She looked at him, mute, her brain sluggish as she tried to absorb what he was saying. He put his arm around her, but she resisted him and moved away to sit in an armchair as he told her what the newspapers had reported. The crime harkened back to the days of the emergency, the Daily Telegraph said, when European farmers had feared for their lives and members of the Mau Mau were sworn to kill anyone, black or white, who was not of their persuasion. It had the appearance of a ritual killing, a barbaric act that had not been seen for many years in the former colony, and it underlined the precarious circumstances in which the remaining white farmers lived. Better policing and security measures were needed, the paper said. Although of Afrikaans origins Piet van der Beer was a British citizen. His death would be investigated thoroughly, perhaps by Scotland Yard as well as by the Kenya police. For a long time Camilla stared fixedly ahead, shutting out of her imagination the savagery that had taken Piet’s life from them all.

‘What about the others?’ she said, drying her tears.

‘No one else was harmed. It says that his fiancée was the one to find him.’

‘Are you sure? Are you absolutely certain that’s what it says?’ When he nodded, she stood up unsteadily. ‘Oh God. Oh God, it must be Sarah. They were engaged, and she never told me. I never even knew. Oh God, it’s too hard to bear, to believe. And now—’ She shuddered, and her voice deserted her.

‘My dear, would you like to telephone? Now, while I’m here?’

‘It’s my fault,’ she said in a low voice. ‘They asked me to get help and I never did anything about it. If I’d spoken to you months ago, when I first came back, this would never have happened. You’d have been able to do something for them, to get them money that would have made them safe. And now he’s dead, killed by some poacher on his land, because I didn’t help them in time. Oh God.’ She began to sob, loud, rasping sounds that gripped her body and shook her frame as she hung on to the window ledge for support.

‘Camilla – this isn’t your fault. You can’t think you’re in any way responsible. That’s insane, my dear. I think you should speak to Hannah or Sarah. So that you can get through this together, so that you can get through this together. What do you say, darling? Shall I ring for you?’