Silent Valley by Malla Nunn Read Free Book Online Page B

There was no name on it to identify the owner.
    ‘No.’ A glimmer of a smile curved the older man’s lips. ‘But that I owned such a blanket. It would keep me warm in winter. My wife also.’
    Emmanuel dug his pen and notebook from his jacket pocket. ‘After you found her?’ he prompted.
    ‘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?’