by Malla Nunn
‘Colonel van Niekerk will not catch us if we fall.’ The doctor thumbed his gold-rimmed glasses higher on the bridge of his nose and addressed the Zulu policeman directly. ‘Give me one good reason why either of us should join Sergeant Cooper’s unsanctioned campaign.’
‘Amahle,’ Shabalala replied.
‘Good answer.’
FIFTEEN
From the rock ledge, Covenant farmhouse looked like a white dot in the landscape. Emmanuel crouched down and motioned to Shabalala to begin his first ever ‘identification of human remains’ interview.
‘Is that your son Philani Dlamini under the rock shelter?’ Shabalala asked a plump Zulu woman dressed in black widow’s robes. She sat on her heels, head down, hands folded in her lap.
‘Yes, inkosi. It is he. Philani.’ She was stoic. Squatting below her on the track were three men from her uncle’s kraal, come to transport the body. ‘I knew it would be him.’
‘Why is this?’ Shabalala asked.
Philani’s mother loosened the strings of a small goatskin pouch tied to her black hide skirt and scooped out the contents: four bright copper coins and a paper note.
‘My son came home on Friday night,’ she said. ‘I did not tell the great chief the truth because Philani said it must be a secret. He gave me this money to hide and the sky pressed down on my chest. I could not breathe. I knew a bad thing would happen to my son. It was not his payday.’
Emmanuel counted the note and coins. Close to two pounds, the amount that Amahle was paid on Friday, minus a few bob. It might be a coincidence. It might not.
‘Perhaps Philani was holding the money for a friend,’ Shabalala said.
‘This money was not given. It was taken.’ She placed the cash on the rock and wiped her hands on her skirt to clean them. ‘My son was scared when he came home with this money and told me to keep it hidden. It is cursed.’
Robbing the dead. Emmanuel knew soldiers, souvenir collectors, who stripped enemy corpses of boots, guns, knives and even gold teeth. Philani might have been angry enough to kill Amahle for leaving work and walking home without him, but robbery didn’t fit with this kind of crime of passion.
‘You say that Philani was scared.’ Shabalala found a rock and weighed the money down, careful not to touch it.
‘Yebo. He instructed me to go to the great chief and say that he was missing. Then he said to take the money and go to the kraal of my uncle.’ She looked over her shoulder at the stand of marula trees blocking the rock shelter from view. ‘Philani told me he would come to the kraal today.’
Emmanuel scrawled down notes. Philani had been hiding, not running away. He made plans for the future. He had no intention of dying alone on a hillside. Three cold nights sleeping on a rock, waiting for what? Hunted men kept on the move. Philani chose a spot, lit night fires and stayed. It didn’t make sense.
‘Philani was a friend of the great chief’s daughter,’ Shabalala said. ‘This is what I hear.’
‘My son was a friend to her, inkosi. That is the truth.’ The soft words carried a bitterness that she dared not express outright. A widow without the protection of a son did not criticise the daughter of a chief, even if the girl was dead.
‘I hear you,’ Shabalala said. The friendship between Philani and Amahle was one-sided. Philani had been the better friend. ‘Is there more to say?’
‘I am finished.’
A bell tolled in the valley, calling the workmen from the fields. Emmanuel checked the grove of trees for movement. They were due at the Covenant homestead fifteen minutes after the bell. He stood and crossed the flat surface of the rock, heading in the direction of the forest.
Zweigman emerged from the underbrush in a white gown and gloves loaned by Dr Daglish. His battered medical bag was tucked under an arm. ‘It was not easy,’ he whispered to Emmanuel. ‘But I found one very interesting thing.’
‘Save it for the walk back to Covenant. And try not to look so pleased with yourself.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Zweigman hunched into the surgical gown and pretended interest in a red flower growing from a crevice. ‘Finish your business, Sergeant. I will stay here.’
The finish of business was short and sad. Philani’s mother stayed crouched in her black widow’s robes, dwarfed by a canopy of sky. ‘With your permission,’ she said, ‘I will take my son home now.’
‘With our blessing,’ Shabalala replied and they withdrew to the edge of the grove where Zweigman waited. The Zulu men rose from the bush path and crossed the rock with woven grass mats balanced on their shoulders. ‘For the body,’ Shabalala explained.
