‘Almost three months.’

‘Huh . . . Time you saw the real Kenya. Follow me.’

Stannard was standing with Leon Courtney and another twenty or so party guests, formed up on one side of a courtyard where delivery vans unloaded foodstuffs and other goods for the Wanjohi Country Club’s kitchen, dining room and bar. Lamps mounted on the walls and headlights from cars that had been drawn up across the open end of the yard illuminated the scene. The gentlemen members smoked cigars, cradled freshly poured drinks and chatted among themselves. Their faces bore the flushed, sweaty look of white men, wearing formal attire in hot climates, who have eaten and drunk a great deal. The conversation was good-humoured, even joshing, like spectators waiting for a rugby match to begin.

Across the far side of the wall, facing Stannard and the others, a similar number of Wanjo staff members were assembled. They were mostly black, with a scattering of Indians, all in their various uniforms: chefs and their minions, waiters and waitresses, barmen and scullery maids. The Indians were talking to one another, but the Africans looked on in silence, their faces sullen, devoid of animation. They were waiting and watching while their masters gave their little display.

A wooden dining chair, like the one on which Stannard had sat for dinner, had been placed in the centre of the yard, with its back facing towards the kitchen. The maître d’ stood beside it, next to a young man, barely more than a boy, who wore the blue trousers and white top of a junior cook. This, Stannard realised, was the alleged food thief.

Stannard found he could not take his eyes off the boy. His face seemed as blank as all the others, but the longer Stannard looked, the more he detected the sign of the boy’s fear: the widened eyes, the chewed lip, the way his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

Stannard found his stomach tightening anxiously.

‘What’s going to happen to him?’ he asked Leon.

‘Wait, watch . . . and keep your thoughts to yourself.’

‘But . . .’

Leon Courtney was forty years older that Ronald Stannard, but he was taller, broader in the shoulder and imbued with the kind of authority a man acquires after a lifetime of leadership. He looked at Stannard with stern eyes.

‘Not a word, do you hear? For your own good.’

‘Yes, sir.’

A gentle ripple of applause broke out, reminding Stannard of the sound that had greeted him as he walked to the batting crease that afternoon. Sir Percival had emerged through the kitchen door and was striding across the yard, holding a horsewhip.

‘Oh, dear God . . .’ Stannard gasped and fell silent as he sensed Leon’s disapproval.

Sir Percival looked at the maître d’ and said, ‘If you’d be so good . . .’

‘Yes sir,’ the maître d’ replied.