As she spent the night in her car, Saskia tried to imagine Zora Neale Hurston, and in her imaginings, she wondered many things. For instance, what colour hair did she have? Were the eyes that looked at Emil Coetzee blue, grey, brown, green or hazel? Was she a short or tall woman? In the case of another man, Saskia might have been able to guess, because that man would have had a type, but Emil Coetzee was not the kind of man who had a type. Any white woman who was attractive seemed to him to be fair game. Over the years he had made eyes of every colour blue, and he had left bruises and scars, Saskia was sure, on complexions of every hue. And yet through his frankly appalling treatment of women he had held on to Zora Neale Hurston. Why? Who exactly was she, and what was it about her that Emil Coetzee found worthy enough to hold on to?

The discovery that Emil Coetzee carried handwritten notes from Zora Neale Hurston in his wallet had made Saskia understand that there was more to him than she knew – and she did not like this realisation because she had made it the work of the past several months to know every minute detail about his life. She knew that he was a rabid workaholic and a rapacious womaniser. She knew that he was recently separated from his wife, Kuki Coetzee. She knew that he had lost his son, Everleigh, in the war … Was there a name for such a person? Saskia reached for her rucksack, pulled out her notebook and used the weak light of the breaking morning to jot down: ‘Look up the word for a father who loses his child. Oxford English Dictionary. Will be a nice touch to the piece. Less pedestrian.’ She frowned down at what she had written, and then she shivered. She finally admitted to herself that the khaki bomber jacket she was curled up under was no match for the early morning air, and had definitely not been a match for the evening air with its particular bite.

Sassie could smell the tobacco on her father’s stale breath as he clamped a grimy and greasy palm over her mouth, stifling her scream while his other hand pawed the hem of her nightdress. She felt the heavy weight of his body push her into the mattress, which became water beneath her. She fought him off with all her might, but his body kept on pushing her further and deeper into the cold and dark water, drowning them both. She could not breathe. She could not breathe. The water was ice-cold and she could not breathe. She desperately needed to breathe. Suddenly she found purchase – a finger lodged itself in an eye socket and gouged. He had no other choice but to let her go. She used all her remaining strength to swim blindly through the frigid water. Still not able to breathe, she swam and swam, eventually surfaced, opened her mouth to gulp in much-needed air, and instead let out a primal sound.