late.
Despite these precautions, the walls and towers and moats, the children were not even safe here?it only took one intruder like Pretorius to nullify all the barriers.
There was life in the pedophile?s house, lights going on and off.
He weighed up his options, considered a route that would take him away from the streetlights through back gardens up to the wall of Pretorius?s house. Eventually he decided the fastest option was the one with the biggest chance of success: down the street.
He stood up, put the binoculars in his pocket and stretched his limbs. He pricked his ears for cars, left the shadows and began to walk with purpose.
?Doc, they are not voices. It?s not like I hear a babble. It?s . . . like someone screaming. But not outside, it?s here inside, here in the back of my head. ?Hear? is not even the right word, because there are colors too. Some are black, some are red; fuck, it makes me sound crazy, but it?s true. I get to a murder scene. Let?s say the case I am working on now. The woman is lying on the floor, strangled with the kettle cord. You can see from the marks on her neck that she has been strangled from behind. You begin to reconstruct how it happened?that?s your job, you have to put it all together. You know she let him in, because there is no forced entry. You know they were together in the room because there is a bottle of wine and two glasses, or the coffee things. You know they must have talked, she was at ease, suspecting nothing, she was standing there and he was behind her saying something and suddenly there was this thing around her neck and she was frightened, what the fuck, she tried to get her fingers under the cord. Perhaps he turned her around, because he is sick, he wanted to see her eyes, he wanted to watch her face, because he?s a control freak and now she sees him and she knows . . .?
He had to make a quick decision. He walked around the house and past the back door and saw that it was the best point of entry, no security gate, just an ordinary lock. He had to get in fast: the longer he remained outside, the greater the chance of being spotted.
He had the assegai at his back, under his shirt, the shaft just below his neck and the blade under his belt. He lifted his hand and pulled out the weapon. He raised a booted foot and, aiming for the lock, kicked open the door with all his strength.
The kitchen was dark. He ran through it towards the lights. Down the passage, left turn, to what he assumed was the living room. Television noise. He ran in, assegai in hand. Living room, couch, chairs, a sitcom?s canned noise. Nobody. He spun around, spotted movement in the passage. The man was there, frozen in the light of a doorway, mouth half agape.
For a moment they stood facing each other at opposite ends of the passage and then the prey moved away and he attacked. The alarm must be in the bedroom. He had to stop him. The door swung shut. He dropped his shoulder, six, five, four paces, the door slammed, three, two, one, the snick of a key turning in the lock and he hit the door with a noise like a cannon shot, pain racking his body.
The door withstood him.
He was not going to make it. He stepped back, preparing to kick the door in, but it would be too late. Pretorius was going to activate the alarm.
?The picture in my head, Doc . . . It?s like she?s hanging from a cliff and clinging to life. As he strangles her, as the strength drains out of her, she feels her grip loosen. She knows she must not fall, she doesn?t want to, she wants to live, she wants to climb to the top, but he squeezes the life out of her and she begins to slip. There is a terrible fear, because of the dark below; it?s either black or red or brown down below and she just can?t hold on anymore and she falls.?
He felt a moment of panic: the locked door, the sharp pain in his shoulder, knowledge that the alarm would sound. But he drew a deep breath, made his choices and kicked the door with his heel. Adrenaline coursed thickly. Wood splintered. The door was open now. The alarm began to wail somewhere in the roof. Pretorius was at the wardrobe, reaching up, feeling for a weapon. He bumped him against the cupboard, the tall, lean figure, bespectacled with a sloppy fringe. He fell. Thobela was on him, knee to chest and assegai against his throat.
?I am here for the children,? he said loudly over the racket of the alarm, calm now.
Eyes blinked at the assegai. There was no fear. Something else. Expectation. A certain fatalism.
?Yes,? said Pretorius.
He jammed the long blade through the man?s breastbone.
?It?s when they fall that they scream. Death is down there and life is up here and the scream comes up, it always comes up to the top, it stays here. It moves fast, looks like a . . . like water you throw out of a bucket. That is all that is left. It is full of horrible terror. And loss . . .?
Griessel was quiet for a while; when he continued, it was in a quieter voice. ?The thing that scares me most is that I know it?s not real, Doc. If I rationalize it, I know it?s my imagination. But where does it come from? Why does my head do this? Why is the scream so shrill and clear and so loud? And so bloody despairing? I am not crazy. Not really?I mean, isn?t there a saying that if you know you are a little bit mad you are okay, because the really insane have no idea?
Barkhuizen chuckled. It caught Griessel by surprise, but it was a sympathetic chuckle and he grinned back.
He sprinted through the house as the alarm wailed monotonously. Out the back door, around the corner of the house to the lighted street. He swerved right. He could see the park over the way, the security of the dark and the shadows. He felt a thousand eyes on him. Legs pumped rhythmically, breath raced; instinctively he pulled his head into his shoulders and tensed his back muscles for the bullet that would come, his ears pricked for a shout or the noise of the patrol car as his feet pounded on the tar.
When he reached the shrubbery, he slackened his pace as his night vision was spoiled by the streetlights. He had to plot his course carefully and not fall over anything. He could not afford a twist or sprain.
?You know where it really comes from,? said Barkhuizen.
?Doc??
