by Malla Nunn
‘I went to the kraal of Chief Matebula. He was asleep and would not be disturbed. I reported the news to Nomusa, the girl’s mother.’
‘Why didn’t you go to a farm where there was a telephone?’
Kaleni looked away to a bank of clouds massing on the horizon. ‘It was dawn, inkosi. I did not wish to disturb the farmers or the nightwatchmen who guard their homes.’
Nor would he want to rouse their dogs. There was no curfew in the countryside but a black man wandering before dawn wouldn’t be welcome in any house wealthy enough to own a telephone. A stupid question, Emmanuel realised. He tapped his pen to the page, bothered by a wrinkle in the timeline.
‘Was it dark when you reached the Matebula kraal?’ he asked.
‘No. The sun was on the crest of the mountains and the birds were awake.’
Colonel van Niekerk had assigned the case to him at three forty-five a.m., well before Kaleni brought Nomusa the bad news. The woman who’d called in the anonymous tip must have known about Amahle’s murder prior to the discovery of her body; a woman who might be connected to the small man whose prints littered the crime scene. Emmanuel scribbled the mismatched times into his notebook and continued the interview.
‘Who do you think killed Amahle?’ he asked, outright. Patience hadn’t paid off and subtlety wasn’t for detectives with a blank list of suspects.
‘The chief’s daughter was much loved,’ Kaleni said. ‘By everyone.’
That pause again. A space of three seconds filled with hidden meaning that eluded Emmanuel. Was Amahle loved from afar or loved in a more physical way?
‘Did you know her?’ Emmanuel asked.
‘Not well. She was not a member of my church.’
A black bird with yellow markings flew into the branches of the paperbark tree and whistled four long notes in rotation. Baba Kaleni tilted his head and looked at the bird with joy.
‘Cut yourself shaving?’ Emmanuel said and pointed to drops of fresh blood leaking from a small wound in the preacher’s throat.
The old man shrugged his good shoulder and said, ‘My eyes are weak and the mountain way is steep. I stumbled and fell onto rocks.’
There were no scrapes or bruises on his hands, and those ‘weak’ eyes had – not a half-hour ago – picked out a distant slab of basalt protruding from the veldt.
‘Sharp rocks,’ Emmanuel said.
‘Sharp as the tip of a spear, inkosi,’ said Baba Kaleni.
Shabalala glanced up from the shade of his fedora and Emmanuel understood: The old man was telling them exactly what had happened. A real spear had pierced his throat, not stones.
‘Did you get hurt any place else in the fall?’
‘Yebo.’ Baba Kaleni touched gentle fingers to his sagging right shoulder. ‘Another rock hit me here. It was round and hard as a knobkerrie.’
Mandla’s impi were armed with spears and hardwood clubs called knobkerries and they were one step ahead of the official police investigation, questioning witnesses and demanding answers with weapons.
‘This is bad, Sergeant,’ Shabalala said. ‘Mandla must be stopped before he harms others and frightens them away from talking to us.’
Emmanuel agreed. Mandla and his impi had to be stopped. ‘Where is the Matebula kraal?’ he asked the preacher.
‘The kraal is one hour past the river.’ Kaleni pointed to a mountain covered with trees and with a rock outcrop at the top. ‘It can be seen from that place.’
Zulu time was set to a different clock than the one Emmanuel operated by. The trip would only take an hour if he and Shabalala ran to the kraal; in their suits and leather shoes, that wouldn’t be easy.
‘Any way to get to the kraal by car?’ Emmanuel asked, even though he could see only small walking tracks traversing the hills and knew that the access road to the white-owned farms was eaten away by potholes.
‘No,’ Kaleni said. ‘You must go there on your own two feet.’
There was no option but to go up the mountain. At a steady pace, Emmanuel hoped the trip to and from the Zulu compound would be completed in full daylight.
‘You’ll get us there and back to the car again, Shabalala?’ Emmanuel removed his tie and shoved it into his pants pocket, then freed the top three buttons of his shirt.
‘I will find the way, Sergeant.’ The Zulu detective shrugged off his jacket and tied it around his waist. They were going to set a blistering pace to try to close the gap on Mandla’s impi.
