Betrayed (8 page)

When I explained all this to the headmistress at Tracey's school, she was initially dismissive.

“That's a smokescreen,” she said. “The way I see it, she's just a spoiled, un
disciplined brat.”

I was furious at her lack of support, and was surprised to get a call from
her a week or so later.

“I want to apologise for what I said before,” she began. “Over the week
end I read an article in the Sunday paper that explained what panic attacks
are. It showed how traumatic they are and how hard it is for people to live
with them. I'll do my best to see if there's any way I can help your daughter.”

From that moment on she went out of her way to help Tracey in school. Because she had missed so much school, she was registered as a part-time student so that she could write her final exams.

I had spent nine days of hell, hunting and praying. Now I had to con
front the fact that my child was gone. Not for a few days, months or
years, but forever. I would never again hear her laughter or her voice
,
never smell her special scent. Never hear whatever thrilling song
she'd
hoped one day to sing for the world. It was over. A hefty door had been slammed shut and left me outside, alone. There would be no more sharing of good times, no more arguing over little things that seem so important at the time but in reality aren't important at
all. The knowledge bruised and frightened me.

My mind skimmed back to the last time I had seen her. There was
such a clear image of her in my mind and heart, but I wondered how
long it would be before I would battle to remember the tone and pitch
of her voice. I picked up a photo of her, fearful that I would forget what her precious face actually looked like and in time remember
only the memory. I relived those last moments with her over and
over. The haunting moments that neither of us realised would be our
last together. I tried to remember what our final words had been.
Had I said “I love you”? I couldn't remember. All I knew was that my
last sight of her was when she was running out the kitchen door to
the car she had left idling in the driveway, calling something now forgotten to me over her shoulder.

Monday was a day to endure. There was nothing any of us could do, but there were still twenty-four hours to get through before we
could go to the mortuary. Against the fog of that day only a few things
have stuck in my mind. One memory is of many of Tracey's friends
coming to see us, and of me comforting them. It was as if I was unin
volved in all this emotion; their friend had been murdered, not my
daughter. Perhaps I had buried the hurt deep so that I could survive.
We had the rest of our lives to face without our daughter and my
body was protecting me from reality. This gave me the strength to
support her friends. But even when I went to my bedroom to try and
get some rest and a breather away from death, death followed me,
permeated my every pore.

The other memory that emerges from the dim murkiness of that
long day is of a brief escape into lightness. Marsha had had a bad
night on the soft mattress on Tracey's bed, so on her second night we
decided to use an air mattress on the floor. We took it outside so we
could blow it up using the compressor from my car. Talking and listening to the air whoosh into the mattress had a calming effect, but the mattress stayed flat. We checked the stopper at the top but it was tight, so no air could be escaping. We pumped some more, and still
it stayed flat. Then I remembered that the mattress had two stoppers
,
one at the top and one at the bottom. As we pumped air in at the top
,
it was simply escaping from the one at the bottom. We collapsed on
the mattress, whooping with laughter way out of proportion to how funny it really was.

Suddenly there was a deafening hush. We looked at each other in
horror, knowing how out of place our laughter was in a house of
death.
A desperate attempt to pretend nothing had changed in our lives, a
way of clinging to our sanity, a brief escape from harsh reality.

Coldness gripped me. Darkness, never-ending unfathomable dark
ness
. My life became a collection of splinters and fragments I carried inside me. Some were sharp and painful to touch. I hardly dared hope
that I would salvage enough of the less intense pieces that I needed
to make my life whole again. I tried to step forward into the light,
but the darkness pulled me back into despondency. How long would
I have to live in this barren place without warmth or comfort? How
long before some small sign of life would warm my frozen heart? My
child, my reason for living, had been taken in death.

My heart was beating but my soul was not functioning. I was frozen
and the world was spinning as I battled to maintain my balance
against a hurricane of grief that brought me to my knees. No change of season, no sun to shine on my aching body, only the dreadful cold and darkness.

Shadowy figures talked to me, tried to comfort me, but their words
fell on deaf ears. Hands reached out, but there was no strength or
energy to hold onto as I slipped back into my heartache. Time was no
longer the same for me as for others.

Tuesday morning. Apprehension chipped away at my heart, a dull clunking under the persistent feeling of dream-like illusion and un
reality. Carolyn came round to the house and tried again to talk me
out of going to the mortuary.

“For God's sake, I know what rotting flesh looks like!” I snapped,
and immediately felt guilty. She was only expressing her concern fo
r me as a friend.

The police had told Buddy and me that they would only take us to
the mortuary if we were both sedated. I had no intention of being
drugged when I saw my daughter for the last time, but we went to
talk to our doctor anyway. He agreed with me, but gave us a prescri
ption for tranquillisers in case we needed them afterwards.

