Gumboot had been allocated a plot near the centre. He was buried by the Reverend Henry Ransome of the Church of Christ the Redeemer in the township. The minister went through the ritual with uncertainty. He was disturbed, and he knew it and that made it worse. If only he had known the name of the man he was burying. This man, O Lord! What man? This one, this one here, fashioned in your likeness. What does it matter what his name was! This one. This Man. He had seen the face briefly when the police called him in. It was the hate, the hideous distorted hate of its grimace that he remembered now. This one, O Lord. This man fashioned in your image!

The other person at the graveside was Big Jacob, the digger. He had taken off his hat with respect and was resting on the spade. While the minister prayed, Big Jacob studied his head. It was the hair that fascinated him, very white and wispy, something like the seeds of a certain weed that drifted away under umbrellas of thin, silken threads. A wind was blowing now, ruffling the shock of hair, and he thought that if he waited long enough he might see it fly off. The Reverend Henry Ransome crossed himself and looked up at the sky with a frown.

Big Jacob looked down and played with the brow of his hat. ‘Who is he?’ he asked.

The minister looked at him once, very quickly, then back at the sky. He lifted his shoulders in a gesture of defeat. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

Big Jacob scratched his head before putting his hat back on.

‘Friday night,’ he said. ‘We’ll say we buried Friday night on Saturday afternoon.’ Big Jacob began to push the soil into the grave. It wasn’t necessary to shovel. It was all sand.

The minister turned and walked back to his church. He was sorely troubled.

Boston awoke and the first thing he saw was the little boy, standing quite still, watching him over the bicycle-wheel rim he was using as a hoop.

To be exact, it wasn’t the first time he had opened his eyes since Die Aap and Butcher had carried him out of Soekie’s and dumped him where he now found himself, in a back alley. Once in the early morning and again at noon, his eyelids had fluttered and opened and he had tried to get up. But pain had moved along every nerve in his body, and he had dropped back the few inches of his effort, unconscious. Now he tried again.

His head spun, a red mist drifted before his eyes, and he whimpered, but he managed to sit up. The child watched him, expressionless but intent. Boston looked down stupidly at his legs. Something was wrong. It took a few minutes before he realized what it was. Somebody had stolen his trousers, his good grey flannels, most probably while he was unconscious. A badly-torn khaki pair lay not far from him. The child was still watching, his chin now resting on the hoop. Boston opened his mouth but found he couldn’t make intelligible sound. He gestured at the trousers, but the little boy ran away with a furious flurry of his short legs, playing his hoop in front of him with a short stick.