In a short time they had developed a steady rhythm, selecting stones and pebbles for their shape or colour, setting them down one by one on the blackened earth. It became a meditation, a communion with Piet in his death, a ritual burying of the violence that had reduced his life to ashes. Now those same ashes rested beneath a gentle weight of bleached, sun-warmed stones. At last, hot and sweating from exertion, they stood back to survey the result of their efforts.

‘It looks good,’ Hannah said. ‘I know Piet is happy with this.’ She wiped her face with a handkerchief. ‘I need a cold drink. Let’s take the Thermos and go up to the top of the ridge.’

They sat with their backs against the rock that Piet had always favoured, side by side, searching for peace as the sun began to spread its evening band of colour across the horizon, and the god of Kirinyaga watched them from his icy summit at the edge of the plains.

‘I saw George Broughton-Smith,’ Sarah said over dinner.

‘He’s given us a grant,’ Hannah said. ‘For a while I couldn’t accept it. I didn’t even tell Lars until a week ago. But it will help us, and if I think about it rationally I should be grateful.’

Sarah waited for a moment, considering whether she should continue with what she wanted to say in Lars’s presence. Then she explained what she had been told about Marina, and finally she told them what she had heard about George, although she did not disclose the source.

There was disbelief in Lars’s expression, but Hannah showed no sign of surprise.

‘If it’s true and she didn’t know, then that would have been hard on her,’ she said. ‘And now we have to write to her, both of us, or phone. Maybe we can do it together while you’re here, Sarah. We must ask her to come, when she can. To come back so that we can be together again.’

Late in the evening they booked calls to both London and Burford, but there was no reply, and they concluded that Marina must be in hospital, or that things were better and Camilla had gone out somewhere with her mother.

In the morning Lars drove them both into Nanyuki, where Hannah had an appointment with Dr Markham.

‘How are things going at the farm?’ Sarah asked, as they sat in the waiting room.

‘Fine,’ Hannah said. ‘Better than I’d expected. Lars seems cheerful. He’s installed in the cottage where Mike Stead lived, and he’s working too hard. I don’t see him all that much, except to discuss the farm. He keeps his distance.’ Her tone was sad when she said the last words, but then she brightened. ‘I’m so grateful he’s here.’