He owed them something. He felt it even as his more-cynical self scoffed and laughed: What? For a thirty-nine-cent fly-swatter and a can of Coke you owe them a probable cause?

He didn’t want to build it up – didn’t want to let them see how his instinct was screaming at him that this was it, this was the key.

He tried to keep his voice neutral: ‘This is important. I think. I don’t know how yet but I think the fan disc is the thing.’

‘The graze?’ Pam watched his face closely, as if it would give her as much information as she’d hear from his mouth.

‘I don’t know. I don’t want to jump to any conclusions. And I don’t know what conclusions I’d be jumping to anyway.’ He opened his palms in a vague gesture of ignorance. ‘Maybe I should sleep on it.’

Pam nodded, but none of them pressed him further, for which he was grateful. He had no idea why the graze was more important than the scoring. But he had confidence that his brain would go on working on the problem without him, and inform him when it had come to a decision.

‘Any more Coke?’

‘I’ll get it,’ said Clint, but Tom was already halfway there. He grabbed six Cokes and a cream soda and lowered the lid, revealing a mirage-like figure floating towards the barn on watery legs across the mirrored sand.

Tom let the lid of the chest drop with a dull thud and, without taking his eyes off the figure, hissed open one of the Cokes and took a long swallow. He was aware of the others joining him and following his gaze.

‘It’s a boy,’ said Ness, as if announcing a birth.

It was a boy. A small, skinny boy with knobbly knees below bone-thin thighs that disappeared into over-large red soccer shorts.

Tom frowned. ‘Where the hell’s he come from?’ He felt Paul shrug beside him.

‘Kids out here. They walk a long way to school.’

They stood in the shade and watched the boy approach with an easy, loose-limbed gait, his round head rolling slightly backwards with each stride, his chin bobbing into the air in modest pride.

Finally he got close enough to smile a greeting, but he didn’t. He walked right up to them, and now Tom could see that, despite his lanky appearance, the boy was small, his extreme thinness making him appear much taller. His skin was dark and smooth and perfect, his ears tucked close and neat against the sides of his head, his hair shorn to mere circles on his skull. His eyes were everything in his face and, even though he hadn’t said hello yet, Tom felt the sad anxiety coming off the child in waves.

He raised a hand in a tired greeting. ‘Sanibonani.’

They all murmured their own versions of ‘hello’ and Pam held out a Coke to him. He almost stepped forward to take it, then saw September’s drink, and his eyes darted quickly between Tom and Rian – the two white males, Tom noted. ‘Can I have a cream soda, please, baas?’ he asked quietly.

They all took a step backwards so Tom could get another cream soda from the chest.

‘Thank you, baas.’

The boy didn’t open the can, just touched its iciness to his cheek and then his slender neck, which disappeared into a baggy blue-and-yellow-striped T-shirt. ‘Have you seen my ostrich?’

There was silence after his question, then Rian said: ‘What does it look like?’

Tom snorted laughter at the absurdity of the question, but nobody else did.

The boy had perfected his description. ‘He’s a big male. He has a ring on his left leg, and there is a lead on his head. His name is Lemon.’

This time they all laughed a little, and even the boy grinned – just a brief flash of white.

Suddenly Tom realized that this was the boy in the picture – the boy whose face he’d last seen in the relative comfort of his living room: the ostrich jockey with the memorable name.

‘Harold?’ The boy turned surprised eyes to him. ‘Harold Robbins, right?’

This time the grin broadened and Harold beamed at him. He ducked his head shyly. ‘Yes, baas.’

‘I saw you on the Internet after the crash.’

‘Yes, baas. I was in the newspaper. And on the TV at DuPlessis’s shop.’

None of them knew what this meant, and Harold tried to explain further by pointing back in the direction he’d come. ‘In De Rust.’

They nodded, still not sure, and Harold Robbins Mhleli took the initiative once more. ‘Lemon’s very scared. He’s lost and I want him to come home.’

‘I thought the ostrich farm was destroyed,’ said Tom.

‘No, just …’ He twitched a shoulder, not finding the right words, and settled for: ‘Not all destroyed. But I lost my job. Some ostriches were killed and Lemon ran away. So, too many boys and not enough tourists or ostriches. If Lemon comes home, maybe I can get my job back.’

They nodded silently at the simplicity of the equation: that meant a twelve-year-old boy’s livelihood depended on a giant bird.

‘You been looking for him ever since the plane crashed?’ said Pam.

‘Yes, madam,’ said Harold, and – for the first time – his eyes flickered past them to the twisted wreckage he’d last seen smoking in the ruins of his dreams.

September waved an arm back towards the unseen town over the horizon. ‘Can’t you get work in De Rust?’

Harold faltered. Tom could see his brain working fast and, for a moment, thought he was going to lie to them. But then he dropped his eyes, as if ashamed, and mumbled, ‘But I want to ride again.’

Tom understood. Harold might get work in De Rust, might pick up litter or run errands or dig ditches, but he was clinging to the fading dream that he would find Lemon and be allowed to go back to the job he loved. The parallel with his own situation made Tom’s eyes burn. He turned away under the guise of finishing his Coke and tossing it into the bin.

‘We saw an ostrich on the way here,’ said Ness. ‘Didn’t we, Tom?’

He turned back and nodded.

‘That was a big male,’ she continued. ‘Well, it was male anyway. I don’t know how big they get.’

Harold’s eyes were warily hopeful in a way that Tom recognized meant he’d been disappointed before. Carefully he added, ‘He did have something hanging off his head. Like a bit of string …’

‘Yes!’

‘I couldn’t see that well, but I noticed it as he turned. Very thin.’

‘Yes!’ said the boy again. He held out his left arm and quickly ran his right forefinger from his shoulder to his wrist. ‘Two times this long?’

‘About that. And he was limping, I think.’

‘Limping?’

Clint demonstrated and Harold understood. ‘Maybe he’s hurt.’ Then he looked at Tom again. ‘Where is this?’

Tom pointed back towards Oudtshoorn. ‘About ten miles that way.’