No, in the 21st century you don’t get tragedy. Only sordid stories of disgraceful behaviour leading to predictable consequences.
This planet has become so small it can be taken in at a glance. It’s not a pretty sight at all, infested as it is with billions of humans: the most successful, the most prolific, organism to creep across the face of it.
No, no tragedy, because tragedy is supposed to elicit pity, not disgust. This is the disgusting story of Matt Dreyer’s short life and it begins with the murder of his father.
*
Houghton, leafy suburb of Jo’burg where some of the richest pigs live. On Google Earth the paved driveways leading to mansion roofs set in rectangles of green are evident everywhere. Each garden is big enough to be a public park, and there are blue pools and perimeter walls and gates and guardhouses.
It was March 2006, and the evening was warm and stuffy. It felt like there was a good chance of a late summer thundershower.
“That was Claude,” said Bruce Dreyer, returning to the room. He was referring to his brother, to whom he’d been speaking on the phone. “He’s got to get back to Cape Town in a hurry. Damn it!” He drained his whisky. “Look at the bloody time. I’m going to have to go over and get him to sign some papers before he leaves. I don’t suppose you want to come for the ride?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
Dreyer went to the study to fetch his briefcase and car keys. He was a slightly built man of 52. Although he was balding, his hair still had no grey in it. He had always kept himself fit and was determined not to let himself go to seed like so many of his slobbish peers. His brown eyes were humourless, and from the hard lines of his mouth and the irritable edge to his voice it was clear he was used to getting his own way in life.
Barbara was 34. She had been living with him for a year and a half. Most people called her ‘Barbs’ or ‘Barbie’, and she did indeed have the very long legs of a Barbie doll. She also had big tits, blue eyes and long blond hair. Trudy, Bruce’s estranged wife, referred to her as ‘Bimbo’. “How’s Bimbo?” she’d ask. Or, “Bimbo still around?”
“Actually,” she said, swinging her long legs from the couch and feeling about for her shoes, “I will come with you. It’s too early for bed, and I don’t feel like watching on my own. I’ll just go to the loo while you get the car out.”
The car was only a few months old. It was the latest in a long line of grand saloons he had acquired and disposed of over the years. He wasn’t as obsessed with cars as his brother was, but whatever he drove, it had to be of sufficient substance to make the right statement. Large cars confer status, and Bruce Dreyer believed in status. That’s why he would never consent to Claude acquiring a vehicle superior to his own.
He eased the long, gleaming shape out of the garage and backed it up to the entrance porch. Harsh floodlighting had turned the car’s finish from midnight blue to stygian black. The V8 purred almost inaudibly, and while he waited he got the surround sound to play some Nora Jones. Nineteen speakers, the car consultant had told him. Nineteen speakers and ten airbags. And four-zone climate control with air purifier plus pollen and smog filters – it was already cooling down nicely. Although he wasn’t bothered with the technical details, he knew that these features were of paramount importance. These were the features that put a car into a certain class and bestowed high social standing upon its owner. This was one of those possessions that made other men respectful and envious.
Another of Bruce Dreyer’s enviable possessions got in beside him. As she made herself comfortable in the heated, ventilated and electronically configurable seat he let the vehicle slide down the driveway through an avenue of trees and shrubbery.
The uniformed guard at the gate hurried from his sentry box, automatic rifle over left shoulder, two-way radio in right hand.
“All clear?” Dreyer asked, not bothering to greet the man.
“I check with the outside, Sir.”
He spoke into the radio in a mixture of English and Sesotho. The radio crackled and a voice came back loud and clear.
“All is 100 percent, Sir. I open the gate.”
As the gate began to roll back, the window completed its silent ascent, sealing off the driver and passenger from the hostile environment they were about to pass through. They could relax in sumptuous security for the duration of the short journey to Parktown East.
In the dark street they passed the two guards on foot patrol. One of them waved his flashlight in a kind of salute as the limo swept by. What a state of affairs, Dreyer thought to himself. What a country. All this security just to be able to drive in and out of your private residence. You had to throw more and more money at it to keep ahead of the problem. And if you didn’t, you’d end up another dumb-fucker statistic.
Yes, the dumb fuckers were the ones who were negligent, or didn’t have the bucks to keep upgrading their security arrangements. They were the ones hijacked at their entrance gates because they didn’t have armed guards in the street as well as on the property. The ones murdered by intruders because they didn’t have a properly monitored CCTV surveillance contract. Or razor wire bolted to the wall as well as electric fencing on top of it.
*
Claude had a plane to catch. He phoned his brother to find out what the hell was keeping him, and got no reply. It was 10:30. Security confirmed that the boss and missus had left at 9:15. He could wait no longer. First he instructed the agency to drive his brother’s route. Then, as was correct, he informed the police. Maybe they’d respond, and maybe they wouldn’t. Panting with exertion, Claude was the last person to board the flight to Cape Town.
