All Vida wanted was to make his way to that alleyway next to Downing’s Bakery where he had successfully hidden from the woman with the clickety-clacking shoes and the scent of a woman’s cheap perfume or a cheap woman’s perfume. He had liked the smell of warm baking bread that was contained in the alleyway and wanted to return to it.

Luckily for him, the former guerrillas toyi-toyied past him without accosting him in any way. Apparently, they saw in him something that he did not see in himself.

Vida resumed his journey, but was not able to venture far before a sound became too loud for him to ignore. A group of former guerrillas had surrounded a small white car and were now rocking it back and forth as they beat on it. After the treatment he had received at the hands of both the BSAP and the SIU when he reported the dead man’s body on Selborne Avenue on New Year’s Day, Vida had vowed never again to involve himself in anything he saw happening in the lives of others. But then he saw the driver – an ancient white lady looking as though she had already seen her death. Vida tried to ignore her panicked and stricken expression, but he could not. She was, after all, someone’s loving mother … someone’s doting grandmother.

Vida was surprised at how easily he made his way through the former guerrillas surrounding the car. They actually parted to make way for him and let him tap on the ancient white lady’s window. ‘Please roll down your window,’ he said, at a loss as to what was appropriate to say and do in the situation. He repeated the request a few times before she slowly and very partially opened her window.

‘You can go away, Jesus,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe in you.’

Jesus? What was she talking about? Obviously she had been more frightened and shocked than he thought. ‘I’m sorry, Madam. Are you all right?’ Vida asked.

‘Yes, yes, quite all right. Got a little fright, that’s all, but I am fine now, thank you. You can go away, Jesus.’

‘She called him Jesus!’ one of the former guerrillas said with a laugh. The other former guerrillas who were looking on laughed as well.

‘We didn’t mean to scare the old white lady, Jesus,’ one of the former guerrillas said. ‘We just wanted her to join in the festivities. We wanted her to know that independence is for us all.’

‘Independence is for us all!’ another former guerrilla shouted. His words became a chant that carried them all away. ‘Independence is for us all!’

‘My name is Vida,’ Vida said to the ancient white lady. ‘I need to make sure you’re all right to drive on.’

‘My name is Rosa … Rosa Adair,’ she said.

‘I think maybe I had better drive you home,’ Vida said, smiling at Rosa Adair.