‘But ultimately very frustrating because there is nothing you can do to get your man.’

‘It is that as well.’

‘The thing that surprises me is that, with all your intelligence, you don’t see it, Chief Inspector.’

‘See what?’

‘That you and I are essentially the same man.’

Spokes felt a shiver run through him.

‘When I started building that first store, I heard so many stories about you, I found it difficult to believe you had only been amongst the villagers for one night. You were a legend. They should have hated you for what you had done, but they spoke of you with open admiration – the man who revealed that their chief had pushed his best friend into the dam,’ Silas Mthimkhulu said before he went to refill his glass.

Spokes waited to hear how all this was connected to them being the same man.

‘How many have you pushed into the dam, Chief Inspector Spokes Moloi?’ Silas Mthimkhulu asked as he sat down.

‘How many what?’ Spokes asked.

‘How many of your own people have you pushed into the dam?’

‘I have never pushed anyone into a dam.’

‘You are an intelligent man, Chief Inspector. You know I am speaking metaphorically. You’ve been with the BSAP for how many years … thirty-three?’

‘Yes.’

‘And in all those years how many people – black Africans – have you put in prison? Some to be sentenced to death by hanging.’

‘Justice must be served.’

‘Justice!’ Silas Mthimkhulu spat out. ‘Justice? The BSAP, like all colonial institutions, is inherently a racist organisation, and you happily and obediently served in it for thirty-three years. In those years, white men who committed the same crimes as their black comrades were given lesser sentences or not convicted at all, and through all that, you continued to be happy and obedient in your service. And you want to speak to me of justice? Did you once think of your grandfather … your father … and what the white man you’ve blindly served for thirty-three years – no, make that forty years, since you served in the war as well – did to them? Forty years of servile servitude to the very people who put a noose not just around your grandfather’s neck, but your father’s as well.’

Spokes realised that this was a speech Silas Mthimkhulu had been waiting to deliver for some time.