Kagiso came back the way he’d gone in, the marshal making the way clear for him again. He was carrying a couple of takeaway cups with their caps on and a paper plate with some snacks. ‘I guessed you wouldn’t want sugar in your tea,’ he said.

‘You guessed right. And what, may I ask, did you say to them to make them all look at me?’

‘Oh, I just told them that the white madam over there was not coping with the heat and was in danger of fainting.’

‘You did, did you?’

‘But what got the laughs was the guy speaking Zulu, who said something like, “Bloody typical, they’ve been here for hundreds of years and they’re still not used to the sun.”’

‘I’m glad you all had a good laugh at my expense.’ She prodded him in the ribs.

‘Hey! I’ll spill my tea. Anyway, it did the trick. So where do we start?’

Kagiso leaned down, brushed away some twigs on the grass and stretched out on the ground, propping himself up on one elbow. He looked relaxed, a man at ease with himself, quite a contrast from the tetchy awkwardness of just a few minutes earlier.

Lindi sat down next to him.

‘So what’s this “turnaround” that Willemse was talking about?’

‘Oh! It’s all a bit ridiculous, really. I suppose I was what you’d call a rising star in the ministry. I used to work for him, did a fair amount of the research on which his new policy was based.’

‘What was that?’

‘Basically he said arguments about taking over land were so old-school. He argued that whether you owned land or not was irrelevant. The question was, were you getting enough from it – either pay and conditions or output? Pretty much what he just said.’

‘All very rational.’

‘That’s what I used to think, too.’

‘I can feel a “but” coming.’

‘But that’s not really what’s happening on the ground.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, I was sent down to Mpumalanga to show the policy could work. You know, bring workers and owners together, set up farm councils, profit-share schemes, land-lease programmes. You name it, I could try it. The only rule was – don’t get bogged down in arguments about ownership.’

‘And it’s not happening?’

‘Well, it did for a few months – we had some fantastic results. And then the farmers – most of them are still white – started going off the idea. I found they were selling the land to government, exactly what Willemse said he wasn’t interested in.’

‘Did you complain?’

‘Well, not directly to him, but to his office.’

‘And?’

He shrugged. ‘They sent me a very polite letter, which basically told me to keep my nose out of it.’

‘Which is more or less what Willemse just said to you today.’

‘Yeah. He doesn’t do subtle.’