by Deon Meyer
Serial killers are the covert comets of the dark firmament who follow their path of destruction time and time again—prowlers, thieves of the night. Their crime is a show window of power, of the complete domination and humiliation of their victim, pathetic attempts to take revenge for the killers’ total lack of normal, healthy social and sexual interaction.
And Baby Marnewick’s dossier was a classic example, a perfect fit for the serial killer’s psyche.
If the views and theories of the two articles were true, it meant that Baby Marnewick’s murderer was identifiable, because the two authors had presented conceptual models of likely perpetrators, their behavior and lifestyle: often unattractive, usually single men with an inferiority complex, who lived with a domineering or promiscuous female parent and had an appetite for positions of power, such as might be found in the police or the Defence Force, but who usually lived on the edge of the law-and-order world, as security guards, for example. They were users of pornography with the emphasis on bondage—and variations on the theme.
Predictable, identifiable. Catchable.
It also meant that Baby Marnewick hadn’t been the first or the only victim of her murderer. Serial killers are entrepreneurs, according to the authors of the theory, who become more efficient with every murder, more self-confident, and for whom each success opens up new vistas of deviant behavior, of dominance and control and humiliation. The Marnewick case, as I recalled the details—only too well—suggested an efficient, progressive, established operator.
I read the articles over and over again, relived my own shame at the wooden fence, resurrected my unanswered questions with a clarity that surprised me. The newfound knowledge effortlessly blew away the thin layer of memory dust that the years since my youth had laid over the episodes.
I wondered about it. If I could remember everything so easily, so clearly, it meant that Baby Marnewick had been a psychological albatross around my neck, a cancerous growth in the psyche that had spread its toxins unseen through my body. Was that the reason for my inability to commit myself, or merely a contributing factor? What other areas of my existence had it soiled? I brooded on all of it.
I was also stimulated professionally. I analyzed the implications for the procedures of policing, the influence this would have on all investigative methods, the duty we had as a department to inform the executive arm of law and order of the new insights.
But overriding it all was the urge to act, to reveal the past, to identify and expose the guilty, to bury the ghost.
And the one thing the academic world had taught me was how to plan a task, how to measure each action against the available knowledge, how to take each step on the firm ground of the proven so as not to sink into the quicksand of wild theory.
Step one would be to immerse myself in the subject.
For two weeks I worked on a document that would serve as a proposal for my doctoral thesis, and it was only after rewriting it any number of times that I took it to Professor Cobus Taljaard. Academically he was a man of great integrity and equilibrium, and I knew the step I wanted to take onto the new terrain had to be thoroughly motivated. But the potential also existed for us to be copioneers, academic discoverers from the backward Third World who might (like Chris Barnard) give this scorned corner of Africa a place in the sun. On our terrain and with humility, we might find acceptance, acknowledgment, and a piece of the criminological limelight.
For that reason it didn’t take the professor long to approve the proposed doctoral thesis—and, more important, the research visit to the United States.
Two months later I packed my bags and began the journey that I believed would lead to the murderer of Baby Marnewick.
27.
CAPE TOWN—A private investigation into the cold-blooded murder of a Tygerberg businessman nine months ago has made a breakthrough that can open a whole network of criminal activities—but also raises new questions about the efficiency of the SAPS.
A large amount of American dollars, forged identity documents, and a criminal trail that leads as far back as the eighties are some of the most important revelations made by a former detective of the Murder and Robbery Unit in Cape Town, investigating the death of the late “Johannes Jacobus Smit” of Moreletta Street in Durbanville.
The names of those involved, which include the murderer, will shortly be handed to the authorities.
Mr. Smit (on the right) was tortured in his house last year and “executed” with a single shot from an M16 attack rifle after which the specially designed built-in safe in the house was ransacked. The contents of the safe weren’t known then, but strong suspicion exists today that it contained, in part, foreign currency.
The private investigation was launched by the deceased’s business partner, Ms. Wilna van As, and her attorney, Ms. Hope Beneke. Ms. van As and the deceased lived together.
“It has come to light that the deceased lived under a false name for the past fifteen years and was in possession of a professionally forged identity document,” said Ms. Beneke.
“We have a strong suspicion about the origin of the dollars and are following up new clues. There is enough reason to believe that Smit’s murder can be connected with a crime that occurred some fifteen years ago. A final breakthrough is expected within days.”
Anyone who has additional information regarding the murder of Smit or the events that preceded it can call a special toll-free number: 0800-3535-3555. Ms. Beneke gave an assurance that all information would be regarded as highly confidential and that anonymity would be strictly preserved.
Mr. Z. van Heerden, a former captain in the SAPS, was hesitant to make any comment about the way the police handled the original dossier, which yielded nothing.
