Saffron ignored it all. She walked through the storeroom door and saw the vague outlines of people, just discernible in the dust and gloom. It occurred to her: What if they think I’m the enemy?

‘Don’t shoot!’ she cried out. ‘It’s me – Saffron!’

And the first thing she heard was a high, piping voice calling out, ‘Mummy!’

It took a second for Gerhard to realise that he wasn’t dreaming. It was Saffron. She was turning to him and he saw the grim mask of the trained killer disappear as she spotted him and ran towards the corner where he was crouched by the children.

He had a gun in his hand. He looked at her and the anguish and relief in his eyes told her what she had just prevented.

They embraced, wordlessly. The two children hurtled towards her and she dropped to her knees with her arms open and embraced them both as they charged into her arms.

Gerhard pulled Saffron gently back to her feet.

‘I need to show Mummy something,’ he told the children.

‘Are you showing her Grandpa?’ Zander asked.

Saffron followed Zander’s eye to the huddled body in the far side of the storeroom, then she spun round and screamed, ‘Benjamin! Benjamin! Please – come here!’

Benjamin knelt beside Leon’s body and felt for the non-existent pulse, but it had taken a glance to tell him that he was looking at a corpse.

Saffron broke down in tears. Her body shook with grief and between her sobs she berated herself, saying, ‘I should have come sooner . . . should have gone faster . . . it was my fault.’

Gerhard took her in his arms. He stroked her head, trying to soothe her. Harriet, her cheeks wet with her own tears, said, ‘Here, let me . . .’

She held Saffron and waited until she had cried herself out, then said gently, but firmly, ‘Saffron, darling, look at me . . .’

Saffron raised her head from Harriet’s shoulder.

‘Now listen carefully,’ Harriet went on, looking Saffron in the eyes. ‘You have done nothing wrong. Nothing . . . You saved us. Everyone in this house owes their lives to you and the brave men who came with you. Your father is so proud of you . . . I believe he’s looking down at us now and his soul is at peace because he knows that all his work, all his life, was worthwhile because it produced you. He has left you a splendid legacy and he has complete faith in you to do it justice. So don’t reproach yourself. Don’t worry about the things you have done. Think to the future and do what is right. That is all Leon Courtney would have asked of his daughter.’

Twenty miles away on Lonsonyo Mountain, Naserian gasped as Manyoro opened his eyes. She leaned forward, but her husband did not see her. His vision was focused on something infinitely far away.