‘I’m not – I mean I wasn’t. Our paths crossed a couple of times, that’s all.’

‘That’s not what I heard. I gather you got on like …’ and he turned to Lindi at this point ‘… how do you British say it? Like a house on fire. You had quite a chat, I’m told.’

‘I’m not sure who told you that.’

‘You know me, Kagiso. I like to keep myself informed. I suppose he told you about our wonderful plans for Mpumalanga?’

Kagiso stepped round the question as deftly as he could. ‘I think Lesedi was more interested in listening to what the people had to say.’

‘Ah! Of course, the people. Yes, we mustn’t forget about them, especially since they’ve got such a young, intelligent man like you looking after them. And did you tell Lesedi about your – what did you call them? Your concerns?’

‘He didn’t need me to tell him anything. Our clients are quite capable of speaking for themselves.’

‘So they’re clients, are they? Excellent, excellent. I hear you were probably the last person to see him alive – apart from whoever killed him, of course. Come to think of it, it can’t have been very long after you met him.’

And with that, he walked off again.

Jake Willemse’s big idea – the one that had made him a favourite with business and appeared to have put him on a fast track to the top of the political ladder – was that the ruling party had been obsessed by land ownership, clinging to the idea like a badge of honour, instead of concentrating on what actually happened on the land. He’d given a speech a couple of months into his tenure in which he had questioned the policy. It had provoked quite a stir.

‘Hanging on to the land is like hanging on to your virginity. What’s the point?’

His audience of international bankers, mostly men, had lapped it up. He’d gone on in similar vein, mocking those who still thought grazing a few cattle on a small patch of land, or growing enough to feed the family, was a worthy goal for a modern agricultural policy. ‘That is what we were doing four hundred years ago – and look what happened.’