Read Online Silent Valley by Malla Nunn - Free Book Online

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 the 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.
    ‘Come.’ Shabalala shepherded Nomusa and her daughter towards the passage. They crossed paths with a lushly proportioned female, who came out of the great hut carrying a carved wooden stool and a rolled cowhide. The newcomer’s ochre-stained hair was brushed high into a stiff crown and adorned with shells and porcupine quills.
    ‘My fifth wife,’ Matebula said as the woman sidled barefoot across the dirt circle, her hips swaying widely enough to knock a child to the ground. Amahle’s little sister clutched the dresses tighter and narrowed her eyes like a cat ready to unleash its claws. Nomusa cast the woman a cold glance. Matebula’s wives were rivals, not friends.
    ‘Great chief . . .’ The fifth wife unrolled the black and white cowhide in the shade of the umdoni tree and placed the stool at the very centre. A dried leaf fluttered onto the hide and she flicked it away.
    ‘Tell me, policeman from the city . . .’ the chief settled onto the stool, feet apart, chest thrust out