‘He is using my wife’s body for witchcraft. Why is he doing this thing? Why is he doing this thing to my wife? My wife is being a very good person. She is going to church every Sunday. Every Sunday. No matter what, truesgod. Every Sunday. She is even being a deacon … the only woman deacon. She is being a very good wife to me.’

‘I am sure she was.’

‘We are being very good people.’

Spokes smiled at Philemon. ‘We will find whoever did this, I promise,’ he said. ‘In the meantime, I think it is best that you come to the station with me. Officially report the crime and make a statement.’

Philemon was more than willing to go with Spokes, but Mrs Rutherford proved difficult.

‘Where on God’s green earth do you think you are taking him?’ she demanded, blocking Spokes’s access to the police bakkie door.

‘To the station. He needs to—’ Spokes tried to explain.

‘He needs to do no such thing. Do you know who my husband is?’

‘Clement Rutherford.’

‘Yes, Clement Rutherford. Very high up in the SIU, I can tell you.’

‘Your husband is the one who called me.’

‘I know, but certainly not so that you could take Philemon away. If that is what you think, then you have another thing coming.’

‘That may very well be—’ Spokes began and was again interrupted.

‘Do these look like the hands of a murderer to you?’ Mrs Rutherford asked, holding up Philemon’s calloused hands. ‘No, they do not. Of course they do not,’ she responded to her own question. ‘These are the hands of the best gardener in the City of Kings – what am I saying, the best gardener in the damn country. Do you have any idea how many times this very garden has been featured in Better Homes and Gardens and Good Housekeeping? How many times it has taken first place at garden shows? There are too many to count on both hands, I can tell you. A man who can create something this beautiful would never kill anyone.’

‘No one … except you … has said anything about Mr Dlodlo murdering anyone,’ Spokes said as delicately as he could.

Not liking Spokes’s insinuation one bit, Mrs Rutherford narrowed her eyes and then, without warning, screamed at the top of her lungs: ‘Tickey! Tickey!’

Spokes half-expected a large dog – the one that the Basopa Lo Inja sign on the gate had warned him about – to come bounding up from nowhere and bear down on him.

‘Tickey! Tickey!’

A window was flung open and Rutherford’s tired face stuck out of it. ‘Agnes, dear, let the Chief Inspector do his job.’

‘Tell the Chief Inspector about the artichokes, Tickey,’ Mrs Rutherford ordered, undeterred.

‘The artichokes?’