“We had more time and sources available to us in our attempt to unravel the case. The police work under enormous pressure and one cannot compare the two investigations,” said Van Heerden.
He refused to comment on questions such as why a photograph of the deceased hadn’t been handed to the media after the murder, why his identity document wasn’t subjected to forensic tests, and why evidence pertaining to the large amount of American dollars hadn’t been pursued.
The SAPS Murder and Robbery Unit wasn’t available for comment at the time of going to press.
“I still don’t like the political angle,” said Van Heerden.
“It gives the story credibility,” said Groenewald, the crime reporter. The night editor, sitting behind his desk, nodded in agreement. “And your back is covered.”
“You didn’t even phone them for comment.”
“They’ll issue a statement tomorrow in any case. Which puts flesh on the bare bones of the story—and gets you more publicity.”
“And it’ll appear in Beeld as well?” Hope asked, her voice soft.
“They don’t have space on page one. The Gauteng premier is in hot water again. But it’ll be on five or seven. Volksblad will let us know, but it looks like page one. Fu—ahh… very little happens in the Free State.”
“I want to thank you for your help,” Hope said to the night editor. “It could assist in righting a grave injustice.”
“Don’t thank me, thank Kara-An. She was very persuasive.” He smiled across the room at Kara-An, who sat on a small couch against the wall, her legs drawn up.
She smiled back. “I help where I can,” she said. “Especially when it can improve a woman’s lot.”
They went down in the lift in silence, Van Heerden and Hope. He was aware of the change in her. After he had been to Kara-An’s home, he had telephoned Hope from the newspaper’s offices in the NasPers Center, told her they were waiting for her, he and Kara-An and Groenewald, that the story would run on the following day, and she said she was coming, without any enthusiasm. He and the crime reporter had worked on the copy, four, five, six versions, before they went to the night editor. Hope had negotiated with Telkom for the toll-free number, but she was different, withdrawn, her body language negative, and she did
n’t look at Kara-An.
There was tension in the room.
In the entrance to the tower block they hesitated. It was raining, dark gusts of water sweeping across the street outside.
“What’s wrong, Hope?”
She looked uncomprehendingly at him.
“What’s with you?”
“I still think we should offer a reward.”
They had spoken about it earlier. He had resisted the idea. A reward drew even more crazies who wanted to accuse their husbands and wives, mothers-in-law, and stepfathers.
“Oh,” he said.
He knew she was lying.
She didn’t want to go running. She fell down on the couch, listened to the rain against the window, felt the chill in the room.
What’s with you?
He had sold his soul to Kara-An.
Did she want his soul?
No. But she was getting into his head, discovering the real person behind all the aggression and the useless fighting and the swearing. And now he was back behind all the barriers and she just couldn’t see herself starting again.
She got up. She must run. Things would start happening the next day and she didn’t know when there would be another opportunity to exercise.
She didn’t feel like it.
In the glass measuring jug, he mixed the balsamic vinegar, the olive oil, the lemon juice, the finely chopped garlic (as always, he loved the aroma) and chilies, cumin, coriander, and a bay leaf. He ground black pepper into it.
Pavarotti, as Rigoletto, was singing:
Softly, your tears are useless,
Now you are certain that he lied.
Softly and let it be my task
To take revenge.
Soon. And deadly.
I’ll kill him.
He was hungry. And felt like food. He could taste the dish in his mouth, visualize the thick brown gravy. He had bought fresh bread to dip into the sauce when the chicken livers had been eaten.
He rinsed the livers, carefully cut out the membranes.
Hope. And Kara-An.
He put the livers in the marinade, took an onion out of the refrigerator, peeled and chopped it. The tears ran.
In Good Housekeeping he had read that if onions were kept in the refrigerator they wouldn’t affect the eyes when peeled. It didn’t always work.
Hope and Kara-An. The Laurel and Hardy of the female world.
Kara-An, the perverse.
It didn’t turn him on.
It was a first for him. A woman who wanted to be hurt.
Her intensity. Her beauty. The gods’ sense of humor. Give her everything. A body, Lord, that body, he had felt her, not too soft, not too firm, the breasts against his chest, her hips grinding into him.
Saucepan on the stove, melt butter in it.
A face in which each line was in perfect harmony with the other—a false front, like the buildings in Wild West movies, a beautiful optical illusion because behind the skin and tissue and muscles and the thick head of hair, under the bone of the skull, lay the gray matter, the synapses with their faulty wiring.
What had happened? How had Kara-An the child changed into a woman for whom physical pain, a scene in which two men knocked each other about, brought her to a high, ecstatic plateau?
Money. Plus beauty and prominent parents. And intelligence. That would do it. Would make life easy, would quickly change the simple pleasures into the boring, would make the appetite for stimulation ever stronger. Eventually wanting the forbidden, the strange, the deviant.
