‘I know. I’ve tried to bring it up with her, but it’s too soon.’ He smiled and squeezed her hand. ‘Don’t worry, I will find a solution. Go back to work now. That is the best thing you can do for yourself, and for Hannah too. Life will be better here when you come home the next time.’

She could see him in the driving mirror, standing there on Lottie’s lawn, until she rounded the bend in the driveway and left the farm behind.

Chapter 28

Rhodesia, February 1966

Jan van der Beer came to a halt in the scant shade of an overhanging rock. He was out of breath, exhausted by the pitiless heat. He mopped his face and neck, and shrugged away the trickles of sweat that ran down his back under his shirt. There was a brackish taste to the water he was drinking but he gulped it down, wiping the last drops from his unshaven chin with the back of his hand. Then he searched in his bush jacket and took out the whisky flask, turning his back to his companions as he swallowed greedily. The patrol had been moving at a rapid rate since dawn, but the temperature and blinding glare of midday had finally forced them to stop. The trail they were following had temporarily disappeared on the rock-strewn ridge, and the trackers were casting about in the scrub, searching for signs of recent human passage. Jan watched them in silence, cursing under his breath, resentful of the fact that he was out with his cousin once more, chasing through the bush after the gang that had attacked the Maartens’ farm. They had murdered the elderly couple, and torched the house and the farm buildings before slipping into the scrubland that stretched to the border with Zambia. The houseboy had raised the alarm, running through the darkness to the next homestead. It was four in the morning when the telephone rang in Jan’s bungalow.

‘There’s more trouble,’ Kobus said. ‘Old Maartens and his wife are dead. I’m putting a patrol together. We’ll leave in an hour to get the bastards.’

They had set out before dawn, taking advantage of the cool temperature, and moving slowly at first so that the trackers would not miss anything significant in the poor light. Now it was midday and the heat was intolerable. There was no doubt in Jan’s mind that the killers were insurgents from one of the black political parties banned by the prime minister. Since the sweeping election victory of Ian Smith’s Rhodesian Front Party, most black opposition leaders had been jailed. The exceptions were those who had fled across the border into Zambia where they had set up guerrilla groups, operating frequent armed raids into their home country.