‘If you have anything to add to your statement, now’s the time, Baba.’ Emmanuel expected nothing new from the preacher and his mind was already on the hard miles ahead. Chief Matebula and his son had to be brought into line or more people could get hurt.
‘There is but one thing more, inkosi.’
‘Yeah?’ Impatient to get going, Emmanuel turned to Baba Kaleni. The preacher’s hand moved in a blur, his palm slamming hard against Emmanuel’s chest. The physical contact literally took his breath away. He lifted his own hand to defend himself and push back.
‘Wait, Sergeant,’ Shabalala said. ‘He means no harm.’
The heat from Kaleni’s hand burned deep into the skin. Emmanuel had never felt palms so charged. His heartbeat slowed and amplified to a boom. Time lagged. Baba Kaleni leaned closer and Emmanuel could smell river mud and grass.
‘Where are the two boys and the girl that you promised to give to your mother?’ the preacher asked. ‘They are ghosts, still waiting to be born. You are also a ghost. You float in the land of the dead.’
Emmanuel tried to speak but couldn’t. Pressure built in his head and his ears rang just as they had when a concussion wave from an exploding shell knocked him off his feet outside a French village during the war. He blinked. He was twelve years old again, sitting in the kitchen in Sophiatown; the wind rattled the corrugated-iron walls and rain lashed the grimy windows. From outside, he heard the squeal of children splashing in the mud and footsteps running to the front door. Then came his mother, hurrying into the room humming a tune with her silky hair tousled by the rain and a bag of groceries in her arms.
‘You’re early,’ Emmanuel said. She normally came home after dark, when candles lit up the windows and the bars opened their doors. ‘And you’ve been drinking.’
‘Three glasses of sherry isn’t a crime, Emmanuel.’ She put the grocery bag on the kitchen table, sat down on a rickety chair and kicked off her shoes.
Emmanuel made her a cup of rooibos tea, black with three sugars. She smiled and stared at him over the lip of the cup. He looked to the door. His father would be home soon, seriously drunk and angry with the kaffirs, the coloureds, the Indians and the rich English bosses. He’d be angry most of all with this rain-washed woman, happy and beautiful in a shack with dirt floors and a leaking roof.
‘Come here, Emmanuel.’ His mother grabbed his hand and pinned it to the kitchen table. ‘Let me read your fortune.’
‘I don’t want you to.’ He already knew the future. A fight, broken cups and plates they could not afford to replace, a black eye for her and a cut lip for him.
‘Keep still.’ She traced each individual line in his palm with the tip of her index finger and said, ‘You’ll have three children: two strong boys and a girl with the heart of a lion. Your sons will favour you but the girl will be different, more like her mother. Life won’t be easy but you’ll have a home and a happy family.’
Emmanuel tried to jerk his hand away but she hung on, tightening her grip. Her hair retained the scent of cooking spices and cigarettes and the peppermint candies kept in a jar at the front of the Cape Trader General Store where she worked.
‘Promise me, Emmanuel.’ She was deadly serious now. ‘Promise me you’ll try to make this fortune come true.’
‘I promise,’ he’d said and looked away from the fierceness of her love, the unspoken hope that one day he would leave the heaving slum of Sophiatown and build a life without violence or fear.
Three hard taps of Baba Kaleni’s fingers against
Emmanuel’s chest brought him back to the wide reaches of the Kamberg Valley. He sucked in a mouthful of air, trying to break the preacher’s spell.
‘Listen, my son.’ The old man hadn’t finished ripping out Emmanuel’s internal wiring. ‘Pleasure is easy to find between the legs of a woman but happiness is built over time and with much effort, like a hut. The woman who shares this hut with you will help carry your burdens, and you hers. Keep your body from strange beds and the night will reward you with stars bright enough to guide your way. In the name of the Father and the Son, amen.’
‘Amen.’ Shabalala mumbled the word but kept his face turned to the horizon. Physical pleasure and strange beds were not matters he’d ever discuss with the detective sergeant.
‘Stay well,’ Baba said and moved away.
‘Hamba khale, Baba.’ Shabalala called the traditional farewell. Emmanuel remained silent, wavering between shock and embarrassment at this revelation of private events.
