‘Mwangi. Thank you, Mwangi.’ She took his gnarled hands and held on to him, drawing strength from his understanding and affection and loyalty as he walked beside her, moving on into the assembly, still clinging to him as she made her way towards the waiting cars. All around them they heard a gentle swell, a humming that began as a soft harmony of voices before the sound rose in volume and rhythm into a swaying hymn of love and loss and remembrance of the young man they had all known. He had carried their security and their hopes with him, and now he was gone and they wanted to share in mourning his departure, to sing him into peace.

Sarah remembered nothing of the drive to the ridge, or even the climb from the end of the track to the summit. A shroud of misery had wrapped itself around her, suffocating her so that she could not even help Hannah up the last steep section of ground. It was all she could do to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other, oblivious to the pain of her shoulder and the thorn bushes that scratched her legs, catching her trousers in their spikes from time to time so that she had to tear the fabric in order to continue. When they reached the top of the ridge, she was standing once more where they had spent their last evening together, looking out across the plains. Below her the curl of the river remained the same, the lodge still stood on the kopje, and in the blue distance she saw the roof of Langani and the stern, unmoving silhouette of the mountain. She could hear the morning call of birds, the rustle of monkeys gathering berries and seeds in the trees around her, the busy creaking of frogs and cicadas. It all sounded so normal, except for the ragged breathing of Hannah and Lottie, as they stood at the base of Piet’s funeral pyre.