Silent Valley by Malla Nunn Page A

to meet him, the notebook now scrunched to scrap paper in his fist. ‘Is she coming back?’ Ian Reed whispered to his son.
    ‘Who?’ Thomas frowned.
    ‘The one you were just talking about. The chief’s daughter.’
    Thomas steered the old man away from Emmanuel. ‘Back to work now, Dad,’ he said. ‘We’ll talk about it later.’
    ‘If he comes home from school and she’s not here, there’ll be trouble,’ Ian Reed muttered. ‘Your mother won’t like it. Not one bit. Not after last time.’
    ‘Quiet now, Pa.’ Thomas gently prodded his father around the corner and Emmanuel lost the remainder of the conversation. No matter. He’d heard enough to know that Amahle Matebula was more than just a housemaid. He waited for Thomas’s response to the revealing comments.
    ‘My father isn’t all there,’ Thomas said when he reappeared solo from the rear of the house. ‘He mixes things up in his mind, gets his wires crossed. You can’t take anything he says seriously.’
    Especially when it concerns a dead black girl, Emmanuel figured. While old man Reed was clearly losing the thread, there was enough substance in his words to have drained the colour from Thomas’s suntanned face.
    ‘One more thing.’ Emmanuel ignored the tight lips and the tense shoulders encased in khaki. ‘I’d like to speak to your mother if she’s available.’
    ‘Not today,’ Thomas said. ‘She suffers from migraine headaches and needs bed rest. Feel free to telephone tomorrow morning. She might be better by then.’
    Thomas Reed was so cool, it was almost as if he’d practised his responses and knew them by heart. Every question was answered but nothing of value was revealed. The old man’s ramblings were the only spontaneous moment in the entire interview.
    ‘Thanks for your time, Mr Reed. I know you have work to do.’ Emmanuel cut the young farmer loose. He’d find another way into the family sanctum. ‘I’ll wait here till Constable Shabalala has finished collecting statements.’
    Young Reed hesitated, weighing up the risks of leaving a policeman loose on the property. ‘Farms are dangerous,’ he said. ‘Don’t wander off the paths or into the fields, Detective Cooper. For your own safety.’
    ‘I won’t.’ Emmanuel returned Thomas’s hard stare. Lying without blinking was a skill he’d mastered at boarding school. ‘I’m a city man born and bred.’ Reed accepted the assurance and strode to the rear steps.
    The second component to being a successful liar was patience. Emmanuel gave the self-possessed farmer a full five-minute head start before tailing him. Thomas was under the shade of the monkey apple tree by the time Emmanuel had circled the porch. Movement caught his attention and he stood for a moment and watched. A rangy Zulu man crossed the dusty yard with the loping stride of a hunter. He stopped a foot or so in front of the young white baas and held out his empty hands in apology. Thomas moved closer, index finger pointed, body tight as a fist. The cool farmer was gone, replaced by a furious big baas giving orders. The Zulu man set off again, heading for the hills. It looked like he’d been sent back on the trail of something or someone.
    ‘Excuse me.’ Emmanuel stopped a dark-skinned maid with a wicker basket of dirty laundry balanced on her head. She too wore a pair of blue sandshoes without socks. Reed wasn’t blowing smoke about the generous handouts to the help. ‘Can you point the way to the lake?’
    ‘There, inkosi .’ The woman’s voice was quiet, her face turned to indicate a path flanked by white posts. ‘That way leads to the lake.’
    ‘Thanks.’ Emmanuel let her go without further questions and set off. The Little Flint garden boys and Shabalala stood talking in the kitchen garden. Shabalala ignored Emmanuel completely, a cue to all the servants that the European detective was no friend. Zulu, Pondo, English and Afrikaners alike believed that members of their own tribe were