Betrayed (5 page)

“You know what the doctor said,” I warned. “You're not supposed to go back to school yet. Give your back a chance to heal.”

“I'm not staying in bed at home anyway,” she argued. “I've been playing with the dogs and walking around. I'm too bored to stay at home.”

I looked at her in desperation.

“I promise I'll take things easy and not do anything stupid,” she pleaded.

Two weeks passed and she seemed to be fine, the bottle of painkillers untouched on her bedside table. Then she asked if she could go and watch a softball game one night. I couldn't see any harm in her watching as long as she didn't play. What I didn't know was that she had been playing behind my back at school and was planning to play in the game she was supposedly “watching”. Her one concession was to play in the outfield rather than as a catch; it was still too painful for her to crouch down in the catcher's position. Two months later she reclaimed the catcher's position in a provincial schools tournament.

Tracey's high pain threshold, together with her will to win and a temper to match, was a winning combination that came out even more forcefully when she was competing in a qualifying round to go to the National South African Karate Championships. Not a lover of doing the controlled movements of kata, she was always ready when it came to the sparring required by kumite.

On this occasion her opponent was a much bigger, far more exper
i
enced girl. Tracey started with all guns blazing, then a blow came on he
r
blind side and caught her full on the jaw. The fight was stopped and the
referee spoke to both girls. Although karate is a contact sport, full contact is not allowed. Tracey pushed at her jaw and shook her head. I could see she was determined not to lose. Although she had been down on points she went on to win the fight without losing another point. Her opponent left the mat in tears – she had never before been beaten in a kumite match and this half-pint had cost her a shot at a gold medal.

When Tracey came to sit with us in the stands, she confessed that the blow had dislocated her jaw but she had managed to put it back in place. She was still in a filthy temper about the illegal blow, though she did admit that her jaw was very sore. When the announcement came that she had qualified not only for kumite but for kata as well, all thoughts of pain and temper flew out the window, replaced by excitement and happiness. She had done it. She would be going to the national championships.

There were too few hours in the day for the police to do what had to
be done, but far too many for those of us left waiting. Waiting for Ca
p
tain Kotze to phone to set up an appointment. Waiting for news on how
the investigation was progressing. Waiting for Tracey to be found,
alive or dead. Any information would be better than this deafening
silence.

On Wednesday morning one of the lead stories on the early news on the radio was of a young girl whose body had been found down
a mineshaft. No further details were given. There was a roaring in my
ears. The whole world slowed and speeded up again. Sounds grew
faint and then shrill. Frantic, I phoned the police station to find out if it was my daughter.

“We have no idea,” said a voice, indifferent.

“Is it a white girl's body?”

“Dunno – we'll have to phone you back.”

The day before, the radio station had allowed me to broadcast a
personal appeal and plea to Tracey or anyone who knew of her where
abouts. Now, desperate, I phoned the station and had my answer
within two minutes. It wasn't her.

It was as though another being had invaded my life. I was outside
my body, looking down at myself from a height, watching a stranger
deal with a situation that I knew was mine to deal with and yet oddly
had nothing to do with me. Empty hollows, cold spaces were form
ing inside me. All finer feelings had vanished. What was left were
the basics, going through the motions of living, yet not living. Each
day had become a series of challenges, of smaller or greater traumas
and imaginings I had to deal with or endure. I had survived one
more . . . now for the next.

Glen and I drove to the police pound to meet the driver of the low-bed and give him directions on where to take the car. Again the em
ployees of the pound were surly and bad mannered. They refused us
entry, allowing only the tow truck driver in to fetch the car.

Once we got through all the red tape, we followed the truck to the
premises of a mechanic friend who had promised to check the petrol
level and report on any damage. The tank was bone dry – not even a tablespoonful of petrol remained. Glen and I took this opportunity to go through the car in the hope that we might find something that hinted at Tracey's whereabouts.

