On the other side Sharmi opened the door with exaggerated caution, one centimetre at a time, till she could see into the room. She saw a figure silhouetted against the daylight and failed to stifle her shock.

Kagiso rushed at her, putting his hand across her mouth.

‘I’m sorry,’ she breathed, when he removed it. ‘I didn’t expect anybody to be here.’

She remained where she was, the door still open.

Kagiso moved around her and looked down the corridor. He shut the door. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he said sharply.

‘I could ask you the same question,’ she snapped back, then paused. ‘Wait, wait, Kagiso. Let’s not shout at each other.’

‘Okay, fine, but what are you doing here?’

‘I needed somewhere to be alone.’

‘But this is the last place you should use. It’s a meeting point and that’s all.’

‘I’m done with meeting points, Kagiso. It’s over for me.’

‘What are you talking about?’

Sharmi Meer realised this was one part of her plan she had not rehearsed. She’d thought about what she was going to say to the police, but not this. ‘I’m handing myself in today.’

Silence.

‘Say something.’

‘You can’t just call it a day. It doesn’t work like that. There’s the rest of us.’

‘It was me.’

‘What do you mean, it was you?’

‘The Lesedi business. It was me.’

‘But …’

‘Hold on, let me finish.’ She was relieved, grateful, a sinner given the chance to expiate her misdemeanours.

‘You remember when you first told us that you’d had an approach from Lesedi Motlantshe. You said you were ready to give him the benefit of the doubt. I disagreed. Afterwards I put my own people onto it. I drove to Mpumalanga the day before his visit and gave the go-ahead. What they did, it wasn’t what I wanted, wasn’t what I planned. My instructions were to mess him up, enough to send a message that the Motlantshes were not wanted in the area. Something must have gone wrong. We’ve started a bandwagon rolling and all sorts have hitched a ride on it. My man’s gone to ground so I can’t tell you what happened. So you see, all this,’ Sharmi pointed in the direction of the Ponte building, ‘it was my doing.’

Kagiso walked back into the room and sat down. He didn’t speak for an age.

‘Why, Sharmi? Why? Why didn’t you talk to me?’

‘Because we never talk to each other, we just talk at each other.’

‘But I brought it up at the last meeting. You could have said something.’

‘Oh, sure! You at your sanctimonious best. Hardly the kind of atmosphere in which I could have said anything about this.’

‘But this was about an operation. You should have talked.’

‘It was my operation,’ she said emphatically.