But if you find out that the comets aren’t random acts of God at all but are sent by someone with a specific grudge against the victim, you start to feel safer. You tell yourself that no one in your life hates you that much, so you’re all right.

When Shrien and Anni Dewani were attacked in Gugulethu on their honeymoon, I felt the same dismay as other middle-class South Africans—the shame that tourists were not safe in our country. And when the accusations started to fly that Shrien Dewani had orchestrated the hit on his wife, I felt relief: South Africa wasn’t at fault after all.

Then there was the case of Ina Bonette who was kidnapped, tortured and raped, and whose son was murdered in front of her. It turned out that her estranged husband had orchestrated and participated in the whole thing. The media dubbed him the Monster of Modimolle.

He didn’t look like a monster any more than my father does. He looked like a middle-aged white man of the sort one sees in South African small towns.

Evil really is banal.

I know there were people who read about what happened to me, and felt a shiver of dread. A home invasion makes you feel as if you are not safe anywhere. And being raped inside your own home is a nightmare for any woman.What happened to me must have made the threat feel closer. It must have made them feel less safe in their beds at night.

Now when these women read in the media that the whole thing was orchestrated by my father, they will feel relief. They will review the men in their own lives and conclude that they are safe because not one of them poses such a threat.

What they don’t realise is that I once felt like that too. I also believed my personal circumstances made me safe from danger—that there was no man in my life who hated me enough to hurt me.

* * *

My father phones the next morning. It is seven o’clock and I am still asleep. A glance at my phone tells me it is a local landline number, one I don’t recognise.

“Hello?”

“I need you to do some things for me. This is all a misunderstanding, but that lawyer hasn’t managed to get me out yet. There will be a bail hearing on Tuesday and then I’ll be out of here, but until then there are things I need. Have you got a pen and paper, girl?”

“I . . . yes.”

“You must go to my flat and bring me some money and some cigarettes.”

“Cigarettes? I thought you stopped smoking.”