We found a sock and a shirt that didn't belong to her, bits and pieces of paper with telephone numbers that weren't in Tracey's
handwriting, and some till slips dated the previous Thursday – the
day she'd gone missing. That all this was still there suggested the
police hadn't looked through the car for evidence. Nor were there
any smudgy black signs to show that it had been dusted for fingerprints.

The seat was set as far back as it could go. Tracey wouldn't have
been able to reach the pedals or the steering wheel from so far back,
so who had driven the car? Or had the police moved the seat? We had
no answers.

We took from the car everything we thought may be important,
including a strange copper pendant that neither of us had seen before. It looked like the icon of the Zimbabwe bird depicted on that
country's flag. Later, when we asked her friends about it, none of
them had any idea what we were talking about. Where it came from
remains a mystery.

The seeds of doubt about our police department's competence and
commitment had started to germinate in my mind, but with no other
alternatives to help in finding my child, I couldn't afford to nurture
them, couldn't allow them to grow.

Not knowing what else to do I drove to the office where I worked,
to make more posters and flyers to paste on windows. The company I worked for leaned over backwards to help with printing and lami
nating the posters and flyers. E-mails were being sent around the country with my contact details, asking for help in finding Tracey.
The phone rang and rang, calls from strangers and friends alike, offering what help they could.

Around mid-morning a phone call from the missing person's division raised my hopes – only to dash them once again.

“What's happened to the missing person's report?” the woman
asked. “We haven't got it yet, so we were wondering if maybe your
daughter has been found and that's why the police station hasn't de
livered it?”

Incensed at this further delay, I gave her the incident number and the name of the person I'd spoken to at the police station so that she
could find out what had happened to the report. And then, because I
no longer trusted anyone, I phoned the local police station myself.

“Oh yes, looks like we haven't sent the docket to the missing per
son's division yet. We'll try and get it through to them by next week,”
the officer said.

Why so long? Why had it already taken nearly a week? These
weren't just bits of paper to be shunted pointlessly around the offices.
The file held vital information regarding a living, breathing human
being. My daughter. And the longer they muddled around, the less
chance there was she might be found alive.

“Let me come and fetch the docket and I'll deliver it myself,” I offered, biting back a lot more I would have liked to say.

“Ergh,” he grunted. “It will be delivered today.”

Forced again to sit by helpless and put my already shaky trust in the
system, I struggled for a time to lose myself in my work but it was
futile therapy. I tried to empty my mind but fear and worry played
havoc with my concentration and I stared at the computer screen with
out really seeing it. The feeling of not belonging was getting
stronger, as was the feeling that I was observing myself from some
where outside my body. It was like watching bad reality television, yet
I felt compelled to carry on watching, just in case things got better.

Hours passed fruitlessly and still I hadn't heard from Captain Kotze. When the other officer had given me his number and told me to wait
for his call, he had assured me that Captain Kotze was the best detective on the East Rand. Now, dispirited by all the waiting, I decided to make the first contact.

But there was more frustration in store. The best detective on the
East Rand didn't answer his cell phone. The message box was per
manently full. And my luck was no better with his office number –
he either wasn't available or he was out of the office. Knowing how short-staffed our police services are, I gave him the benefit of the
doubt. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Friday arrived. A week had gone by without any contact or update
from the police. It was still morning, and I was at my desk fighting
what seemed to have become my usual turmoil of thoughts, when m
y
son phoned in tears. A stranger had accosted him as he arrived at
work, grabbing him by the arm and telling him that his sister was under a bridge in Benoni. He wanted to take Glen to where she was. Realising that there are some sick people on the streets, people who
could have read about Tracey in the papers, Glen had the presence of mind to wrest himself free and run into the building to phone the flying squad for help.

“They said there's nothing they can do,” he said, his voice crack
ing. “They told me I must get a court order to prevent this guy from
approaching me.”

