The Garden of Burning Sand by Corban Addison

Author:Corban Addison [Addison, Corban]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery, Adult, Historical Fiction
ISBN: 9781780876955
Google: EPhgBQAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1623651298
Goodreads: 16089283
Publisher: Quercus
Published: 2013-03-25T11:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Every other day for the next three weeks, Zoe patrolled the aisles of the Shoprite at Manda Hill. She conducted her surveillance between eight thirty and ten in the morning, bracketing the time she had last seen the housekeeper there. She kept watch for Dunstan Sisilu but never saw him. Inside the supermarket, she played the role of the indecisive shopper, meandering through the store and occasionally placing things in her cart. She waited for a glimpse of the old woman’s wrinkled face, but each time she was disappointed.

“Maybe your timing is wrong,” Joseph suggested one evening.

“Or she’s shopping somewhere else, or someone is shopping for her,” she said. “The possibilities are endless. I’ve been thinking about staking out the house again.”

He shook his head. “It’s too dangerous.”

“I could take Carol’s Prado. I could dye my hair.”

“You can’t color your skin.”

Exasperated, she said, “I’ll keep trying.”

When October turned to November, tall clouds started to gather in the late afternoons. For days the rains only threatened, but then, at last, the sky opened up and poured out such a torrent that the streets swam with mud and refuse. The advent of the rainy season had a paradoxical effect, darkening the sun but brightening faces—including Zoe’s—that had grown weary of the sweltering air. Overnight, the parched plains broke into bloom. It was Zoe’s favorite time in Africa, when all things tired and worn became new again.

She settled easily into the routine of living with the Prentices. They treated her more like a neighbor than a guest, yet every evening she found her laundry cleaned and her bed made. Their housekeeper, Rosa, was exacting, scrupulous, and a genius in the kitchen. Carol Prentice sang her praises and trusted her implicitly. On workdays, Joseph escorted Zoe home to ensure she wasn’t followed. Often he stayed for dinner, and the Prentices grew fond of him.

On Sunday afternoons, Zoe visited Kuyeya. Her affection for the girl deepened with each meeting. Though slow at first, Kuyeya’s therapy with Dr. Mbao began to bear fruit. The psychiatrist probed the girl’s memory for stories she learned from her mother and used them to piece together details about her past. Kuyeya’s favorite tale involved a bee-eater who made friends with a hippopotamus. Whenever she said “bee-eater,” she burst into a fit of laughter.

In the middle of November, Zoe at last conceded that her strategy to flush out the housekeeper had been an abysmal failure. She considered staking out the residence without telling Joseph, but the memory of Dunstan Sisilu and the black mamba tempered her enthusiasm. One morning when she sat down to breakfast, she heard Rosa washing dishes in the kitchen, and an idea came to her. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before.

“Do you have a minute?” she asked Rosa.

“Of course,” the woman replied, drying her hands on a towel.

Zoe gave her a sketch of the case and told her about the search for the Nyambos’ housekeeper. “If you were trying to find her, what would you do?”

Rosa thought for a moment.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.