The smell of smoke was overwhelming as the incinerators of The Organisation of Domestic Affairs burned unwanted history. Spokes looked around the antechamber in which he was sitting, and trophies of impala, kudu, sable and duiker stared blindly back at him. This was the kind of room meant to impress a man very different from who he was. He had not been put in this room during his one and only previous visit; he had been made to wait downstairs until Emil Coetzee himself had come to collect him.

‘The Head will see you now,’ a voice in a maid’s uniform said before scurrying away.

Spokes stood up and opened the door that led into an office he remembered well, a room with rich and plush red, white and green decor. For a moment he felt that perhaps the voice in a maid’s uniform had been in error and had directed him to enter before he had been asked for, but then he realised that Silas Mthimkhulu, in a Savile Row-type suit, was only pretending to sign the many papers before him. This was another tactic to keep Spokes, who did not know whether to approach the desk or stay put, waiting. More than that, it was meant to impress upon Spokes how much he was meant to be impressed.

‘So it is true,’ Spokes said, approaching the desk. ‘You are the new Emil Coetzee.’

Silas Mthimkhulu looked up and blinked at him as though only just becoming aware of his presence. Spokes seated himself on one of the two chairs opposite Silas Mthimkhulu.

‘Please do,’ Silas Mthimkhulu said, gesturing towards the chair that Spokes had just occupied. ‘The new Emil Coetzee? Yes … yes, I suppose I am the new Emil Coetzee.’

‘You are the man himself,’ Spokes said.

‘Yes, yes – I am the man himself,’ Silas agreed with a mirthless chuckle. ‘I like that: The Man Himself.’

‘Very … imposing,’ Spokes said, looking around the opulent office.

‘It is rather. Although I am thinking of changing quite a lot of things.’

‘Is that so?’ Spokes replied.

‘What do you think of the name “The Organisation of Domestic Affairs”,’ Silas Mthimkhulu asked, leaning back in his chair.

‘I think it is a name that does not quite represent what happens in this building,’ Spokes replied.

Silas Mthimkhulu’s eyes narrowed and hardened slightly – this was obviously not the response he was looking for. ‘Too long by half,’ he said. ‘Now what do you think of “The Organisation”?’

Spokes was waiting for more, but it was evident from the self-satisfied way Silas Mthimkhulu looked at him that that was all there was to it. ‘It is very short,’ Spokes said.