1 A ZULU HERD BOY walked quickly up the dirt path, his bony frame bent to meet the steep rise of the mountain. The rhythmic pounding of his bare feet on the rough ground kicked stones loose and raised red dust into the air. "Higher, ma'' baas." The boy was apologetic, afraid of taxing the white policeman in the neat blue suit and the black hat pulled low on his head to block out the light. "We must go higher." "I''m right behind you," Emmanuel said. "Keep going." The steady pace was nothing compared to army boot camp or the three years spent in combat, marching between battlefields in Europe during the war.
Detective Constable Samuel Shabalala from the Native Detective Branch followed directly behind him and the close rhythm of his breath spurred Emmanuel to keep moving. "Soon, ma'' baas," the boy promised. "Soon." "I''m still with you," Emmanuel said. The dead were patient. To them, eternity was flexible and time meant nothing. For police detectives, however, time was everything. The sooner the crime scene was located and sketched in detail, the better chance there was of catching the killer.
The herd boy stopped abruptly and then slipped into the lush grass along the edge of the path. "There, ma'' baas." He pointed a skinny finger to the rise. The path snaked behind a sandstone boulder embedded in the grass. "You must go past the rock and up again." The boy wanted no part of what lay beyond. "My thanks," Emmanuel said, and turned to look behind him. He saw the path they had traveled from the floor of the Kamberg Valley and the mountains rising in the distance on the other side.
Clouds piled on top of each other behind the peaks. The bronze tops of the mountains, some of them dusted with snow, looked like fortresses for gods. There was nothing like the Drakensberg Mountains anywhere else on earth. "Where to, Sergeant?" Shabalala asked when he drew even with Emmanuel. "Around that bend," Emmanuel said. "Our guide has dropped out." They moved on, slowly skirting the boulder. Three Zulu men dressed in traditional cowhides worn over printed cloth stood shoulder to shoulder across the narrow path to form a roadblock.
They held hardwood clubs and assegais, hunting spears with rawhide bindings and sharp blades. Together they made an impi, a fighting unit. The tallest of the men stood in the center. "Suggestions?" Emmanuel asked Shabalala. The Zulu men gave no indication that they might move from the middle of the path. Military defeat at the hands of the British army and Boer commandos had not cowed them. They stood as their ancestors must have a hundred years ago: fearless masters of their own land. "Should we wait for the local police?" Shabalala asked.
Far below and across the emerald stretch of the valley lay the town of Roselet, the closest source of law enforcement backup. "The station commander might not get the message for hours," Emmanuel said, referring to the handwritten note he''d stuck to the door of the locked police station an hour ago. A small sandstone bungalow adjacent to the station had also been empty. "I don''t want to lose any more time." "Then we must go together. Slowly. Hands open, like this." Shabalala lifted both hands and showed empty palms to the Zulu men.
The gesture was simple, universal. It said, No weapons. No harm intended . Emmanuel did the same. "Now we must wait," Shabalala said. "Do not look away from them, Sergeant." Sunshine glinted off the fighters'' sharpened spearheads. The weapons were not dusty antiques from a grandfather''s hut.
The men themselves were no relics, either. They were tall and muscular. Emmanuel figured a lifetime of running up these mountains and hunting game had kept them lethal. "Never crossed my mind," he said. "Who are you?" the man in the middle demanded in Zulu. He was the eldest of the three. " Sawubona, inkosi . I am Detective Constable Samuel Shabalala from the Native Detective Branch.
This is Detective Sergeant Cooper, the boss of detectives in Durban." "Yebo, sawubona." Emmanuel made the traditional greeting. He let the instant promotion to top boss pass. If Shabalala thought they needed extra status to move ahead, they probably did. "Cooper. Shabalala. We see you.
" The elder nodded a greeting but did not smile. "Come. The firstborn child of my father''s sister is waiting." Emmanuel didn''t try to work out the connection. Zulus did not have family trees, they had family webs. The men turned and jogged up the slope in formation, weapons held in relaxed hands that were used to the weight. "You lead," Emmanuel said to Shabalala. The Zulu detective wore the standard Detective Branch uniform, a suit with polished leather shoes and a black fedora, but the hills and untamed veldt had been his childhood playground.