“Have you been to the doctor?” Captain Kotze asked when he arrived
at the house. We nodded but didn't admit we hadn't actually taken
an
y medication.

Buddy was looking ragged. Although he didn't want to see T race
y
at the mortuary, he didn't want me to face it on my own. Marsha
agreed to come with us but was resolute that she wouldn't go in to see
Tracey. The family made a last-ditch effort to stop me from going. I
ignored them and went to sit on my own to wait until Captain Kotze and his partner were ready to escort us there.

I remember nothing about the drive, but our arrival at the mortu
ary remains crystal clear in my mind. Buddy had aged overnight, his
eyes red-rimmed and his skin almost grey in its pallor. He seemed to have had the life sucked out of him, and all that was left was a walk
ing shell of a man. His voice was the voice of a stranger. I was worrie
d about him, but I couldn't forego seeing my child for the last time.

“Don't come into the viewing room with me,” I said, touching his
arm lightly. “I promise I won't hold it against you. I have to do this,
but you don't.”

“I won't let you do this alone,” he repeated stubbornly.

Captain Kotze and his partner were very kind. They did their best
to calm us and offer moral support. The Captain appeared to be a dif
ferent man from the one I had been dealing with before and I won
dered fleetingly if perhaps the strain we had been living under had made me misjudge him.

The smell knocked us back as we walked through the main doors
towards the waiting room. To people who work at the mortuary it is
the smell of chemicals and cleaning agents mingled with body odours
and stale cigarette smoke. To me it was the smell of death, hopeless
ness, emptiness, something that seeped into my pores and will live with me forever. Marsha turned grey-green and I put my hand on
her shoulder.

“You've done more than we expected. Go and wait in the car,” I said.

“No, I'm worried about Buddy. I'd rather be with him than waiting
alone in the car.”

The two police officers stayed close to Buddy's side, concerned that
he might pass out. The wait seemed endless. A file was lying on the
desk and I knew it was Tracey's murder docket. We paced up and down
the waiting room, chain-smoking in defiance of the ban on smoking in public buildings. Then a man called us to go through to the viewing room.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked one final time.

“Of course it's not want I
want
to do!” I felt like shouting. But it was
something I believed I had to do, so I just nodded.

I walked into the viewing room, acutely aware of each step I took,
each leaden foot as it echoed on the hard, cold floor. Buddy edged in
and stood against the far wall, as far from the glass window as he
could get, the two officers still by his side. I moved towards the glass that separated me from Tracey.

A brightly coloured blanket covered her body, and only one arm
had been exposed for me to see. I caught my breath. How tiny she
was! Although her face was hidden, I could picture it as it had been
in life. Her beautiful shiny hair, her sparkling eyes that always re
flected mischief and fun, now dulled and forever unseeing.

I fought hard not to let myself imagine what she looked like under
that blanket, which seemed far too bright and cheerful for its purpose. I held tight to the image of her alive and full of spirit. I looked
past the maggots crawling in her wrist and hand to see her hand as it
had been in life. I placed my hand against the glass and spoke softly
to her of my love for her. I gave her the message Glen had asked me
to pass on to his sister. I'm not sure how long I had been talking to Tracey when I felt a light touch on my shoulder.

“Are you ready to go?” Captain Kotze asked quietly.

“Give me a few more moments.”

I looked at her hand and arm for the last time. I said a prayer. I
said
my last goodbye.

“Can you please return the ‘What Would Jesus Do?' armband that's
still on her wrist?” I asked as I turned away. It had no monetary value,
but it was something Glen had asked for, if she was still wearing it.

Back in the waiting room, I nodded to my husband and sister.

“Let's go home,” I whispered.

“Well, is it your daughter?” a voice intruded into my grief. The mor
tuary officer was sitting with pen raised to fill in the form confirm
ing that I had positively identified my child.

“Yes, I'd recognise her hand and arm anywhere, under any circum
stances.”

All the way back to the house I babbled almost without pausing
for breath. We had arranged to pick up our car and follow the officer
s
to the place where Tracey's body had been found. I must have sound
ed insane, but I didn't care. I had to talk to take my mind off what I
had seen.

My cell phone rang, cutting through my prattling. It was the church
to tell me that Tracey's memorial service could be scheduled for
Thursday morning – in two days' time – otherwise the minister we
wanted would only be available again in a month's time. Not wanting
another minister to perform the service, I accepted the day and time
, and agreed to go in the next morning to finalise arrangements.

Reality crashed down around me. How would I let everyone know
in time? How could they expect me to be ready in a day? Is any moth
er ever ready to bury and say a final goodbye to her child?

