at anything that moves. It’s not random killing.’

‘But it’s killing, all the same.’ Sarah did not wish to antagonise him, but the subject was relevant to her own plans for the future. ‘You do shoot elephant, and lion and buffalo and leopard. In fact, you can polish off anything you like as a decoration for your library wall, can’t you?’

‘It’s not like that.’ He stubbed out a cigarette, impatient at her ignorance. ‘You have to apply for a licence to shoot each individual trophy, whether it’s a buffalo, a kudu or a leopard. Most clients want to obtain at least two of the big five, it’s true, but they don’t always succeed.’

‘The odds are stacked against the animals, though. They’re virtually helpless, up against men armed with powerful rifles and fast cars, and a desire to kill,’ Sarah said.

‘We don’t shoot from fast cars. Not even from slow cars. There are regulations about distance from the vehicle, from the animal itself, and so on.’ Far from being upset, Anthony was now enjoying the exchange. ‘You have to be out there on your feet. Every step you take makes a sound or a signal which a buffalo or a lion, hiding in thick bush, can hear long before you get close. And apart from our trophy licences, we only shoot for the pot. To feed the camp.’

‘You’re killing off animals, for all that,’ she said stubbornly.

‘So is your butcher,’ he retorted, smiling at her.