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said. Outside of the traditional kraals and the native locations, black women had no power and influence. Amahle’s name, her existence, should have been of no consequence to a white medical doctor.
    ‘She is hurt. But not so badly.’
    ‘I got the same impression.’ Emmanuel opened the passenger door. ‘The doctor doesn’t want her name on the examination report or the death certificate. Maybe she’s afraid of what she’ll find.’
    ‘There is only one wound on the girl.’
    ‘I’m talking about wounds that can’t be seen.’ A dirt-flecked foot fell out from under the tartan blanket and Emmanuel covered it up again. ‘An old broken bone, long healed. Internal bruising. Rape. Pregnancy. The examination might uncover something no-one wants to know.’
    ‘The doctor is not responsible for Amahle’s bad fortune,’ said Shabalala. ‘She has nothing to fear.’
    ‘Well, she’s scared of something. Or someone.’ And that someone was most likely a European. Black-on-black violence was expected, accepted. A white killer, however, would bring something new and dangerous into Dr Daglish’s world.
    Emmanuel moved aside and Shabalala lifted the girl into his arms with the strength of a river carrying a leaf.
    ‘Let’s give her to the doctor and get back to the station. Van Niekerk will be wanting an update.’ Emmanuel followed the path to the rear of the cottage. ‘Then we’ll find a place to throw our bags down for a couple of days.’
    The sound of Shabalala’s voice behind him whispering to the dead girl slowed Emmanuel’s steps. He was not superstitious or religious but an old feeling resurfaced, one born in combat and shared with all front-line soldiers. Time was finite. It was fickle. It ran out. Fate or the God that you didn’t believe in could pull the plug and walk away.
    During the war, he’d fought for a world where girls grew into women and then to old women surrounded by their grandchildren. That Amahle’s life should be so easily wasted in peacetime Emmanuel took as a personal insult.
    *
    On the third try, the telephone operator found a clear line between the Roselet police station and Colonel van Niekerk’s study in Durban.
    ‘What did you find, Cooper?’ The Afrikaner colonel skipped the usual formalities. They knew each other too well for small talk.
    ‘A Zulu girl. The daughter of a local chief.’ Emmanuel sat behind Bagley’s neat desk, which faced green fields and distant mountains.
    ‘Fuck!’ van Niekerk said. ‘I was hoping to break you and Shabalala in on a bigger case.’
    The colonel’s disappointment at Amahle’s skin colour reflected the hard truth: reputations were not built on solving black homicides.
    ‘It’s enough that we’re out of the city and working a murder case,’ Emmanuel said.
    ‘Picking up the garbage’ was the phrase used by the other white detectives at the West Street CID branch to describe the jobs Emmanuel was assigned. Four suicides, two drowning victims, three pickpockets, a putrefied old lady dead for four weeks and a serial panties thief with a penchant for lace – that was the grim tally of his cases for the last three months. Shabalala’s case list was equally depressing. It was payback for re-entering the detective branch under the protection of an ambitious Dutch colonel who refused to play the role of dumb Boer for the predominantly English police force.
    ‘It’s a start,’ van Niekerk conceded. ‘Need anything?’
    ‘The local doctor has backed away from the case at a hundred miles an hour. We have to get someone from outside the area to perform the examination.’
    ‘Get the old Jew.’ Van Niekerk could have been ordering a drink from a bar or demanding a meal be reheated. ‘He’s qualified and he’s only a few hours away.’
    ‘No,’ Emmanuel said automatically and then rephrased the objection. ‘I’d rather not get Dr Zweigman involved in police business, Colonel. He has family obligations and a clinic to