She made her way out of the office, avoiding Mma Makutsi’s gaze. It was bright outside—a day on which the sun cast hard, short shadows; a day on which there was no shelter from the growing heat; a day on which the air seemed heavy and sluggish. As she went out through the wide door of the garage, leaving Mr Polopetsi to return to his labour, she saw the petrol pumps and the acacias and a car driving down the Tlokweng Road, and then, just to the left of the garage, standing under the shade of an acacia tree, looking in her direction, Note Mokoti, thumbs tucked into his belt, standing in that pose that she remembered so well.

She took the few steps that would bring her up to him. She raised her eyes and saw that his face was fleshier, but still cruel, and bore a small scar to the side of his chin. She saw that he had developed a slight paunch, but that this was almost hidden by the leather jacket which he wore in spite of the heat. And she thought, suddenly, how strange it was that one would notice these things when one was frightened of another; that the prisoner facing execution might notice, in those last terrible moments, that the man who was about to take his life had a barber’s rash round his throat or that he had hair on the back of his hands.

“Note,” she said. “It is you.”

The muscles around the mouth slackened, and he smiled. She saw the teeth, so important, he had always said, for a trumpeter, good teeth. And then she heard the voice.

“It is me, yes. Yes, you are right there, Precious. It is me after all these years.”

She looked into the lenses of the dark glasses, but could see only the tiny reflection of the acacia tree and the sky.

“Are you well, Note? Have you travelled from Johannesburg?”

“Joeies,” he said, laughing as he spoke. “Egoli. Joburg. The place of many names.”

She waited for him to say something more. For a few moments there was nothing, then he spoke.

“I’ve heard all about you,” he said. “I’ve heard that you are the big detective around these parts.” He laughed again, as if the suggestion that this should be so was ridiculous. Of course he had thought that about all women: that no woman, in his view, could do a job as well as a man. How many woman trumpeters do you see? he had asked her all those years ago, mockingly. She had been too young then to stand up to him, and now, when she could do so, when she had the facts of her success with which to confront him, she felt only the same ancient fear, the fear which had made women through the ages cower before such men.

“I have a good business,” she said.