The De Zalze Murders. Julian Jansen
out as soon as possible. OK then.
PHILANDER: OK.
OPERATOR: Thank you, sir. Goodbye.
PHILANDER: Bye-bye.
***
Just before half past seven a police vehicle turns hurriedly into the narrow Goske Street. A neighbour had already called the 10111 emergency number when he realised something strange was happening. The vehicle stops in front of the white double-storey house with the two young trees. Sergeant Adrian Kleynhans and Constable Marius Jonkers jump out, removing their service pistols from their holsters as they walk. The sergeant scans the surroundings, and sniffs the air, as if he smells danger. At the white garage door he jiggles the handle to see if it is locked. Then he looks though a chink in the curtains of the window to the right of the front door. The room inside is dark.
The next moment he bumps into Henri, who has a cellphone in his hand. Sergeant Kleynhans is even more on the alert when he sees the blood on the young man’s body and sleeping pants. He asks him who he is, what has happened, what is wrong? Henri just mumbles something and, rather casually, points to the top floor.
‘The problem is upstairs,’ he says softly, and continues fiddling with his cellphone.
The police officer orders Henri to wait outside on the stoep. Then he enters the house, his guard up.
Inside, it is silent as the grave. To the right in the tiled entrance hall is the staircase, with elegant black railings. The officer notices a dark-red wet spot on the shiny beige tiles. It seems to come from the first floor.
He walks up the stairs. Cautiously. A sour, metallic smell hangs in the air. The officer expects the worst. The scene on the top floor stops him dead in his tracks: the bodies of two scantily clad women lie in the passage near the bedroom door, next to a bookcase. The older woman is dressed in beige panties and a navy-blue vest. She has gaping head wounds. Her face is pallid.
The young girl’s long blonde hair is bloodstained. She looks as if she is asleep.
Sergeant Kleynhans tightens his grip on his firearm; someone may still be hiding in the house.
He has shared grisly crime scenes and videos on social media to see the reaction of his friends. But the gruesome scene facing him now is real and immediate, not just a film. He experiences it through all his senses.
Carefully, he enters the nearest bedroom, his ears cocked for the slightest hint of danger. A grey-haired man is slumped over the top end of a single bed in a kneeling position, his legs on the floor. His body and multicoloured striped boxers are bloodstained. On the floor a mutilated dark-haired man, wearing blue striped shorts, lies facedown.
As he walks past the women in the passage, one of the girl’s legs twitches slightly; a macabre sight, almost like a corpse suddenly coming to life. She is alive! The sergeant phones his shift leader at once.
***
At the Stellenbosch detective branch in Adam Tas Avenue, Colonel Deon Beneke is leading the daily parade. The detective branch is housed in an old red-roofed double-storey building, a stone’s throw from Papegaaiberg. For years, a plantation of pine trees covered the slopes. Now the hill is bare, the trees all felled.
His diary is open at Tuesday, 27 January 2015. He and the detectives are discussing the day’s work programme and the progress made with dockets. Later they will decide together which cases should enjoy priority.
The colonel’s police cellphone interrupts the meeting. He grabs it. The caller is Constable Zuko Matho, the night shift’s service leader. By eight o’clock Matho would usually have collected all the dockets, submitted a report on the night’s events, and ended his shift. Then he’d drive the short distance to his home in Kayamandi, have a light breakfast and go to bed.
But today he was summoned to the De Zalze golf estate, just outside Stellenbosch. There was already a commotion at the main entrance when he arrived; a security patrol had reported to the centre at the gate that there was serious trouble in Goske Street.
‘Pipe down!’ Beneke calls out rather irritably to the chatting detectives in their chairs before he can continue his phone conversation. His expression is grim. Hunched forward in his seat, he listens attentively to Constable Matho’s report. His right eyebrow rises slightly as he starts jotting down details in his notebook in front of him. Noting the surprised look on his face, the detectives itch to know what he is being told.
He ends the call. ‘There’ve been three murders,’ he announces, and briefly gives them the details. They stare at their colonel in shock. His pumpkin-coloured shirt fits rather tightly over his stomach. Some of his colleagues anticipate that, one day, the buttons will pop off.
‘Do things like this happen in Stellenbosch?’ Beneke later wonders aloud. Since starting his work as head of detectives in the vibrant student town, he hasn’t had to deal with much violent crime.
A captain next to him remarks drily: ‘Lately it’s really only been the balaclava gang that terrorises the area.’
‘Yes, but even they don’t kill; just tie up their victims,’ a colleague observes.
Some of the other detectives nod in agreement.
Beneke lifts an eyebrow abstractedly. He assigns the task of leading the axe-murder investigation to Matho. The constable is therefore in charge of the crime scene. From now on, no one may enter the scene without his permission, and without being accompanied by him.
The colonel dismisses the meeting but asks some members of the Serious and Violent Crimes Unit to stay behind. Among them are sergeants Stephen Adams, Marlon Appollis and Denver Alexander.
The day-shift members should go along as well, Beneke adds. He himself will also drive to the scene after he has summoned the teams from the Forensic Science Laboratory in Plattekloof in Parow outside Cape Town, and the Local Criminal Record Centres of Paarl and Worcester.
He allocates the tasks, then walks out of the main building towards the row of parked cars and gets into his vehicle. Thoughts are churning through his mind: a murder inside the high-security estate is sensational. But three murders – and with an axe at that – are unprecedented.
The drive to De Zalze usually takes about five minutes. This morning though, with the bustling traffic and the students who have started returning to university, he needs an extra dose of patience.
When the police officers and the various units arrive at 12 Goske Street, Detective Constable Matho accompanies each individually along the designated route to the horrific crime scene on the top floor.
***
In the Naspers Centre in Heerengracht, Cape Town, the reporters in Rapport and Die Burger’s combined newsroom on the sixth floor have been at work since early morning as usual. Our Tuesday news lists have to be finalised for the editorial conference at nine o’clock. As January is ‘the silly season’, the list of newsworthy stories is rather slim. I carry a mug of coffee to my desk, ready to start the day. Someone is mixing instant porridge in a bowl. Here and there fingers are already rattling over keyboards.
Outside the 26-storey building the morning sunlight falls on the slopes of Table Mountain. The cableway is a pencil line against the dark crags and pale-blue sky. Heavy traffic trundles into the city. Ships lie at anchor in the harbour, where the reflections of the sunlight glitter on the sea’s ripples. The Mother City is gearing up for the working day.
The next moment, my cellphone beeps. I glance at the message: ‘Family at De Zalze hacked to death with axe. Child survives.’ Like a newspaper headline. A ‘What the fuck!’ escapes my lips. I put down my coffee mug and call the person who sent the message. The details are still patchy, the sender informs me. In quick succession, other reporters in the room receive the shocking news. Via SMS, e-mail, phone call or on WhatsApp.
Disbelief and shock mingle with questions. A family? An axe? Three dead? Some colleagues start speculating that it may be the handiwork of the notorious balaclava gang that has been terrorising the Kuils River-Stellenbosch region