If Kagiso needed reminding about what was at stake he had only to listen in on the conversations going on behind him in the minibus. All the other passengers were Mozambicans. He had picked up enough Shangaan, the dialect of Tsonga used across the border, to understand half of what was being said and make a credible guess about the other half. The stories had become depressingly familiar: people dragged out of their homes and ‘necklaced’, the chilling euphemism for being burned alive with a flaming tyre placed over the head; properties ransacked; sons beaten and daughters raped; insults from one-time neighbours; and, always, the indifference of the police.

The journey to Komatipoort took about an hour. The taxi pulled up beside a market and was immediately surrounded by people, all of them shouting in a mixture of Shangaan and broken English.

‘Move away! Get away! Take your filthy hands off my taxi!’ the driver was screaming, in a clumsy Shangaan. ‘I’m not going to your fucking country. I’m going back to Nelspruit.’

Kagiso resisted the urge to remonstrate and stepped out of the cab onto the road. He stood still for a moment to get his bearings. He noticed the rusting caravan on the opposite side of the street from the market, still sitting lopsidedly on a deflated tyre on one side and the wheel rim on the other. It was the Feelgood Hair Salon – he’d gone in for a cut once. The barber sat outside, spilling out of a camping chair. He was asleep, despite the noise.

Kagiso walked behind the minibus, pushed his way through the crowd and towards the market. Perhaps Lindi would be there.

It was as if a tornado had whipped through the place. He couldn’t distinguish one stall from another. He should have known. The traders here were all Mozambicans. They wouldn’t have stood a chance. One of the stallholders was picking over what was left of his stock: second-hand denim – that was his line of trade. He stuffed what he found into a large plastic bag. He poked at something on the ground with a stick and lifted several brassieres, the cups nestling into each other. He stared at them with apparent disapproval, as if he’d found some weeds in his vegetable patch. He looked over to where the undergarment stall had been, just a couple of metres away, and flicked the brassieres over. Kagiso walked on but stopped when he realised he was standing on shattered glass. This was where the herbalist and traditional healer sold his potions. Some of the jars were still intact, their shrivelled contents giving little clue as to whether they were once vegetable or animal. Further on, there was nothing left of Ngowane Cash Loans, except a charred sign. The till was on the ground, its cash drawer protruding, like a spent dog with its tongue hanging out.