When the couple had been shown to their velvet-backed seats – the benches were deemed too plebeian, not to say uncomfortable for the presidential arse – the gospel choir started up. The singers’ velvet cloaks were vintage Harlem. They belted out hymns, even a Nina Simone number, said to be Lesedi’s favourite, swaying so that their gowns gently floated this way and that in a delayed mimic of the singers’ motions.

Lindi, seated at the very back, watched the pall-bearers enter the church, the coffin apparently floating between them. It was an elaborate affair. The hardwood coffin, with inset panels of the kind you might find in an old-fashioned London club, clinging to its heyday, was studded with fussy brass fittings, all curlicues and twists. The combination looked preposterous in this most simple place of worship, as did the pall-bearers. Their heavy morning coats made no allowance for the rising heat of a crowded church. The strain of carrying the coffin showed at first in the little beads of sweat on their foreheads, which quickly became a steady stream that moved from temple to chin, before disappearing into the soon-soaked, dull-white collars of their shirts. From her seat on the back row, Lindi watched the deliberate progress of the cortège as it passed her and moved on.

With each choreographed step up the aisle, the last pair of bearers revealed another pew on the opposite side of the church. They were about a third of the way when Lindi realised she was no longer looking at the funeral procession but at a single figure in the congregation. From where she was standing, all she could see was the back of the man’s shoulder, his left ear and a partial profile. But she knew who he was, even before her brain had had time to digest the information. As he turned towards the coffin, Lindi recognised Kagiso and she only just resisted the urge to call out. She stared at him, willing him to turn. When he did, and they caught each other’s eye, she felt an intimacy that belied the years they had been apart.

From that moment on the service seemed to take for ever.

The priest had to speak. His theme was fathers and sons and he only just managed to stop short of making the divine comparison. The president couldn’t be left out. Another microphone was switched on so his words could be heard from the speakers outside the church. Lesedi was like a son to him, he said. He had watched him grow up.

‘This is not the time or the place for anger and recriminations,’ he said, stumbling on the word and perhaps inwardly cursing his speechwriter, ‘but we will find those who put him in this coffin. The police have arrested a Mozambican man. But such a terrible thing was not done by one simple man.’