He was a solemn child. Tobias could see Leonard in him. He touched the books on his table. It was a sign. He was called Jericho to give him the power to blow walls down.

‘How does the clan take it?’ Pete asked.

‘They say he’s a gift child. Born with double spirit. An ancestor gift.’

‘Did Janape marry?’

‘No. But it’s okay. They’re strong, the mountain people. The women are powerful. The old chief Nogi accepts her. That’s okay. They like the child.’

‘Compensation,’ Pete asked. ‘Is that what they want?’

‘No,’ Tobias said. ‘That’s not it.’

‘Does Leonard know?’

‘Of course not.’ Rika flashed with anger. She was standing, bolt upright, ‘What do you think?’

‘She can’t have got pregnant long before Leonard left,’ Tobias said, his voice apologetic. ‘Neither of them would have known.’

‘What do we do?’ Rika sat down.

‘We’ll take him,’ Laedi said. ‘If that’s what they want, we can take him. Raise him with the girls.’

‘It’s not the disgrace in our world it is in yours,’ Aaron said.

‘It’s not the disgrace. It’s what to do.’

‘He can go to school here,’ Aaron said.

‘What do I tell Leonard?’

‘Tell him we’ll take the child while it’s at school.’

‘A boy. It’s a boy. Him, not it.’

‘Jericho,’ Tobias said. ‘His name is Jericho.’

‘Jericho,’ Bili echoed, her voice like a sigh.

‘Leonard’s in Oxford,’ Pete said. ‘He lives in a college. He can’t take a child.’

‘Even if he could,’ Laedi said, ‘a child of ours can’t go to school in Oxford.’

‘Why not? He’s Leonard’s child too.’

‘He’s had five years on the mountain,’ Milton said. ‘It’s in him now.’

‘We need him educated here,’ Laedi said. ‘Everyone who can make the future.’

‘Why him more than any other child?’ Rika said. ‘He’s never even seen Leonard. White genes don’t make a difference. Why should Janape give him up? Is anyone thinking of her? Imagine. Just imagine how it will be for her.’

‘She brought him to me,’ Tobias said. ‘To give to you.’

‘To me? Or to Leonard?’

‘To you. First to you.’

‘Why me?’

‘Janape said you’d know.’

‘To me? She said to give him to me?’

‘He can’t have land if he stays,’ Milton said. ‘It’s okay while he’s a child. He can live and grow on his mother’s clan-land. But not when he’s grown. It happens all the time. Boys are taken out to find their fathers so they can have land. Otherwise there’s nothing for him. No land, no wife, no man.’

‘Stop,’ Rika said. ‘Just stop.’ With the radio playing inside, one of Aro’s serials floating out into a shocked silence, Rika narrowed her eyes. ‘Stop shouting,’ she said, though they weren’t.

The thought of this baby astounded her. She tried to imagine Janape and Leonard, but it was too weak a picture. Did Janape loosen something in Leonard as Aaron had in her? But whatever it was in her that had been waiting for Aaron had been in her already, like an ache. If it was there in Leonard, she’d have felt it. It wasn’t. It couldn’t have been. He’d been sent away to school at seven, separated from his mother and stitched into a uniform. She remembered the stories he’d told, his voice even and conversational, as if what he reported was ordinary. The older boys taunting, his spectacles flushed down the lavatory. His mother driving off in the car while he stood on the step with matron, who smelled of carbolic and sick.