Three weeks on, she was still struggling to accept that the Thompsons’ piggeries had been deliberately burned to the ground, with Eric slaughtered like one of his animals. She kept expecting to wake up and discover it had all been a bad dream. Perhaps there was a parallel reality in which Eric was still alive, the pig houses were intact and the poor animals whole and healthy.

The police had found petrol cans near the scene. They had fingerprints too, but wouldn’t say whether or not they’d identified them. It appeared that Eric’s skull had been crushed by repeated and savage blows from a large blunt instrument, likely a knobkerrie.

When Ginie’s basket was full, she left the vegetable garden, carefully locking the gate behind her. She walked slowly back to the house, feeling the sun on her uncovered head and back. She and Stephen had both given statements to the police. She told them how she’d woken in the night to see the sky lit by the blaze, how she went to fetch Stephen, and everything else that followed. But she hadn’t said a word about finding the strip of cloth and burning it, not even to Stephen. He was so straight and open, he would want to tell the police.

She felt guilty about her silence, for it seemed likely that the escapees were responsible for Eric’s death. She suspected that Mary was somehow involved and wanted to protect her. Ginie hadn’t confronted her, and the less Mary told her, the better.

The police had also tried to talk to Jill, who was in hospital being treated for shock, but she had closed herself off to everyone and everything, and hadn’t uttered a word since the tragedy.

In the kitchen, Gideon took the basket from Ginie and she drank several glasses of water.

‘I would like to make some jam,’ she told him.

‘Yes, nkosikazi.’ He lit the stove, rinsed the plums and emptied them into an enormous saucepan, which went on top of the stove to simmer.

Ginie walked to the veranda and watched the sunlight flood her garden, letting the heat dispel her troubling thoughts and drug her into warm, sleepy contentment. A gardener was dragging the sprinkler over to the roses. Jets of water shot up and small rainbows appeared.

Taking a pair of secateurs from a shelf on the veranda, Ginie went to the rose garden and started cutting a large bunch of blooms. The sprinkler cast fine, deliciously cool spray over her. Droplets sparkled like tiny sequins on her dress before soaking into the fabric. She carried the flowers back to the house and the pain of the prickly stems in her hands felt like a warning, but she shook off her unease and concentrated on trimming them. She arranged the cream-coloured heads into a tumbling fan shape in a bowl of water.