THE DAY AFTER: 9 PM

Driving slowly up and down the empty road, scouring the bush on either side, competing with the shadows and the dying light. Those prophetic lyrics looping in my head: trying your best but not succeeding; losing something that you can’t replace. Morals. Dignity. Humanity. Take your pick.

Trying my best. To protect my family. To keep the loan sharks at bay. To dig myself out of a hole. A business transaction, a loan forgiven, a young girl the currency. Sometimes good people get caught in bad situations. Sometimes honest people have their hand forced. Desperate times et cetera.

But now I’ve lost the girl as well as my morals and dignity. Worst case: we don’t find her and she somehow – despite being weak, semi-drugged and naive – makes it to safety. She hasn’t seen my face. She hasn’t even heard my voice; I deliberately didn’t speak to her at any point, not even when she got sick. She has only been in the car once before, months ago. There’s no way she would recognise it; she was dead to the world anyway.

Even if she does manage to identify me and point the finger, it will never stand up in a court of law. How could they rely on a drugged, distorted version of events? Reasonable doubt. An unreliable witness. I’ll manufacture a watertight alibi. I’ll lawyer up like other criminals do.

Is that a flash of colour in the scrub? I stop the car and get out. There’s still hope of avoiding the worst-case scenario. Still hope of saving myself. If not her.