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like a pigeon, ‘how will you compensate for the loss of my daughter?’
    ‘The police and the courts will exact a payment for the crime,’ Emmanuel said. ‘Whoever killed her will be found and punished.’
    Matebula grunted. ‘These courts are far away in Pietermaritzburg and Durban. They cannot know the depth of my loss.’ The chief’s words did not contain a shred of genuine emotion. He was talking about money. A beautiful daughter of marriageable age had been killed before lobola , a bride price, could be paid.
    The fifth wife cooed agreement from where she’d sunk down on her knees at the chief’s feet. She simmered for her husband. She was still young enough to enjoy her favoured status and did not yet understand that another nubile girl would, in time, replace her. Matebula clamped a hand on his knee and massaged the flesh under his palm.
    ‘How much was Amahle worth?’ Emmanuel asked, curious to gauge the depth of Matebula’s callousness.
    ‘Chief Mashanini from Umkomazi offered twenty cows. Not ordinary ones. A fat herd with long horns and speckled skins.’
    ‘Did you accept his offer?’
    ‘Of course, yes. Amahle was getting old and the price for her was fair.’ The chief pursed his lips. ‘Now I will get nothing.’ His wife made a sympathetic sound and shook her head.
    The mixture of self-pity and greed fascinated Emmanuel. Matebula’s world ended at his fingertips.
    ‘Amahle was happy to marry and move to Umkomazi?’ he asked. Not far from this kraal missionaries taught girls to read and write and do sums, preparing their souls for heaven and their minds for life in the twentieth century. Marriage was no longer the only option for a Zulu girl.
    ‘Happy?’ Matebula grappled with the word, trying to find its relevance. ‘She was satisfied to do her duty to me.’
    Maybe, Emmanuel thought. Marrying to escape was common in every racial group: indeed he’d often suspected his own ex-wife Angela had chosen him as the quickest way to break free of her overbearing father and her defeated mother. But life as a detective’s wife was not the peaceful refuge Angela had been looking for. They divorced when it became clear to both of them that their marriage was a way station, not a sanctuary. Amahle might have decided that life under the chief’s rule was worth ditching.
    Shabalala returned, stepping up to Emmanuel’s left.
    ‘Your daughter had no admirers? No-one she fought with?’ Emmanuel asked.
    The chief heaved a sigh, bored by the question. ‘Amahle spent much time with the white people on their farm but here at the kraal she was modest and silent,’ he said.
    The fifth wife leaned back, her shoulder almost touching Matebula’s thigh, and whispered softly in Zulu. ‘There was one such man.’ The chief followed his wife’s prompt. ‘Philani Dlamini. He is a garden boy at the farm where my daughter worked. He told many people that he was betrothed to Amahle.’
    ‘Was he?’ Emmanuel wrote the name on a blank page. The first and only suspect in the investigation so far.
    ‘Never.’ The word was dismissive. ‘This man has a herd of five cows and he is not a chief.’
    ‘Where does Philani live?’ Emmanuel asked.
    Another urgent whisper came from the fifth wife, who kept her eyes cast down to the cowhide, the model of a good Zulu wife.
    ‘Near the Dutchman’s farm.’ The chief pointed over the thorn fence to a mountain dotted with orange aloe blooms. Shabalala marked the direction and the travel distance at a glance. ‘But Dlamini is not there. His mother has not seen him for two days.’
    ‘How do you know that?’ Emmanuel asked.
    A small bump of the shoulder against the chief’s thigh acted as a warning from the fifth wife to take care. Matebula shrugged and kept quiet.
    ‘Where is Mandla?’ Emmanuel asked. ‘We’d like to speak with him and his impi .’
    Matebula sat up higher on the stool. ‘My son does not have an impi . Everything in this kraal belongs to