Bola. He was the centre of the house, spoilt silly by them all. He could make even a stone laugh with his crazy antics. He was a gust of wind, a stream of raw energy tearing through the recumbent house whenever he came home for weekends: overturning chairs as he chased Peju or Lola to the haven of their father’s arms; opening pots and drawers in the kitchen.

He was something different to each one of them. To the father, he was the heir to be nurtured with a judicious mixture of love, severity, distance, closeness, manly camaraderie, and sometimes a helpless burst of fondness so touching to see. To Ma Bola he was the love of her life, her man renewed all over again, but this time as the flesh of her own flesh. To the girls he was the other, the male, through whom they could vent their curiosity about that increasingly alluring world of boys, without fear of being singed.

As the reel came to an end, just before the credits, I saw the truck, close-up, in the centre of the road, the small family car coalesced to its exposed bowels. The blood, in black and white, was not red but black. Thick and viscous. At last the creature had come out to take a bow. Fade to black and chaos.

When I woke up two and a half hours later, I was alone. Bola’s jeans and shirt were there on the table where I had placed them last night. He would be in the toilet, or the kitchen. I sat on the edge of the bed and watched the weak morning rays buffeting motes in their stream. The birds were chirping outside, as if all was well with the world. After fifteen minutes I went to the toilet. I knocked and entered. It was empty. I went to the kitchen. It was empty. I hesitated before the master bedroom at the head of the corridor. When I tried the door it was locked.

Auntie Rosa and the women from yesterday were in the girls’ room, opposite Bola’s room, but he wouldn’t be there. I decided to wake up the twins. Paul – or was it Peter? – was on the sofa, on his back, one leg and one arm dangling over the edge and on to the carpet. His brother was on the carpet, on three cushions that he must have carefully arranged in a straight row before sleeping, but which were now scattered around him. I checked the front door before waking them up; it was locked. They looked at me without comprehension, their brains groggy from sleep, when I told them I couldn’t find Bola.

‘Check the toilet. He must be in the toilet,’ Paul said when at last my words registered.

‘I’ve checked.’

‘And the kitchen, everywhere?’