‘And you stay well, my son,’ Kaleni said and trundled back to the True Israelites. A gospel hymn drifted across the hillside and Emmanuel glanced at his partner, trying to assess the effect on him of Kaleni’s words. Shabalala continued to study the drifting clouds with a blank expression. The preacher’s message had disturbed the easy camaraderie they’d shared earlier.
‘If you’ve got something to say, then say it.’ Emmanuel took off his jacket and tied the sleeves tight around his waist with angry movements.
‘The old one means no harm, Sergeant,’ Shabalala said. ‘The spirits of the ancestors send messages through him and he must speak these out loud.’
‘Well, the spirits have no idea what they’re talking about.’
Emmanuel could count on one hand – no, less – the number of strange beds he’d crawled out of in the last year. There was Janice, the divorced hairdresser from London Styles salon with the freckled nose and dimpled chin. And Lana Rose. Two women was hardly a tide of flesh. Davida Ellis, the coloured girl he’d broken the law to have over twelve months ago, stayed alive only in his dreams. He’d met Davida in Jacob’s Rest, the isolated rural hamlet where Detective Constable Shabalala and Dr Zweigman had both once lived. His investigation into the murder of Captain Willem Pretorius exposed the Afrikaner policeman’s secret double life and put Davida in danger. When she’d come to his room in the middle of the night, open, vulnerable and seeking comfort, he forgot his professional obligation to protect the weak. He could still remember the way she tasted and the feeling of her arms around him. Sleeping with Davida was a mistake, an error in judgement. Yet he couldn’t shake the notion that if they had not been dragged from bed by the Security Branch they might have stayed wrapped in each other’s arms forever.
‘If you say the spirits are wrong, then it is so.’ Shabalala motioned to the path. ‘Ready, Sergeant?’
‘You lead. I’ll keep up.’ Emmanuel vowed to keep up even if it meant coughing up a lung.
‘To the river,’ Shabalala said and hit the downward-sloping terrain at a sprint. Emmanuel followed him, crushing the red earth underfoot. The sun was hot on his shoulders, the breeze cool on his face. He pushed hard to a place of pure physical sensation. Five minutes more and the world would break down to sweat, breath and aching muscle. It would hurt, but in the temple of his body he was safe and strong.
Baba Kaleni’s words echoed in Emmanuel’s head. The promise he’d made to his mother was a wound that had scabbed over, healed and vanished. Yet with one thump on his chest the past had come roaring back as vivid as if it were right here, right now.
The gruelling mountain climb brought his mind back to the case. Mandla’s men would need to bend to the law or be broken. Together with Shabalala, he’d find Amahle’s killer and bring him to justice. There was so much still undone in his life, but the job of detective he did well.
FIVE
Two mangy brown dogs with fur hanging over their bones and an old man smoking a corncob pipe flanked the gateway to the Matebula family kraal. Behind the old man, a stick fence made of dried thorn branches surrounded a collection of thatched beehive-shaped huts.
At the sight of two city men sweating and panting on the threshold the old man struggled to get to his feet.
‘Sit,’ Emmanuel said. ‘Is Chief Matebula home?’ The dogs raised their heads and growled but then went back to sleep in their sun patch.
‘Yebo, inkosi.’ Smoke escaped from the man’s mouth when he spoke. ‘But the great one cannot be disturbed.’
‘He’ll make an exception for us.’ Emmanuel stepped onto the dirt path leading to the interior. Ahead was the heart of the family kraal, a dusty cattle yard with a huge white stinkwood tree at the centre. The path split to either side of the enclosure.
‘This way, Sergeant.’ Shabalala indicated the right-hand path. ‘The chief’s hut is always at the back of the cattle byre.’
They moved past squat huts with grass mats rolled down over entryways. A clutch of brown chickens scratched for food in the dirt and a swarm of flies settled on the rim of an uncovered cooking pot. The only human sound was voices whispering behind the hut walls. There was no sign of Mandla or his men. It was as if the whole kraal was holding its breath and waiting.
‘Everyone’s under house arrest,’ Emmanuel said quietly. ‘I wonder if the chief is afraid of a riot.’
