‘Over my dead body, Moloi!’ the Chief Superintendent exclaimed. ‘The gesture is, quite frankly, beneath you.’

Moloi placed his badge on the Chief Superintendent’s desk and stood.

‘Moloi! Sit down, man.’

Moloi made his way to the door.

‘Apologise!’ Chief Superintendent Griffiths commanded.

Joseth, satisfied, watched Moloi visibly stiffen before he turned around to look at the Chief Superintendent. Joseth allowed himself to smile slightly in triumph.

‘You have made your point, Moloi. But you know that you did not follow procedure, and that you should not have been anywhere near that village. You were wrong, and you know it. So apologise,’ Chief Superintendent Griffiths said.

Moloi looked at his superior for quite some time, and then took a deep breath before saying, ‘I apologise.’

Joseth was not surprised by Moloi’s easy capitulation. What else could he expect from a man who had long become accustomed to following orders?

‘Good man. I knew you would do the right thing,’ the Chief Superintendent said.

Joseth watched Moloi’s eyes leave the Chief Superintendent’s and travel to him, and that was how he knew that when the Chief Superintendent said, ‘Apologise,’ this time it was directed at him.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Joseth said.

‘You can beg for it all you want, but I am not granting it,’ Chief Superintendent Griffiths said. ‘Now, I don’t know who you think you are, young man, but I will not have you coming into my station, my office, and humiliating my best officer. A man, who by the looks of it, is a far better human specimen than you could ever dream of being. You and your partner there obviously confused your arses for your elbows, but that is not Moloi’s fault or problem. It is yours. Deal with it like men and not like boys out pissing. You want him to drop the Emil Coetzee case? Tell him to do so. But before you do that, apologise.’

Something very bitter filled Joseth’s mouth before he bit out the words, ‘I apologise.’

‘Very well,’ said the Chief Superintendent. ‘Now we can put them back in and zip up our flies. I think we have established whose is the biggest.’ He smiled at them, showing that all was already forgotten. He picked up the badge that Moloi had deposited on his desk and handed it to him. ‘You know where that belongs.’

Moloi took the badge and put in its place a bunch of keys.

‘What are these?’ the Chief Superintendent asked, looking at the keys he found himself holding.

‘The keys to the Coetzee house,’ Moloi said, before walking out the door.

Rutherford promptly took the keys from the Chief Superintendent.