‘I don’t know,’ Camilla said. ‘I’ve turned down a number of jobs lately because Mother was so ill. But she’s gone. Three days ago. I don’t know what I feel exactly. And now I have to go ahead with the surgery on my face. But there’s one thing I would like to do that will make me a part of the celebration. I want you to send me Hannah’s measurements. I want to make her wedding dress.’

‘Camilla, she’s going to have a baby. Around the end of August or early September.’

‘What? But—’

‘I’ll write and tell you. Han will write too. She’s so happy. And this will bring a new beginning for all of us here.’

‘I read about Simon.’

‘Yes. The police are sure that they were his remains. But I wish we had heard him say himself why he did this . . . to Piet, who had taken him in, given him work and a future.’

There was nothing Camilla could say. Hannah was going to be married, she was going to have a child. It was time to move on, to take the happiness she had found and to let go of the past and its shadows.

‘I thought I’d feel something,’ Sarah said. ‘Because he killed Piet, the other part of my soul. And somehow I thought I would have known, when Simon died.’

‘You were so distraught,’ Camilla said. ‘It was just after Piet. There was no room for anything in your mind other than his death.’

‘You’re right, I know,’ Sarah said. ‘And now is the time to make a new start. Not in order to forget, but in order to go on. And we will all use Hannah’s marriage and the baby as our guiding light.’

The measurements arrived in a telegram the next day and Camilla went to work immediately, putting aside the clothes for her new collection to concentrate on Hannah’s wedding dress. For three weeks she searched for the right material, for the trim and the beads and the feathers she wanted to use. She supervised the cutting of the dress, watched as the beading was painstakingly sewn into place according to her design, insisted that the sleeves were undone and restitched to her satisfaction. When it was finished at last she folded it herself, placing it in its box, ready to be sent to Nairobi. Her throat constricted when she looked down at it, lying in a bed of tissue paper. She wanted to be there to share their joy, and to start afresh. She had thought of taking a break, of postponing or even cancelling some of her photo shoots. She telephoned her father.

‘I was thinking of going on holiday, Daddy. In about ten days.’

‘I heartily approve,’ he said. ‘Where will you go?’