‘No, no, I’m not in trouble.’ Kagiso saw Mama Khethiwe glance at him. He turned away from the counter and tried to speak more quietly. ‘What did they want? Did they say?’

‘This line is very bad.’

Kagiso had to raise his voice again. ‘I said what did they want, the police?’

‘They said they want to talk to you. Mfana, please tell your mother what is happening.’

‘Nothing is happening, Mama. Lesedi Motlantshe was at our office the day he died. So the police are just checking. I’ve spoken to them already …’

‘Why didn’t you tell your mother about this?’

‘Because there is nothing to tell. It’s just routine.’

‘Just what?’

‘Routine. They have to check everything. Look, I’m going to call them. I’m sorry they have worried you. Let me sort this thing out. Okay. Bye.’

Kagiso turned around and caught Mama Khethiwe’s eye. He could see there would be questions. But he needed to think first. He started walking towards the door. ‘I’ll be back,’ he said, looking towards the counter. ‘I’m just going to make some calls.’

‘Why you want to stand in the road for? Go to my room in the back here.’

Khethiwe Shabangu pointed to a door at the side of the café. Kagiso hesitated.

‘It’s okay,’ Khethiwe said, conveying with an almost imperceptible nod a sense of complicity.

For Kagiso, a man habitually inclined to the solitary and for so long forced to be secretive, this invitation to trust from someone with whom he had an amicable, but hardly intimate, relationship seemed more like a test than a decision. He stood in the doorway. What had been a deserted street just a couple of hours previously, when he’d left the station, was now beginning its daily transformation into what it was designed for: a place to buy and sell. Across the road, a delivery van branded with the unmistakable and ubiquitous red and white colours of Coca-Cola, came into view, its cargo of bottles tinkling against each other, like a glass symphony. The first office workers were appearing, the ones who turned on the air-con and loaded the photocopier paper trays, so that others could get straight down to the business of making someone else rich. Kagiso turned back into Mama K’s and headed for the side door.

‘It’s quiet there,’ Mama Khethiwe said.

His eyes had barely adjusted to the windowless room when his phone rang again. He checked the number. It was Elizabeth ‘Sissy’ Masango, Mama Khethiwe’s niece, with whom he shared the bungalow in Malelane.

‘Sissy, what’s up? It’s so early.’

‘I wanted to call you before but I couldn’t.’

‘What do you mean? Is anything wrong?’

‘Kagiso, I’m frightened. Some men came to the house. They went everywhere – they’re looking for you.’

‘Are you there now?’