Emmanuel waited until the bearers were well into the woods before hitting the path to Covenant.
‘I have news, gentlemen,’ Zweigman said as they walked down the hill. ‘It took a while, but I found it.’ He held out a gloved hand. A fragment of porcupine quill rested in the palm. ‘It was pierced into the lower lumbar. Same as with the girl.’
‘Same killer,’ Emmanuel said. ‘Got to be.’
‘To use this weapon, you must get near to the person.’ Shabalala rubbed his chin, thinking. ‘Either walking close behind them or with your arms around their body.’
‘Hard for a stranger to achieve. Easy for a friend.’ That fit with Emmanuel’s feeling that Philani had invited the killer into the rock shelter, confident of his own safety. They continued the descent of the mountain at a brisk pace for fifteen minutes. They did not want to miss their escort to Amahle’s funeral.
*
Inside the yard, a caravan had formed. Four workmen clumped together behind Sampie and Karin. Three women, including the undersized housemaid with the failing eyes, took up position behind them. The boerboel pack lay on the stoep, their giant heads resting on their paws and under orders to ‘stay’.
‘Detective Cooper.’ Sampie called a greeting. ‘Thought you’d changed your mind.’
‘Got caught up on the hill.’ Emmanuel joined father and daughter at the head of the procession. Karin nodded hello and fiddled awkwardly with the cuffs of her ironed ‘going out’ shirt. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ Emmanuel said. ‘We appreciate the invitation to walk with your house.’
Sampie grunted and they set off along the trail churned up by wagons. Sunshine hit the gravestones in the family plot and birds sang from the tall grass. Shabalala and Zweigman walked a pace behind Emmanuel.
‘It was the gardener on the hill,’ Karin said. ‘So, I guessed right.’
‘You did.’ Philani’s location was more than a lucky guess. The stranger lighting night fires on the property must surely have caught Karin’s attention. ‘His mother is arranging the burial.’
‘Poor thing. Nobody will turn up at the funeral. They’re scared of the chief.’ Unused to the feeling of starched linen against her skin, Karin unbuttoned her cuffs and rolled up her sleeves. ‘Plus there’s all this going on.’
Four Zulu women with babies tied to their backs waited for the procession to pass then tagged along with the other women on the end. Still more people waited by the river crossing.
‘How many by the time we get there?’ Emmanuel asked.
The Afrikaner woman shrugged. ‘Fifty or so. The kaffirs from the kraals all around will join along the way.’
This massing of people was the reason Emmanuel, Zweigman and Shabalala had stayed away from the Matebula family compound this morning. Amahle’s funeral was equivalent to a tornado tearing across the valley; it could not be stopped or delayed. Sampie Paulus’s invitation for them to walk to the great chief’s home meant they could witness her farewell as well as observe who came to pay their respects.
The group of Zulus at the river crossing swelled the numbers. Sampie Paulus led the way across the water, stepping from one flat stone to the next like an Afrikaner Moses. He waited till the entire group reached the bank and then set off again.
‘Ever been to a kaffir funeral before, Detective Cooper?’ Karin brushed sand from the hem of her good jeans.
�
�Town funerals,’ he said. ‘Nothing like this.’
‘Be prepared,’ Karin said. ‘It’ll be noisy.’
The Matebula kraal came into view, nestled in a field of aloes. Wails and screams drifted from the compound and the women in the procession began to wail too. The men split away and formed their own group. The pounding rhythm of their feet hitting the ground added to the sound.
‘See what I mean?’ Karin stepped aside to give the Zulu procession right of way. ‘Your kaffir and the other one can stand with us. There’s a special area near the burial site for non-family.’
‘Zweigman and Shabalala,’ Emmanuel said their names, knowing it was pointless. Karin’s world was divided into two groups: white people, who mattered, and servants. Jews occupied a messy space between the two clusters.
Sampie cut across the field to the front entrance of the Matebula kraal. Scores of Zulus gathered. Dozens more arrived from the mountain paths, raising trails of dust. The kraal dogs barked amid the excitement.
‘We’re in the specially marked area,’ Emmanuel said when Shabalala and Zweigman caught up. ‘Stick close to Sampie. We weren’t formally invited but the Matebulas live on his land.’
