He held the tumbler to his lips in defiance, and downed the liquid in one long swallow. Then he slammed the glass down on the table and left the room. Lottie rose to her feet, cleared the kitchen table and put Jan’s uneaten dinner in the bin. He was asleep and snoring when she reached the bedroom and she stood looking down at the lines of strain on his face, the broken veins on his nose, the bloated features and the bubble of spittle that had formed at the edge of his open mouth. She had come to detest the stale smell of alcohol on his breath as he lay beside her. And his dreams were troubled. It was like the months after the Mau Mau and the enquiry, when he had locked himself into a spiral of despair and she had feared for his sanity. He was a good man at heart, she told herself as she lay awake beside him. He had been a loving husband and father. But now he was no better than a slave. Kobus enjoyed watching his cousin’s gradual decline, and Lottie had seen that it gave the brutish man a sense of power. In addition, he had made several passes at her, and he watched her with a cunning, predatory look that made her flesh crawl. She was close to despair as she thought of her murdered son, and of what might become of her husband.

But there was no way out of this terrible place without money. Her meagre savings had gone with Hannah when she fled, and they would not have been enough in any case. Jan earned a pittance and he had no hope of putting money aside to take them home to Kenya, even if he stopped drinking. She heard him grinding his teeth, muttering in his sleep, and she said a prayer that she would find a way to take him out of this place and give him back his dignity and sense of purpose. Lottie pulled on her old dressing gown and went into the kitchen to make tea and to think things over again. She had one ally on whom she could always rely. Perhaps he would lend her some money – enough to take Jan and herself back to Kenya. Tomorrow she would telephone her brother in Johannesburg. She returned to the bedroom and fell asleep instantly, oblivious for once to Jan’s alcohol-fuelled snoring.

She rang Sergio the following morning and found it hard to speak to him without crying. He immediately offered his support.