The crash of splintering wood and a male voice raging in Zulu came from the northeast corner of the compound. The dozing dogs awoke and barked at the sky. Emmanuel and Shabalala passed a large hut with dried buffalo horns at the entrance, and proceeded to a wide yard with an umdoni tree at its centre. Nomusa crouched on a woven grass mat, her head bowed in supplication. A young girl huddled against Nomusa’s body, her skinny arms circling the woman’s waist. Items of clothing and a small cardboard box with the lid ripped off were flung across the yard. As the detectives approached, a giant Zulu man snapped a tree branch across his knee and raised the limb high enough to cast a shadow over Nomusa and the shivering girl.
‘Drop that,’ Emmanuel said in Zulu and crossed the dirt circle in four paces, raising dust.
The man turned, surprised. He was easily six foot three and had been handsome once, but carried a ring of fat on his belly and under his chin. The onset of middle age had thinned his hair and evidence of too much good living could be seen in his bloated face and red-rimmed eyes.
‘I am the great chief . . .’ the man said, blood still running hot. ‘No-one, not even a white man, tells me what to do in my own kraal.’
‘We’re the police, which means we can,’ Emmanuel said. He disliked the chief on sight. ‘Now, drop the stick.’
Shabalala took up position at Nomusa’s right shoulder, ready to deflect an attack. The chief threw the limb against the perimeter wall, rattling the thorn branches and startling a thrush into flight. Nomusa and the child remained hunched over in the face of Matebula’s wrath.
‘Have you found out who killed my child?’ the chief demanded. ‘There is a debt owing for her life and it will be paid.’
‘Who do you think is to blame for your daughter’s death?’ Emmanuel stepped around Matebula’s bulk and caught a whiff of sour maize beer and dagga smoke. He checked on Nomusa and the girl, who looked about eleven years old and wore the short beaded skirt of an unmarried female.
‘The mother is to blame for Amahle.’ Matebula pointed at Nomusa. ‘She let my child roam across the valley and sent her to work in the house of the white farmer instead of keeping her in the kraal.’
‘I was thinking of a person who might actually have killed Amahle. A boyfriend or maybe an old enemy.’ Emmanuel reached out to lift Nomusa to her feet before he caught the quick movement of Shabalala’s hand. A short, sharp wave that said, Do not touch the woman, Sergeant. He dropped his arm.
‘My daughter was good,’ Nomusa whispered. She kept her face turned away to hide a swollen eye and a cut on her left cheek. ‘Amahle had no boyfriends. No enemies.’
‘Lies.’ Chief Matebula grabbed t
he cardboard box and upended it. A toothbrush, a lipstick, some candy-pink nail polish and two lead pencils scattered across the mat. ‘Explain these things! Where did they come from when all your daughter’s pay was meant to come to me, her father?’
‘Shut up and sit down.’ Emmanuel had had enough of Matebula’s big mouth. ‘There. Up against the hut.’
‘A chief does not sit on the floor.’ Matebula shouted an order in Zulu to someone hidden inside the largest hut and stood with his hands folded across his bare chest.
Emmanuel permitted him the small victory. There were more immediate concerns than the maintenance of Matebula’s ego. He crouched at the edge of the mat and tried to make eye contact with Nomusa. She shut him out, looking up and beyond the fence line to the mountains wrapped in clouds. Traditional Zulu women, especially those married to an arrogant chief, did not speak to outsiders without their husband’s permission.
‘Sergeant.’ Shabalala nodded towards the narrow passage connecting the circular yard with the rest of the kraal. Another signal.
‘Go,’ Emmanuel said. ‘Take Nomusa and the child to their hut and come back when they’re settled.’
‘Just so.’ The Zulu detective picked up the vanity items scattered on the mat and repacked them in the cardboard box. Emmanuel wondered if these little luxuries had been given to or bought by Amahle, or if she had stolen them from her employers at Little Flint Farm. Beyond her startling physical beauty, he knew nothing about her life or her personality. What unknown event might have placed her in harm’s way?
‘Let go, Mama.’ The girl broke free of Nomusa’s hold and scooped up the four cotton dresses and a blue hand-knitted sweater from the grass mat where they’d been thrown. She clutched them tightly, a fierce little creature with wide brown eyes flecked with gold, black corn-rowed hair and a smooth oval face that would one day match her murdered sister’s beauty. A double-stranded necklace of blue and silver beads and a row of glass bracelets indicated her superior social status in a valley devoid of manufactured items.