The group entered the family compound and a Zulu man indicated where they should stand. The special enclosure held a sprinkling of whites: two missionary women in ironed black dresses and hats, a red-faced farmer in clean khaki, and Thomas and Ella Reed. Constable Bagley was a no-show.
‘Afternoon.’ Emmanuel tipped his hat to the other guests; some nodded and smiled in return.
Thomas Reed stepped up. His black suit was elegant but his expression was savage. ‘What are you doing here, Cooper?’ He spoke close to Emmanuel’s ear, careful to avoid a public scene. ‘I will have your police ID for this.’
‘I’m a private citizen attending a private funeral. There’s no law against it. Call General Hyland and check.’
Shabalala and Zweigman closed ranks behind Emmanuel, one at each shoulder. Reed blinked hard but a natural sense of superiority kicked in. He kept his composure: a tick for a Kings Row College education. ‘You’re in trouble, Cooper,’ he said. ‘Your friends as well. This time next week the three of you will be queuing up at the labour office looking for factory work.’
Emmanuel stared into Reed’s eyes, almost curious at the man’s stupidity and his sense of entitlement.
‘A factory job. That’s your idea of hell?’ he asked. ‘Have you ever had to fight for anything in your life? You can’t even fight your own battle right here, right now.’ Reed opened his mouth to speak but Emmanuel’s expression silenced him.
Sampie Paulus came over. ‘Squabble afterwards,’ he said. ‘This is not the place. The ceremony has started.’
‘My apologies for the disturbance.’ Emmanuel moved to the thorn fence. He regretted reacting to Reed. Fighting at a funeral was something his schoolboy self would have done.
Dozens of Zulu mourners took up the ground between the spectators’ enclosure and the grave, which had been dug by the side of Nomusa’s hut. Nomusa and her surviving daughter were seated on grass mats in the female mourners’ area, distant phantoms in the crowd. Bodies pressed in on the great chief’s family. The women wailed and threw their hands into the air; the men stamped the ground. Dust rose and it was hard to see. The noise increased.
The great chief emerged from his hut and walked around the inner ring of the kraal. An old man preceded him, a praise singer, who listed the chief’s victories, wealth and children. The missionary women moved closer to the fence, engrossed in the native funeral rites.
Shabalala craned over the crowd, squinting into the sunlight. ‘That grave does not look right,’ he said.
Emmanuel shifted position and found a space between two adolescent boys that allowed a partial view of the freshly dug earth. ‘Hard to tell,’ he said. ‘There’s a lot going on.’
‘The grave is not right, Sergeant,’ the Zulu detective stated.
The singer moved closer, shouting more of the great chief’s attributes. Mandla and his impi moved in a sinuous rhythm at the front of a column of fighting-age males.
The mourners parted. A group of men carried a cowhide stretcher bearing Amahle’s body to the grave. The women’s wailing increased and grew sharp. The hair on the back of Emmanuel’s neck stood up. He pressed forward. The body was wrapped in cowhide and bound by plaited grass ropes. Three branches, stripped of bark and wedged into the hide, held the corpse in a grotesque sitting position.
‘What’s going on?’ Emmanuel asked Shabalala.
The women were howling now, their arms thrown up to the sky. Nomusa jumped to her feet but the ring of matrons pulled her back and anchored her to the ground with their weight. Two of the bearers wound lengths of rope around their hands and lowered Amahle’s upright body into the grave.
‘Bad things are happening, Sergeant. Only those who have caused great offence in life, criminals and murderers, are buried sitting up. Amahle’s spirit will not find rest until she is laid down.’
‘Eternal punishment?’ Emmanuel said. ‘For failing to deliver the herd of cows her father wanted?’
‘I can think of no other reason,’ Shabalala said.
Male mourners dragged their feet, children ceased fussing and young unmarried girls shielded their faces from the unfolding horror. The only people who appeared unaffected by the body were the great chief and his smug fifth wife, who stood up to get a closer look at Amahle’s corpse.
‘Old fool,’ Sampie muttered in Afrikaans and moved from one clump of white spectators to the next with the same message: ‘Go now. Leave the kraal.’