He knew this land and its people. They pushed up the steep gradient for two more minutes. An eerie low-pitched moaning swelled and rolled over the treetops before dropping away again in a wave. "What''s that?" Emmanuel asked but didn''t slacken his pace. "The women." The words were spare, stripped down but full of sorrow just the same. Shabalala had heard the sound before. The Zulus stopped and pointed their assegais to a rock fig growing out almost horizontally from a craggy ledge.
The sound was distinct now: female voices crying out and wailing in the bushes. "They are waiting," the elder Zulu said. Emmanuel again let Shabalala take the lead. The tall grass and bush thinned out a few yards off the path and a group of women became visible. They sat in a circle, swaying back and forth. The rock fig branched over them like a sentinel. Emmanuel hesitated. One step closer and the sorrow would engulf him and drag him back to a time and place in his own life he''d rather forget.
"Sergeant," Shabalala prompted softly, and Emmanuel walked on. He''d chosen this life among the wounded and the dead. Dealing with the living was a necessary part of the job. "She is here, inkosi." One of the women shuffled to the side to make a gap in the circle through which Emmanuel could approach the body. A black girl lay on the sweet spring grass, gazing up at the soft blue sky and the shapes of darting birds in the air. Her head rested on a rolled-up tartan blanket and tiny red and yellow wildflowers were scattered over the ground. Three or four flowers had fallen into her mouth, which was slightly open.
"We need to get closer," Emmanuel said to Shabalala, and the Zulu detective relayed the request in a low voice. The women broke the circle but gathered again under the branches of a paperbark thorn tree nearby. Their wails subsided and were replaced by the muted sound of swallowed tears. "Hibo ." Shabalala whispered when they were crouched on either side of the girl. This was not the messy knifing or domestic argument gone too far they''d been expecting when Colonel van Niekerk tapped them on the shoulder for this case. "Yeah, I know." Emmanuel examined the victim.
She was young, maybe seventeen years old, and beautiful. High cheekbones, gracefully arched brows and full lips were features that would have kept into old age. No more. All that was left was a glimpse of what might have been. "No signs of a struggle," he said. The girl''s fingernails were neatly shaped and unbroken. The skin on her wrists, neck and upper arms was unmarked. "If her eyes were closed I''d say she was sleeping.
" "Yes," Shabalala agreed. "But she did not walk here. Someone brought her to this place. Look at her feet, Sergeant." Emmanuel bent lower to get a better view. Dirt and broken grass stalks were stuck to the rough-skinned heels and slim ankles. "She was dragged here and then laid down." "I think so," Shabalala said.
Under normal circumstances, with a wooden barricade in place and a few uniformed police on guard, Emmanuel would have pushed aside the neckline of the girl''s dress and checked for bruising on the shoulders and under the armpits. Modesty was never a concern of the dead. The presence of the gathered Zulu women stayed his hand and he pulled a notebook and pen from his jacket pocket. To Shabalala he said, "She wasn''t dumped or hidden under branches." He wrote the letters R.I.P . on the first page.
Rest in peace. Whoever had dragged the victim to this spot had wanted her to rest in a peaceful place with a rock fig above and a wide valley below. "And the flowers." Shabalala stood up and surveyed the hillside. Clumps of bright red and yellow broke the stretch of green. "They are growing all around but I do not think the wind blew them to this place." "It looks like they were deliberately scattered over her," Emmanuel said, picking up a tiny red bloom from the crook of the girl''s elbow. He understood this need to mark the fallen.
Small gestures made the difference even in the white heat of war: a helmet placed on the chest or a poncho thrown over the face of a dead soldier, the closest thing available to a eulogy or a farewell. Emmanuel scribbled loved on the next clean page. First time that word had come up at a crime scene. There was no doubt the girl had been loved and was loved still. Even now, in death, a circle of grieving women and a group of armed men guarded her. "How long do you think she''s been here?" he asked Shabalala. It couldn''t have been more than twelve hours, he ima.