Friction
.
A whole box full of music CDs. Vanilla Ice, Mariah Carey, Nirvana, Paula Abdul, Whitney Houston, Duran Duran, Pearl Jam, Alanis Morissette, Laurika Rauch, Boyz II Men, Nine Inch Nails, Al Jarreau, Koos Kombuis, Madonna, Riku Latti, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Radiohead. Six classical music collections with titles such as
The Best Classical Album Ever
and
Chill with Mozart
.
Memorabilia. Old programmes and tickets to concerts and plays, postcards, greetings cards of congratulations for birthdays, graduation,promotion. Used plane tickets and brochures for trips to Europe and the USA, cheap jewellery, a chunky old cellphone. Decorative hair combs and grips, two scratched pairs of sunglasses, iPod cables, loose photos of groups of people.
Six photograph albums and a smaller box of letters. He put them to one side. The other boxes were filled with clothes and shoes. Lots of shoes.
He carried the letters and photo albums down to the sitting room, sat down on the couch, lifted the lid of the box of letters. Foreknowledge made him hesitate: he knew he would be crossing a boundary now. Sloet would become flesh and blood, a person with a life, with emotions and regrets and few secrets. It would rob him of his distance, his objectivity, it would all become that bit more personal. That was where the trouble lay, the root of the evil. Because he knew what came next. This case had been easier from the start. He hadn’t been at the scene of the murder. He hadn’t stood beside her, and seen the terrible fragility of the female body, her expression caught at the moment of death. He hadn’t smelled the blood and perfume and decomposition. He hadn’t lived her last moments with her in his mind, felt her acute fear of the darkness of death, or heard the silent scream they all uttered when they lost that final grip on life.
Doc Barkhuizen said over and over again: ‘Don’t internalise it, Benny.’ Doc knew that was his reason for drinking. Until, at last, about a month ago, Griessel had confessed: ‘I don’t know how, Doc.’
‘Go and talk to a shrink, Benny.’
And he asked, ‘What for, Doc?’ because he already knew where it had begun, he could remember the first time, crystal-clear, although it was fourteen years ago. The sunny Saturday morning, the five-year-old child in the middle of the park at Rylands, her white socks and white sandals, the blue ribbons in her ponytails, the heart-rending beauty of her delicate features. The red and purple bruises of the rape and strangulation, the dried semen, the tender little hand gripping a Wilson’s toffee wrapping like a last treasure.
It was his fourth murder that week, an impossible time. Too few people, too little sleep, too much work. They all suffered from post-traumatic stress, but nobody knew. That morning, he saw her expression at her moment of death and he heard the primitive scream,and he knew, everyone screams when they die, everyone holds on to life terribly tightly, and when someone loosens their fingers, they fall and cry out in terror. Of the end.
Of course he drank before that – controllably, four, five times a week, in the afternoon with the guys. But after that it got out of control. Alcohol was the only thing that could keep all the noises and images out of his head, the all-consuming fear that it could happen to his family too, to Anna and Carla and Fritz.
Tell all that to a shrink and all he would say was: ‘Here’s a bunch of pills.’ And then he, Griessel would be addicted to something else. Or even worse: ‘Get another job.’ At forty-five. White. With the maintenance payments after the divorce and university fees and not a fucking cent saved in the bank.
Life was never simple.
Eventually he reached into the box.
Systematically, he built up the jigsaw puzzle of her life. The phantom pieces from the albums and letters were not enough to form a clear image, so he had to fill the gaps with his imagination. The story was ordinary, mostly
.
A whole box full of music CDs. Vanilla Ice, Mariah Carey, Nirvana, Paula Abdul, Whitney Houston, Duran Duran, Pearl Jam, Alanis Morissette, Laurika Rauch, Boyz II Men, Nine Inch Nails, Al Jarreau, Koos Kombuis, Madonna, Riku Latti, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Radiohead. Six classical music collections with titles such as
The Best Classical Album Ever
and
Chill with Mozart
.
Memorabilia. Old programmes and tickets to concerts and plays, postcards, greetings cards of congratulations for birthdays, graduation,promotion. Used plane tickets and brochures for trips to Europe and the USA, cheap jewellery, a chunky old cellphone. Decorative hair combs and grips, two scratched pairs of sunglasses, iPod cables, loose photos of groups of people.
Six photograph albums and a smaller box of letters. He put them to one side. The other boxes were filled with clothes and shoes. Lots of shoes.
He carried the letters and photo albums down to the sitting room, sat down on the couch, lifted the lid of the box of letters. Foreknowledge made him hesitate: he knew he would be crossing a boundary now. Sloet would become flesh and blood, a person with a life, with emotions and regrets and few secrets. It would rob him of his distance, his objectivity, it would all become that bit more personal. That was where the trouble lay, the root of the evil. Because he knew what came next. This case had been easier from the start. He hadn’t been at the scene of the murder. He hadn’t stood beside her, and seen the terrible fragility of the female body, her expression caught at the moment of death. He hadn’t smelled the blood and perfume and decomposition. He hadn’t lived her last moments with her in his mind, felt her acute fear of the darkness of death, or heard the silent scream they all uttered when they lost that final grip on life.
Doc Barkhuizen said over and over again: ‘Don’t internalise it, Benny.’ Doc knew that was his reason for drinking. Until, at last, about a month ago, Griessel had confessed: ‘I don’t know how, Doc.’
‘Go and talk to a shrink, Benny.’
And he asked, ‘What for, Doc?’ because he already knew where it had begun, he could remember the first time, crystal-clear, although it was fourteen years ago. The sunny Saturday morning, the five-year-old child in the middle of the park at Rylands, her white socks and white sandals, the blue ribbons in her ponytails, the heart-rending beauty of her delicate features. The red and purple bruises of the rape and strangulation, the dried semen, the tender little hand gripping a Wilson’s toffee wrapping like a last treasure.
It was his fourth murder that week, an impossible time. Too few people, too little sleep, too much work. They all suffered from post-traumatic stress, but nobody knew. That morning, he saw her expression at her moment of death and he heard the primitive scream,and he knew, everyone screams when they die, everyone holds on to life terribly tightly, and when someone loosens their fingers, they fall and cry out in terror. Of the end.
Of course he drank before that – controllably, four, five times a week, in the afternoon with the guys. But after that it got out of control. Alcohol was the only thing that could keep all the noises and images out of his head, the all-consuming fear that it could happen to his family too, to Anna and Carla and Fritz.
Tell all that to a shrink and all he would say was: ‘Here’s a bunch of pills.’ And then he, Griessel would be addicted to something else. Or even worse: ‘Get another job.’ At forty-five. White. With the maintenance payments after the divorce and university fees and not a fucking cent saved in the bank.
Life was never simple.
Eventually he reached into the box.
Systematically, he built up the jigsaw puzzle of her life. The phantom pieces from the albums and letters were not enough to form a clear image, so he had to fill the gaps with his imagination. The story was ordinary, mostly
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