The missionary women and the Reeds made for the exit. Three Zulu men armed with spears and battleaxes sprinted into the compound, blocking the way out. Emmanuel recognised them. They were members of the impi who’d stood guard over Amahle’s body.
‘Now there will be war,’ Shabalala said and unbuttoned his jacket.
The invading impi rushed the grave and the gathered crowd dispersed in panic. Nomusa broke free of the arms holding her and flew at the great chief, whose praise singer had finally run out of superlatives.
‘This is native business,’ Sampie Paulus shouted over the melee. ‘We must leave.’
Mandla and his men moved to block the attack. Metal spear tips flashed in the sun. A surge of mourners running for the exit knocked an elderly woman to the ground, and a child screamed in the crush.
‘Stay here,’ Emmanuel said to Zweigman and jumped the thorn fence. Shabalala cleared the barrier just after him and landed further into the chaos. He pulled the old woman to her feet and pushed her clear of the warring men. The warriors pressed in on each other, the Zulu detective caught between the two sides.
The noise was deafening as Emmanuel tried to extricate Shabalala. A fighter of the invading group staggered back, blood pouring from a stab wound to his torso. He fell to the ground. For Emmanuel, time simultaneously sped up and slowed down. Everyone’s movements took on a dreamlike quality: limbs floated, mouths screamed, weapons sliced through the air. Sounds fragmented. The crash of spears against shields, the hard breath of the impi’s efforts and a baby’s cry provided a discordant soundtrack to the fight.
Fall back, soldier. The Scottish sergeant major gave the command. Grab Shabalala and the injured and retreat. Mandla and his men are too strong. You will be crushed.
Shabalala was trapped against the wall of Nomusa’s hut, ducking and weaving to escape the thrust of stabbing spears. A narrow space opened between two fighters. Emmanuel called out, ‘With me, Samuel!’
The Zulu detective wheeled at the sound of his first name and jumped through the breach and into the clear. Emmanuel looked down and saw blood staining the dirt where the injured man had fallen, but the man was gone.
‘Move back.’ Emmanuel gave the order to the elder who’d first greeted him and Shabalala on the mountain path days ago. ‘Move back while you still have men.’
The retreat was chaotic. Mandla and
his impi pressed their advantage, the great chief nursed a scratched cheek like a teenage girl in a catfight, and Nomusa was again pinned to the ground by the other wives. Zweigman kneeled by the injured man, who was lying near the spectators’ enclosure. Emmanuel realised that the doctor must have retrieved the man himself.
Then Mandla’s men made another push. A spear flew through the air. A moment later, Shabalala lifted the injured man onto his shoulder and ran. Sampie Paulus stood guard at the mouth of the kraal with the stunned white spectators squeezed behind him. The missionary ladies clung together in fear.
‘Go,’ Sampie said. ‘Get as far as you can. I’ll try to calm the chief.’
Run like the devil’s on your arse, soldier, the sergeant major breathed. Quick time to that wooded area yonder.
Trees meant cover. Cover meant time to rest and regroup and figure out what the hell had just happened. Shouts came from inside the Matebula family compound. Emmanuel gave the order to move fast. The uninjured warriors set off across the field at a lope. Shabalala steadied the wounded fighter on his feet and shouldered his weight on the stumbling run for the grove. Zweigman tagged behind them, pale and covered in blood from the stabbed man’s wound.
Brown birds flew up from the grass ahead of the human stampede. Emmanuel glanced over his shoulder, alert to the rising level of danger. Sampie still blocked the centre of the kraal entrance, arms spread wide like Christ crucified. Mandla and his impi would have to go through the Afrikaner farmer to leave the compound.
Tough old bastard, the sergeant major said with admiration. He’ll hold them just long enough for you to disappear, Cooper.
A surge of adrenaline and fear propelled Emmanuel to the safety of the woods.
The stand of trees was dense but narrow. Dappled sunshine broke through the canopy and reached the leaf litter and ferns as twilight. Emmanuel wove between the dark trunks, his heartbeat thrumming in his chest and forehead. A few feet into the grove, the land fell away to a deep ravine. Shabalala, Zweigman and the retreating impi stood on the edge gazing down into the chasm.