But it didn’t turn him on.
Onions in the butter, lower the flame so that they sautéed slowly.
And Hope? Good, faithful Hope, the bearer of the flame of justice.
Rigoletto:
Heavenly Father! She was caught
In the execution of my revenge.
Dearest angel! Look at me.
Listen to me!
The flame no longer burned so brightly. And it bothered him.
Fuck alone knew why.
He turned off the gas.
The chicken livers had to marinate. Then he would brown them with the onion, add the tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, and the marinade, eventually the tot of brandy.
And eat.
When last had he been so hungry? Had such an appetite?
He would take his mother a bowlful.
Peace offering.
He walked to an armchair, sat down, closed his eyes.
Let the little livers absorb the flavors.
He listened to the music.
He would eat in a while.
Tomorrow things would start happening.
He gave a deep sigh.
DAY 3
MONDAY, JULY 10
28.
I spent three months at Quantico, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s luxurious sprawl in Virginia. And two weeks respectively in Seattle and New York.
I won’t bore you with descriptions of abundant, bountiful America. I won’t comment on the hospitable, superficial, clever, generous people. (I’m becoming a self-conscious author. I’m seduced by the sensuality of the words in front of me begging to be used. I’m overeating at this banquet of self-description. I think it’s a natural process: once you start talking about yourself, once you’ve overcome the initial [typically Afrikaans] unwillingness to egocentrism, it becomes a furious machine, a monster feeding on itself, an irresistible seduction that adds more and more baroque decorations to the storyline, until the meanderings achieve a life of their own.)
So I must practice self-discipline.
At Quantico they taught me to use the media, showed me that television and radio and the newspapers weren’t the enemy of the police but an instrument. That you could harness a cart horse to the media’s insatiable hunger for sensation and blood (but that you had to hang on to the wagon if the horse took the bit between its teeth).
They taught me profiling, how to establish the psyche of serial killers and even deduce clothing and transport and age with an astonishing measure of accuracy.
I took a green exercise book with me, the nearest I could come to an official dossier, and I reopened the Baby Marnewick case, the private, unofficial version. My first witnesses were the SACs, the special agents in charge, members of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit—and every analyzed serial killer in America.
And then I came back.
Wendy was at the airport —“Why didn’t you write?”— but she was ecstatic because her unwilling betrothed was eventually on his way to a doctorate. “Tell me everything,” while my head was in my green exercise book.
A week after my return, I went to Klerksdorp to beg for the official Marnewick dossier, armed with a letter from the professor and the commissioner and all the manipulative charm I possessed.
It took another two weeks before I sent out the other letters because it took that long to get all the names and addresses of every officer in charge of every Murder and Robbery Unit in the country.
I rewrote the letter to them five or six times. The balance had to be right: an academic request, a pricking of professional curiosity, just another servant of justice—without insinuating that I was one of them, because I knew the brotherhood, the unique ties that were formed in a daily round of death and violence and scorn.
The letter, apart from the well-considered opening, contained the salient points of Baby Marnewick’s death and asked for information on similar murders between the years 1975 and 1985 with all the possible variations on the theme, à la Quantico.
And then I went back to the books and the notes and the theory of my thesis but merely to make the time spent waiting for information pass more easily.
“What’s wrong with you, Zet?”
I’m certain that Wendy, at the very least, had an intimation of the threat.
I hadn’t told her about my and Baby Marnewick’s past history. As far as she was concerned, it was an academic, scientific process that would lead to a doctorate
and a step nearer to her dream. Professor and Mrs. van Heerden.
What would we call our children? Her father’s and mother’s names (Gordon and Shirley) and my Afrikaans surname? Not that I worried about it.
I’m losing the thread.
“Is there someone else?”
There was. Behind a wooden fence, six feet under.
But how to explain that?
“No. Don’t be silly.”
29.
Hallo, is that the crime number?”
“Yes.”
“Is there a reward?”
“It depends on the kind of information you have, madam.”
“What’s the size of the reward?”
“There is no official reward, madam.”
“My ex did it. He’s an animal, I tell you.”
“Why do you think he did it?”
“He’s capable of anything.”
“Is there anything that connects him to this case?”
“I know he did it. He never pays his alimony…”
“Does he own an M16 rifle, madam?”
“He has a gun. I don’t know what kind.”
“Is it an attack rifle, madam? A machine gun?”
“He hunts with it.”
That was the first call.
“It was my father.”
“Who?”
“The murderer.”
“Is there anything that connects him to the murder?”
“He’s a monster.”
That was the second call.
Hope was waiting for him at the front of the building at a quarter to six in the morning. She unlocked the office and showed him the empty room with the telephone on the bare desk. He asked for writing paper. She brought it. They didn’t speak much.