Blessed Are the Dead by Malla Nunn

Author:Malla Nunn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Published: 2011-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Twelve

“Five minutes,” Emmanuel said to Shabalala. He and Daglish set off in a counterclockwise direction taking them through the garden and around to the front of the cottage. Daglish picked a fallen leaf off the path and threw it under an azalea bush.

“The garden boy and the maid have the day off,” she explained. “Talk spreads fast in Roselet.”

“Did the Reeds phone you personally?” Emmanuel stared out to the hills, his face turned from Daglish like a priest preparing to receive an admission of sin.

“No.” She hesitated, then continued. “Constable Bagley came to the house and said there was a medical emergency in the valley. He drove me out to Little Flint.”

“Was that usual?”

“I prefer seeing patients here at the cottage. My husband Jim often has the car, so house calls are difficult. He’s away a lot.”

‘Jim’ and ‘difficult’ were given equal emphasis. There was no car in the driveway now and hadn’t been for the last two days. Maybe Margaret’s husband was on the wide-open road, notching up car crashes. “The car was here that night but Constable Bagley insisted on driving me out to the farm. I thought it was odd at the time, but the Reeds are the biggest landholders in the area and the police are the police.”

“The farmworker needed your help,” Emmanuel said. “You didn’t have a choice.”

“That’s true.” Daglish flexed her fingers, releasing tension in the joints. “I wouldn’t have refused even if I’d known about the situation at Little Flint.” That she was honoring her oath to heal the sick and tend the wounded had not seemed to occur to her till now.

“Go on,” Emmanuel said. The doctor was ready to talk and he was here to listen. In this lifting of burdens lay the unspoken beauty of police work. “Tell me what happened after reaching Little Flint.”

“Thomas Reed was waiting at the gate. He took us to the servants’ quarters at the back of the house. It was so quiet, I remember. Not a sound from the family or the servants in the other huts.”

A hushed silence crept into places in the aftermath of violence. The air felt as if it were robbed of sound, leaving a blank in its wake. Emmanuel knew that emptiness well. “The workman’s injuries were severe,” Daglish continued. “A broken nose and a fractured eye socket. There was a lot of blood. The floor of the hut was covered in it.”

Enter the cleanup team, Emmanuel thought cynically. A fresh and growing pool of servant’s blood was enough to frighten the richest of landed gentry into action – a family’s reputation took generations to repair. “And Gabriel?”

“Two broken fingers, cut knuckles and forehead, bruises to the arms and chest.” Daglish pinched a spent bloom from a rosebush and twirled it between her fingers. “That was about seven months ago. They both pulled through. No major complications.”

“Two happy endings,” Emmanuel said. “What aren’t you telling me, Doctor?”

“It was Bagley, the way he was that night. He stood at my shoulder the entire time, blood soaking through his shoes, waiting for a prognosis on the workman.

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