The sight of so much material wealth – usable beds and tables, comfortable chairs, fine curtains and carpets – discarded in a chamber below the earth, infuriated Mwangi. Why should these people have so much when every man and woman he knew made do with infinitely less? And what they have they throw away.

His thirst for vengeance and bloodshed intensified further. He entered the gunroom, recognised at once what it was and was furious to discover that it was empty. At the end of the passage was another door. It was closed.

Mwangi asked himself, If Bwana Courtney keeps so much wealth out in the open, how much more precious must be the possessions he locks away?

He gestured to Roosevelt to follow him and marched towards the wine-cellar door.

In Russia, Gerhard had witnessed bloodshed on the greatest scale that mankind had ever seen. He knew a fatal wound when he saw one. When he crouched beside Leon, his face was grey and bathed in sweat and breaths were coming in agonised, rasping gulps of air.

The bullet that had hit him had gone right through his torso above the waist. Gerhard didn’t have to look to know that it had caused a larger, messier wound going out. The chances were that it had hit a kidney and it had certainly punched a hole through his intestines. He didn’t have a hope in hell of surviving. Not here, not now.

Gerhard heard a woman’s scream coming from the dining room. Before he could run to her aid the scream was cut short.

He was shouting to Kiprop and Mary the housemaid to get Bwana Courtney into the kitchen when something exploded outside the front door. Another explosion followed seconds later.

There was firing coming from the drawing room, and then the door opened and Jane Sharpe ran out, clutching a shotgun and a box of cartridges. Two shots came from inside the room and Jane stopped for a second, turned to face the way she had come and screamed, ‘Tommy!’

A third explosion battered the front door, leaving it leaning inwards, barely hanging on its hinges.

Tommy Sharpe burst out of the drawing room, a rifle in one hand, a captured Sten in the other, pursued by a Mau Mau with a panga. Gerhard lifted his rifle to his shoulder and fired once, hitting the Mau Mau in the chest.

‘Thanks, old man,’ gasped Sharpe, as he ran past Gerhard towards his wife.

There were men battering at the door; more Mau Mau were emerging from the rooms at the front of the house.

Gerhard headed to a point where the hall was at its narrowest, a few feet in front of the kitchen, by the door to the basement. In front of him, Dorian Courtney and Tommy Sharpe were almost blocking the way. That gave him an idea.

‘Dorian! Sharpe! We must form a line here, where they can only attack with two or three men at a time. Mpishi! Get something from the kitchen to shelter us. Chairs, boxes, sacks, anything!’