Even then he had been broken and in need of repair. She had not known in that moment that she would one day love him more than she loved herself. Then, she had only known that he was an extremely attractive man who seemed so beautifully and tragically out of time and place – a visitor from a distant world. A world that he, a peregrine, had perhaps returned to after his long sojourn amongst them.

It was, perchance, foolhardy to go in search of such a man, but that was exactly what Marion Hartley intended to do as she got into her red Aster and blissfully journeyed into the unknown that was her future.

After Chief Inspector Spokes Moloi had told Philemon what had happened to Sitshengisiwe, and what, unfortunately, could not happen to Silas Mthimkulu, Philemon had been waiting for a sign. The sign would let him know that he had done the right thing. As soon as he saw the red Aster driving past the Rutherfords’ house, he knew it was the sign he had been waiting for.

There had been a red Aster that had frequently visited the Hartley Farm years ago, and on its journeys to and from the farm, it had passed the village in which Philemon lived. It was in this village that Philemon’s grandmother had taught him about medicinal herbs and plants and roots – which ones could heal and which could kill. It was the liquid residue of one of these roots that Philemon had put in Silas Mthimkhulu’s tea when he had come to visit …

To think that Silas Mthimkhulu had actually accepted the invitation to tea, entered the home of the woman he had so callously killed, and consumed, without suspicion, the tea that had been offered him. Philemon knew Silas Mthimkhulu did all this because he was so amply fortified that he felt invincible. It had helped that Philemon had drunk the tea himself, which had allayed whatever fears and misgivings Silas Mthimkhulu might have had. Philemon was rather proud of the fact that he had successfully deceived him. There was no way that Silas Mthimkhulu could have known that the root’s liquid residue was not in the tea but in the tea cup. There was no way that Silas Mthimkhulu could have known that wherever he went now, something was slowly but surely eating away at him, hollowing him out, not resting until it would eventually leave him as nothing but an empty shell.