Another night, a leopard got into a gardener’s house and attacked his young son. He was woken by the noise and managed to drive the beast out, but not before the boy sustained deep gashes in his thigh and minor lacerations to his chest. Ginie and Stephen were woken by a violent hammering on their front door. They opened it and found the gardener carrying his bleeding, barely conscious son in his arms. After Ginie had staunched the bleeding, she smothered his wounds in antiseptic cream and bandaged them up. Stephen rushed the child to the clinic in Umtali. The Courtaulds’ staff, carrying lanterns and weapons, searched the grounds for the leopard, but there was no sign of it.

Gideon returned from compassionate leave, thinner and more restless than ever. The Thompsons had thrown Eliot’s widow, Mary, and her children off their farm and they were living in poverty in Sakubva, the township on the outskirts of Umtali. The Courtaulds decided to take the family in, housing them in their staff quarters and offering Mary a job as their housekeeper.

A few mornings later, Ginie woke up feeling ill. A touch of heatstroke, probably. She had a blinding headache, it hurt to move her eyes, and she felt sick in her stomach. It was their day for driving into Umtali and they decided that Stephen would make the trip alone. He left after breakfast. Ginie drew the blinds against the harsh light from outside and went back to bed, lying in the hot half-dark.

Dixon brought her a glass of freshly squeezed mango juice. Jongy lounged beside her, unusually calm. She sipped the drink and began to feel revived. After an hour or so, she decided that she was well enough to get up.

As usual in the mornings, she groomed the dogs and inspected the rooms of the house with the animals at her heels. Pain still throbbed behind her eyes so she walked to the veranda, thinking she would read or sew. Jongy and the dogs trotted off somewhere and a silence had gripped the garden. A bank of heavy cloud, cast a shadow on the land. Ginie heard branches creak, as though someone pushed them aside and she had the sudden prickly feeling of being watched. She thought she heard footsteps, but they were gone. With her nerves straining, she stood up and looked towards the garden, her gaze focused on the trees at the edge of the Dell. There was nothing to see.