Anger flowed like lava through my veins. My previous weekend's search of telephone numbers had yielded the number of the top dog
in the flying squad so I dialled it now, stabbing in anger at the phone
. I poured vitriol into his ears, insisting that his squad should come to our help. Then I snatched up my car keys and rushed out to be with
my son. My colleague Linda jumped into the passenger's seat as I was
pulling out.

The streets were gridlocked. All care about the rules of the road fle
w
out the window and soon I was driving over pavements and around
the backed-up traffic. There was only one thought in my mind – to
get to my son.

The flying squad, heavily armed, was already asking him questions
when I arrived. A mother's fury seemed to have had the desired re
sult. The man who had buttonholed my boy had disappeared, but
enquiries revealed that he was known at the bank on the second floor
of the complex where Glen worked, and was often seen loitering
around,
drifting in and out of the shops. I sketched some background about what was happening to our family for the man from the flying
squad and he suggested that we should get hold of the investigating officer and let him follow up.

As if by magic I managed to get hold of Captain Kotze for the first time. I explained what had happened and he promised to meet us at the shopping centre within half an hour. By this time, my friend Kat
had joined us in the car park. She worked as a paramedic and decided
to offer her support during her break. She blocked the parking bay
next to my car so that the Captain wouldn't have any problems find
ing parking. Relieved that Glen was unharmed but rendered silly by
the after-effects of shock, we joked around and the air was filled with
a sense of false gaiety, the kind of hysteria that prompts you to laugh when you really want to cry.

Captain Kotze rang to say he was delayed, suggesting that we should
all go home and he would meet me later. Having got so close, I didn't
want to let him slip through my fingers now, so I insisted that we
would wait.

“I want you to watch the surveillance film,” I told him. “I've check
ed
with building security and they've confirmed that they'll let the police
watch the video. I also want you to find and interview the man who
accosted my son in case he really does know something.”

And so we waited. Late morning dragged into afternoon with not
a sign, not a word from Captain Kotze. Mid-afternoon, we heard police
helicopters buzzing overhead and saw heavily armed police officers
crawling through the car park, checking the cars. We'd heard gun
shots earlier so we figured there had been an armed robbery and the
hunt was now on for the criminals.

I became aware of an armed officer moving up behind Linda, but she didn't notice him. Then, when his rifle was pointing directly at
Glen as he checked my car, she turned and saw him. She screamed
and did a little on-the-spot jig with fright, bringing some light relief from the tension. Still laughing at her reaction, we all jumped when
my cell phone rang. It was Captain Kotze to say he had been held up, but
would be with us soon. This brought us back to reality with a resounding bump.

It was three in the afternoon when he arrived. We had been wait
ing for him for five hours. He wasn't interested in seeing the surveil
lance video; he wasn't interested in following up on the stranger who
had accosted my son.

“Phttt,” he scoffed. “It wouldn't be any use, just a waste of time.”

The police didn't follow up or try to find the man and we never
heard from him again. I believe now that it was probably a hoax from this strange man, but at the time it was the only information we had.
People who knew him said he was harmless but not very coherent.
Had he noticed the poster in the window of Glen's car and seen an o
p
portunity to get some attention? Or did he really know something?
His motives were unclear.

We gave the Captain some of the items we had found in Tracey's car,
with a brief explanation about each of them. His lack of enthusiasm
was obvious. He tossed some of the bits of paper on the ground.

“These aren't important,” he said.

I picked them up and put them back in a plastic bag. I still thought
that the dated till slips from the day she had last been seen might
provide some clues about her movements on that terrible day.

Best on the East Rand or not, I felt very little confidence in the of
ficer who had been assigned to the case. Yet I had no choice but to
trust
him. He was all we had, our only hope. Telling myself to have
faith that Captain Kotze was more effective than he seemed, I drop
ped
Linda back at work. By now Glen was as white as a ghost and had
broken out in a cold sweat and started to shake. His eyes glistened
with unshed tears. Worried that he was in shock, I took him to the
doctor, then back to his cottage. He took the medication the doctor
had prescribed and lay down on the couch, where he was soon in a
restless sleep.