At present, a small-fisted hand tugged at one of the cuffs of Spokes’s trouser legs, and he looked down to see a toddler looking up at him with an expectant smile. He bent down to pick up Daisy, the toddler and reconciled himself to the fact that while he and the lovely Loveness had not known many moments of peace since coming to Krum’s Place, they had experienced a newfound happiness. Spokes tickled her belly and, as he listened to her unrestrained giggles, life was quite simply a very beautiful thing.

The car was packed and ready to go. As Spokes handed Daisy over to the lovely Loveness, he could smell the scones, meat pies and samosas that she had prepared for the journey. He kissed her dimpled cheek, very happy that while many things changed, some things remained the same.

‘Happy anniversary,’ he said as he got into the car.

‘Happy anniversary,’ she said as she made the toddler wave goodbye to him.

Lukha and a very pregnant Dikeledi, in her postman’s uniform, double- and triple-checked that everything with the car was in order before Spokes and Lukha drove off.

On their journey, Spokes and Lukha came across six roadblocks manned by soldiers armed to the teeth, and policemen shrouded in riot gear and carrying batons. Although there had been many changes made post-independence in both the army and police force, there were officers at each of the roadblocks who knew Spokes and affectionately referred to him as Chief Inspector. When they perfunctorily asked where he and Lukha were headed, he replied that they were off to do some fishing on the Beauford Farm and Estate, and Lukha added that his wife was very pregnant and wanted to eat nothing but fish, and not just any fish – fish she had had once that had been caught at the Beauford Farm and Estate – and so here they were. Most officers were very understanding about the particularly strange appetites of pregnant wives, and granted them easy passage. When a soldier who was suspicious of two men travelling all the way to the Beauford Farm and Estate just to fish asked them to open the boot, all he found were fishing rods, tackle, and a bucket of worms wriggling in damp soil.

Their passage through the roadblocks was a lot smoother than even Spokes had anticipated. It was a good thing that he knew, from his many years of dealing with criminals, that the best way to lie was to have the lie consist mostly of the truth – Dikeledi was indeed pregnant and had an appetite only for fish … fish caught by Spokes in the river in Krum’s Place. It certainly did not hurt that most of the officers he came across remembered him as a brave, integrous and intelligent superior – a man who never broke the law.