‘I think about my grandfather and father every day. My grandfather worked many many years helping European men prospect for gold,’ Silas Mthimkhulu continued. ‘One day one of the men, Gustav’s grandfather, struck it rich and thanked my grandfather with several nuggets of gold. My grandfather took the gold and continued helping European men prospect for gold. My father inherited the gold but went to work at the Mabuse mine. I grew up seeing those nuggets every day without understanding what they were – without knowing that they were the way out of our abject poverty. There were days my mother made us – a family of twelve living in one shack on a mining compound – eat soil for the nutrients: that was how poor we were. It was my elder brother who told me what a valuable thing we had in our possession once he himself had gone to work in the mine that the Mabuses had been forced to give to the British in 1919. The first opportunity I got, I took those nuggets and, through Gustav, sold them and used that money to build my first Idlazonke store. My father and brother continued working for the white man, while I shed my name and everything I had previously been, and became Silas Mthimkhulu. Mthimkhulu – a mighty tree. Once they saw what I had been able to do, they tried to claim what was mine as theirs – but it was not theirs, it was mine, solely mine, because I was the one who had had the vision. I was the one who had seen what was possible. Some men see what other men never will. It is just the way of the world. I have absolutely no regrets in this life.’

Spokes opened the door, thinking all the while of mighty trees and small axes.

‘Before you leave, Chief Inspector,’ Silas Mthimkhulu said. ‘Can you tell me how far you’ve got with the Coetzee case?’

‘The Emil Coetzee case?’

‘Yes. What strides have you made towards catching Golide Gumede?’

‘Golide Gumede had nothing to do with whatever happened to Emil Coetzee.’

‘The SIU have told me as much, so I know that. You know that. But the people out there still want Golide Gumede to pay for what he did during the war. He will make the perfect peace offering, Coetzee be damned. They expect me, as the new Emil Coetzee, to do something about it, and I intend to.’

‘The new and improved Emil Coetzee,’ Spokes corrected.

‘Yes, exactly. The Man Himself,’ Silas Mthimkhulu said. ‘And if any man can find Golide Gumede, I do believe it is you, Chief Inspector.’

‘You want me to push another one into the dam?’

‘What is one more?’

‘I’m afraid I am not the man for the job. I am retiring.’

‘What? Is Golide Gumede’s skin too pale for you?’

‘I have never seen Golide Gumede,’ Spokes said, his hand on the door handle. ‘Is his skin pale?’