Jason picked up the feet, Steven took the hands and they dragged the figure away into the darkness.

She sat there a long time. At first she denied it, it could not be real, a dream, a complete fantasy. She turned off the sound of the video and played it back. The image quality was not great, the camera was not renowned for its results in the dark, but there was enough, until the truth struck home: she had witnessed a murder, committed by two people to whom she had entrusted her life.

The next day passed in a haze. She realised she was traumatised, but didn't know what to do. She withdrew. Again and again Erin asked her: 'What's wrong?' Later: 'Did I do something?' She just said: 'I'm not feeling well.'

Erin suspected the first symptoms of malaria. She cross- questioned her about symptoms and Rachel answered vaguely and evasively, until her friend gave up. She wanted to report the murder, but to whom? There were so many rumours about the police in Zimbabwe, so many stories of corruption and politics that she hesitated. After a visit to the Victoria Falls, they left the country and passed into Botswana. Then there was no more opportunity. Just the dismay she carried with her and the knowledge that the murder in Zimbabwe by Zimbabweans was not the concern of another country's police. Not on this continent.

In Cape Town they went with a few others to the Van Hunks nightclub, unaware that Jason would turn up later.

They had both been drinking, Erin with great fervour. She began to scold Rachel in an escalating flood of complaints - at the table, on the dance floor. At first just with words like razors, later with tears of drunken melancholy. About friendship, trust and betrayal.

The alcohol had weakened Rachel's resolve. It made her emotional, feel the urge to lighten the burden of her secret and deny the horrible accusations against her. Eventually, with their heads close together at the table, she told Erin everything. Erin calmed down. She said it couldn't be true, it must be a misunderstanding. Not Jason and Steven. Impossible. Rachel said she had watched the video many times over in the early morning hours. There was no mistake.

Let's ask them, let's clear this thing up. This was the reasoning of a fairly intoxicated, naive arch-optimist who never saw evil in anyone. No, no, no, Rachel had protested, promise me you won't say anything, never, let's go home, my father will know what to do.

Erin had promised. They danced. Erin went off somewhere, came back to the table. She said Jason and Steven were here, she had asked them about it, they said she was dreaming. Rachel looked up across the sea of faces and found Jason's eyes on her. He had a cell phone to his ear, and an expression of chilling determination. She had grabbed her rucksack and told Erin to come, they had to get out of there, now. Erin had argued, she didn't want to leave, what was Rachel's problem? Rachel had grabbed her arms and said, 'You come with me. Now!'

They were a few hundred metres from the club down Long Street when Jason and Steven emerged. They looked left and right, saw them and began to run. The other three had joined them from somewhere. Barry, Eben and Bobby.

She knew they were running for their lives.

In the Toyota bakkie, Steven Chitsinga and Barry Smith turned out of Scott into Speke Street and saw the police vehicles in front of the African Overland Adventures warehouse, a horde of blue lights flashing and uniforms everywhere.

Steven said a word in Shona; Barry was silent, braked sharply so that the big off-road tyres squealed. He jerked the gear lever into reverse, released the clutch, depressed the accelerator and shot backwards into something. In the mirror he could just see the roof of the vehicle, only once he turned his head in panic did he realise it was another SAPS patrol vehicle. With an ambulance behind that was blocking most of the road. He ground through the gears and shot forward. If he could go left into Stanley, and then left again in Grant...

But Stanley was closed, police vans, Opels, blocked the street. Uniforms came running with guns in hand.

'Fuck,' said Steven beside him.

Barry said nothing. He stopped the bakkie and lifted his hands slowly off the steering wheel and held them above his head.

'He's coming with me,' said Rachel Anderson as they carried her to the helicopter on a stretcher. She pointed at Griessel, who walked beside her holding her hand.

'There's no room,' said the paramedic.

'Then I'm not going.'

'Rachel, I'll be there in a few minutes,' Griessel soothed.

She fought to get off the stretcher. 'I'm not going.'

'Wait,' said the paramedic, 'he can go with you.' To Griessel he said: 'Where's your car?'

Benny pointed at the van. 'The keys are still inside.'

They loaded her into the helicopter, and Griessel shifted in beside her with difficulty. 'Wait a bit,' the paramedic said and ran back into the building. He returned with the toes in a little bag and passed the gruesome cargo to Griessel. 'They can sew them back on,' said the man. 'Maybe ....'

In the helicopter she tried to talk but the rotors made too much of a racket.

Once they had landed on the roof of the hospital and when they were ready to wheel her into theatre, the same one where they had operated on Mbali Kaleni and Eben Etlinger, she asked them to wait. She told Griessel there was another thing, last night. After they had cut Erin's throat.

'We'll talk later,' he pleaded, because he had to get back to Vusi, there was a lot of work to do.

'No. You have to know. They killed another man.'

She had seen them cut Erin's throat and she had run blindly in fear and shock back to the street, chose the first possible street away from them. Somewhere not long after that she had seen a building on the left with an entrance through to an inner garden. She wanted to get out of sight. She ran in there.

A big, middle-aged man in a suit, handsome, was standing at a fishpond and watching two other men walk away. He shouted something angry before they opened a glass door and disappeared inside. On the wall was a logo of a bird, she could remember that.

'Please, help me,' she said with huge relief, here was help. The big man had looked at her and the anger on his face had quickly changed to concern. 'What's wrong?' he asked.

'They want to kill me,' she had said and went to stand with him.

'Who?'

They heard their running steps and looked at the entrance, where Jason and the others had appeared. Jason had a gun in his hand now.

'We just want her,' he said to the big man. The man had put his arm protectively around Rachel's shoulders and said: 'Not before we call the police.'

'She stole from us. We just want our stuff back, we don't want trouble.'

'Even more reason to call the police,' and he had started to feel in his pocket, probably for his phone.

Jason pointed the pistol at the man. 'Then I'll have to shoot you.'

The man took out a cell phone.

She realised she was not going to be responsible for another death and she started running again. The big man tried to stop them.

She heard two shots. She looked back. The big man in the black suit fell down.

Then she was gone, around the corner. In the street a municipal lorry had pulled away, a smelly truck transporting rubbish bags. She jumped up against it, saw them coming. The truck picked up speed so that Jason became smaller and smaller. She thought they had given up when she had nearly a half a kilometre lead on them. But then the traffic lights at the top of the street turned red. She jumped off then.