‘His blood has already soaked into the earth in the place that is his. Now his body should go with it. He should be a part of the ridge where he died. He said he wanted to be there when he died. You heard him, Anthony.’ She was shaking the big man, her words rising to a wail of desperation. ‘You were with us when he said it. Don’t let anyone move him, Anthony, don’t let them take him away to some cold place where he’s shut in, away from his world.’

‘Hannah, what do you want me to do? Do you want him buried up there? Is that it?’

She stood up. ‘We should make a pyre. We should burn him up there and scatter his ashes over the ridge. Now.’ She was making a chilling sound like moaning, raw with misery. ‘Now. Tonight. To finish the pain. His terrible pain . . .’

She wrapped her arms around her body and began to sway, her eyes shut, her voice murmuring something in Afrikaans. Lottie tried to hold her steady, to make her still. Hardy cleared his throat.

‘Hannah, my dear girl, I understand what you are asking, but we can’t do that. One, it wouldn’t be legal. Two, there’s the investigation. We have to bring in the body. And three, there will have to be an inquest. I’m sorry, Hannah, but—’

‘No! No, you don’t understand at all.’ She reached out to clutch his arm. ‘What can you want with his body, heh? Do you want to cut it up some more? Destroy what’s left of him, with knives and steel instruments in some laboratory? Ach, Jeremy, you’ve seen how he was killed and there is nothing else you need to know. The only thing we can do now, to give him peace, is to burn him on the ridge where he wanted to be. And then his ashes will float across our land and set him free. Please, Jeremy, don’t lock him away in a morgue, in a dark closed-in place where he would hate to be. Please.’

In her acute distress, her breath had begun to come in heaving gasps, and Dr Markham stepped foward to monitor her pulse and to persuade her to sit down again. Then he took Hardy out on the verandah, out of earshot.