I had to push these thoughts to the back of my mind when we ar
rived home and transferred into our own car to follow the police to the
farmlands. The two officers got lost trying to find the place where
Tracey's body had been found, and doubts about their competence
floated to the surface of my mind again. Eventually the police car cam
e to a stop and we pulled up behind them. They didn't have to tell me. I walked straight to a spot that was drawing me with unseen power.

“This is it, isn't it?”

“Yes,” said the Captain.

I could see the indent in the stones and sand where her broken
body had lain. The grass was flattened and there were signs of human
activity. But there was no police tape, no sign that any investigation
work had been done.

“Which way was her body facing?” I asked.

Neither of the policemen seemed to know. It wasn't until later that
I realised how strange this was. Photographs of the scene would hav
e
shown how she had been lying. And if Captain Kotze had visited th
e scene, he would have known.

The spot was very close to the dump where the dogs had sniffed
out the cow's head on the previous Saturday. I wondered how the
4x4 Club volunteers and the K9 unit could have missed her body –
unless she wasn't there at the time. Had she still been alive, held
somewhere against her will? Had she died a few days later and only
then been dumped in the veld? More painful still, if a thorough searc
h had been conducted, would the outcome have been different?

Demons sniggered inside my skull. I realised that when I had
stop
ped on the side of the road the previous Friday, I had been just a few hundred metres away from the spot where her body was found. If I had got out of the car and walked up the dirt track, would I have found her alive? No, stop, that way lies madness.

“Err  . . . we have to leave now. Will you be okay finding your way home?” Captain Kotze asked.

“That's fine. Thanks for your help. We know the area, we'll be
fine.”

The Captain gave me a hug and promised to do everything in his power to find out the truth.

We leaned on the car for a few minutes, each lost in our own worlds,
the image of the small indent in the stony earth where her body had been found engraved on my heart. What was her last thought?
Had she suffered? How long did she lie there before she died? Did she
call out in fear and pain? What thoughts and emotions were wande
r
ing through Buddy's head and heart I have no idea. Grief is a selfish
animal, it consumes and enfolds you in a thick blanket of anguish,
isolating you even from those who are closest to you.

As we turned the car and started the drive back to the house, Marsha
broke the heavy silence.

“Don't you think it was strange that the police didn't stop to inves
tigate that car that was parked just over there?”

“I didn't notice another car,” I frowned.

“A green car was stopped not far away,” she said. “I wonder why it
didn't raise suspicion. I mean, it was in the middle of a bunch of dirt
roads with nothing in the area but mealie fields. Then when the two
guys in the car saw us pull in behind the police car, they started thei
r car and disappeared in a cloud of dust.”

Neither officer had seemed to notice it.

1
998 -
1
999

After the psychiatrist diagnosed Tracey's panic disorder and gave her medication to help her deal with it, there was a marked improvement in every aspect of her life. Slowly the laughing, golden girl started to re-emerge. In the dark days, she had been adamant that she wouldn't be going to go to her matric farewell. Now she couldn't wait. At first, Peter had refused her invitation because he had no formal wear and no money to get the right gear. Knowing how much it meant to both of them, I offered to pay for the hire of a tux.

“Cool,” he said. “Thanks. So what will you be wearing, Tracey?” he asked.

“Not telling,” she grinned. “Wait and see.”

“I can't imagine Tracey in formal wear,” he told me out of earshot. “She's such a tomboy that I've only ever seen her in jeans, shirts and her leather jacket. I can't wait to see her all dolled up.”

Tracey never wore make-up and this night was no exception, yet she
looked radiant. Peter arrived, not on his motorbike, but in a clapped-out
jalopy. We all laughed as he unwound his lanky frame from the small car.

“It's not much, is it?” he said. “Certainly not some fancy limousine like she deserves.”

“No one will even notice,” I told him. “Least of all Tracey. She'd go on a
bicycle, as long as you were her escort.”

He smiled and handed her a single red rose. Buddy and I followed the
young couple to the venue to capture the occasion on camera. I was
bursting with pride.

“Is it really you, Tracey?” one girl joked.

“Who are you?” a teacher queried. Tracey laughed.

“It's me, Ma'am . . . Tracey.”

“You're beautiful,” the teacher replied, her eyes wide with surprise. “I didn't
realise you could look so stunning.”

Peter brought her home at about six the next morning. Exhausted but
happy, she was too hyped up to sleep and started telling me all about it. She bubbled over about how wonderful it all was, the décor, the band, the
dancing, the sheer exuberance of this special occasion. Then her face became serious, her eyes sad.

“I'm just sorry that so many of my friends will never have a matric farewell,” she whispered.

With the excitement of the farewell just a memory, the nitty-gritty of pre
paring for final exams took up a lot of Tracey's time. She was attending
school regularly again and working hard to get a good matric result, but she
still didn't really know what she wanted to do after she left school.