The British were pleased, the villagers less so. Their own king had, after consulting the ancestors, created the chieftaincy and chosen its lineage; as such, it was a sacred thing not meant for mere man to rend asunder. As much as they liked the Msimangas, the villagers wanted the Mkhizes to continue as headmen, and they made this very clear to the British.

This was exactly the kind of dogmatic traditional thinking that the British were trying to eradicate. They decided that instead of trying to reason with the villagers through verbal persuasion, which would probably prove pointless, they would build a dam instead – using labour from the village, of course – and show the villagers what the British could do for them.

Now, one would have thought that all this would have created a rift between the young Msimanga and Zwakele Mkhize, but their friendship – which had begun as most boys’ friendships did, when they were herdboys together – had proved to be made of sterner stuff. The young Msimanga made it very clear that it was not his intention to be headman, and the villagers appreciated his not wanting to change the status quo. But then Zwakele Mkhize disappeared, and the villagers had no choice but to allow the British (whose hand the villagers suspected in the disappearance) to have their way and instate the young Msimanga as headman.

Since the British did not seem eager to have the British South Africa Police (BSAP) investigate the case, Msimanga had done so instead, continuing to do everything in his power to find out what had happened to his best friend.

Here Msimanga’s story ended, and it was time for the one question to be asked: ‘What happened to Zwakele Mkhize?’

They all left iguma and retired for the night. Spokes was given his own indlu to sleep in, but even though he was lying on a well-made icansi and covered by a very warm ingubo, he had no other choice but to have a sleepless night as he tried to decipher the mystery. He had little hope that he could arrive at an answer that many before him, including a man training to become a lawyer, had failed to find.

Sometime during the night the most amazing thing happened. His mind started sorting through all the information it had received – the beer drink, the dam, the friendship, the trackers, the chieftaincy, the British – retaining what was important and discarding what was unimportant. How did his mind know how to do this?

It was only when he started rearranging the key elements into a connected and cohesive whole that he realised what he was doing. He was reconstructing the plot of a story, which was something he had done many times, with both oral and written stories. The only difference now was that the story that Msimanga had just told him was not made up.

His mind worked for most of the night until what had happened to Zwakele Mkhize was very clear to Spokes. The truth left him cold, so cold that even though he was covered by a warm and heavy blanket, he shivered his way through the early morning hours.