Now that the opportunity to save Emil Coetzee had passed, Vida did not know what else to do but look at his dead body. It was the missing Stetson that made Vida notice the khaki knee-length socks. Khaki knee-length socks worn with khaki shorts, while the style of many a farmer, were not Emil Coetzee’s style. The shirt, with its three bullet holes, was mostly covered in blood, but the right short sleeve looked khaki too. No, not Emil Coetzee’s style at all. And where was the hat? The Stetson? Emil Coetzee without his Stetson was no Emil Coetzee.

Vida took a closer look and realised that, while the man who looked up at him with dead eyes looked very much like Emil Coetzee, he was not Emil Coetzee. He also realised that whoever the man was, something would have to be done about his being dead – and that something would have to be done by Vida himself. Vida looked at the man and decidedly did not like him. He did not like him because he was making Vida, who would have preferred to be responsible for no one – not even himself – responsible for him.

There was a choice – there always was. Vida could simply walk away. No one knew that he was there. No one knew what he had seen. He could let the dead man with the dead eyes be discovered by someone else. Let him be someone else’s problem. But even as this choice presented itself, Vida knew it was not a real choice. He was being forced by circumstance to make a decision that affected another person. He knew that he would do what he would have done had the dead man actually been Emil Coetzee: he would go to the Central Police Station, which was just two streets up the road, and report a murder.

The merriment in the police station reminded Vida that it was New Year’s Eve – well, actually probably New Year’s Day now, given the unforgivableness of the hour. Without any real warning, it was 1980. Another year. Same life.