A passing motorist spotted Bruce Dreyer not three kilometres from his Houghton home. He was lying in an undignified position in the gutter, like a dog knocked down at the side of the road. The motorist was too afraid to get out. He phoned the emergency 112 and waited, engine idling, hazard lights flashing, headlamps playing on the sprawled shape.
The security firm’s patrol car was first to arrive, ahead of the ambulance and police van. The motorist got out and joined the two men in paramilitary uniform. In the glare of the headlights they stood looking down at the crumpled heap. One of the security men donned surgical gloves and bent over. The victim was undoubtedly dead, for the right side of his face and head was a bloody mess, all smashed in from the impact of several bullets. The man straightened up.
“This is no tramp got knocked down by a hit-and-run. This oke’s got money – check the shoes.” The almost-new black leather shoes shone with the soft lustre their designer had intended them to shine. “No, I think this could be the gent we’ve come looking for. This has got to be another hijack victim.”
*
So, in spite of all his wealth and the precautions he had taken not to become another crime statistic, Bruce Dreyer had been shot to death and dumped at the side of the road – for the sake of his grand saloon. Not that the motive mattered much: people were murdered for their cell phones. What mattered was that the criminals were able to take out such a high profile businessman. It was confirmation that law and order had broken down and that no one in the land was safe.
The press went to town with the story, giving it front-page, headline prominence and extensive coverage for more than a week. In a TV feature the crime was graphically re-enacted, and the talk shows and phone-in programmes were flooded with calls.
This was a loss to the nation. In bullshit obituaries and profiles Dreyer’s career was described in adulatory detail. From the moment he entered his father’s engineering firm he had shown hardheaded entrepreneurial flair. He had expanded the business and won lucrative orders from top mining houses. After the death of his father he and his younger brother had begun to diversify. By his mid-forties he was at the helm of an organisation with interests in mining, engineering, construction and retail. His political shrewdness was legendary, and had greatly assisted in the relentless expansion of his business interests as the country’s economy continued to grow. His dynamism and acumen would be sorely missed. South Africa could not afford to lose men of this calibre. The government must declare war on the criminals.
No mention was made of his less admirable qualities or the fact that many celebratory glasses had been raised to mark the news of his passing.
Although it was agreed that Dreyer had died at the hands of car hijackers – there was no dispute about that – there was a puzzling aspect to the crime. In the absence of broken glass or any other evidence of a violent hold-up, how had the car been brought to a halt, and why had the driver opened his window? After all, this vehicle was fitted with the latest security system. It included an anti-hijack radar device that acted as a double-layer force-field around the car. This would have automatically locked doors and closed windows and set off a siren if anyone had approached too close.
Two days elapsed and neither the car nor the female passenger had been found. A rumour began to circulate that the police were investigating the possibility that the woman might be implicated in the crime. Then on the third day she was found.
*
A man who worked as a gardener was trudging along the verge of the highway leading to his employer’s suburban enclave. The road passed through some open veld and was busy with 7am traffic. He had been feeling uncomfortable for some while, and now the need to defecate was urgent. He looked about and saw a clump of bushes some 20 metres from the road.
Buckling his belt after having relieved himself, he skirted the bush in order to rejoin the highway. It was then that he stumbled upon the naked body of a white woman.
On arriving at work he first had breakfast, prepared by the housekeeper, and only then did he request an interview with his employer. The Madam of the house let out a theatrical scream when he described what he had stumbled upon, and collapsed onto a nearby sofa. She had him relate his simple tale another three times, all the while repeating, ”Oh my God, it must be Bruce Dreyer’s wife.”
She phoned the police and they promised to send someone; but they were short of transport. She kept phoning on and off throughout the morning until a battered police car arrived just before midday. The gardener repeated his story yet again, and then drove with them to the stretch of veld where the body lay.
First he led them to where he had performed his toilet, and pointed out the evidence that proved he wasn’t lying. Then he showed them the corpse.
A swarm of blowflies was hard at work. After two and a half days in the hot African sun she had lost her chief attribute, her figure. Distended with gas, she had become a bloated, middle-aged matron. And her lovely pale skin was ruined forever, having turned a blotchy grey and brown and black. It made her blond hair look white. As the primary biodegraders in the decomposition process, the blowflies were taking their job seriously and continued to lay their eggs, by the thousands. The first larvae had already hatched and were greedily consuming Barbara’s nutritious flesh.
One of the policemen went back to the car to radio for the detectives.
The blowflies were concentrated about the orifices. Mouth, ears and eyes, anus and vagina – these were the normal points of entry. Also, after having been repeatedly raped, she had been both stabbed and shot, thus providing additional access points for the industrious insects.
The gardener looked on with ghoulish fascination, and thought some heavy thoughts. Like, ‘Why such violence?’ and ‘Why such abandonment of restraint?’ And ‘Why such total surrender to the devil?’
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