Betrayed (13 page)

A cheery woman asked us to follow her to the assessment room. And so
the questions began. What drugs was Tracey using? How long had she bee
n using? Did she want to be here or was someone forcing her into rehab?

“I made the call myself. I want to be drug-free but I don't know how to do it alone,” Tracey replied.

“That's what we like to hear. Treatment for addiction isn't something some
one does to you. It's something you do for yourself,” said the counsellor.
“Even the best rehab programme won't succeed if you aren't honest, open and willing.”

Then she laid out the rules in detail. No visitors for the first five days; after
that, no visitors unless they were on the approved guest list. No cell phones
allowed. All patients were expected to attend church services every day. Regular drug testing would be carried out and if Tracey failed any test, she
would be asked to leave the clinic. She would also be asked to leave if she
associated with another patient who was guilty of bringing in drugs, even if she was innocent of using.

Drug-seeking behaviour and cravings during recovery were a reality,
and patients would sometimes go to any lengths to secure a fix. Old drug
“friends” and ruthless drug lords would also do anything to “help out”, even
if it meant targeting patients in recovery. As a precaution, sniffer dogs were used to check that no one brought drugs into the clinic – yet still patients
tried to smuggle the stuff in. Given the clinic's zero tolerance policy, they
were always removed if they were caught.

“Do you understand all these conditions?” asked the counsellor.

“Yes,” Tracey nodded.

“And do you agree to abide by the terms and conditions?”

“Yes.”

Her resolve was strong. She wanted her family and her life back, drug
free. Fortunately – well, fortunately when you considered some of the alternatives – she had stuck to dagga and Ecstasy, so her stay would be only a month. Those who dabbled in the hard core world of heroin or crystal meth needed to stay longer to beat their addictions.

“Our doctors, nurses, social workers, psychologists and pastoral coun
sellors will be working with you on a physical, emotional, social, as well as
spiritual level,” the woman explained. “Although detoxification is an important part of the treatment, it's far from the whole solution.”

While Tracey went off to have her bags searched by the security staff and
to have drug tests, the counsellor explained to me that the clinic followed a holistic approach to empower people to function free of all drugs, and help them reclaim their lives again.

“To recover fully, she needs knowledge and insight into her addiction prob
lem. She needs skills to cope with the demands of everyday living – espe
cially when she's tempted. She also needs motivation and perseverance
to gain inner peace and reconciliation. There's a lot of hard work ahead for her and for us before she's ready to leave here.”

Tracey's drug tests confirmed what she had said she had used; no sign of
any other drugs showed up in the testing. Her honesty about this was a good
start. The counsellor gave me a list of items that Tracey would need from home and then it was time to say goodbye. I hugged my daughter to me
as hard as I could.

“I love you more than I can tell you, Trace,” I told her. “And I'm so proud
of you for taking this step towards beating your addiction.”

“Bye, Mom,” she whispered.

I could feel her eyes burning into my back as I walked away, leaving her alone in this strange environment. I saw her briefly again that evening when I dropped off the things she needed for her stay.

“I was put in with someone who was here against her will, so I asked them
to move me,” she said. “I'm trying to be positive and I don't want negative
feelings from people around me.”

“Good for you, stay positive and you can beat this,” I replied.

Then there were five days in which we could have no contact. I had no idea what Tracey was going through in her therapy, but I could only hope that she was sticking to her resolve. On the sixth day, it was a relief to see her still feeling positive and happy about her future, still committed to her
rehab. She had made friends in her short time there and been nominated as a monitor, whose job was to make sure that patients attended church and therapy sessions, and to report to the staff if any patient was depressed or not coping with withdrawal symptoms. She was also on the patients com
mittee, which was supposed to suggest improvements to the clinic from a
patient's point of view, to be involved in discussions about complaints re
garding food and living conditions, and to organise free-time sporting ac
tivities – something Tracey particularly enjoyed.

The biggest problem for all the patients was boredom. Group and indi
vidual therapy sessions, as well as church services, filled up part of the day but there was still a lot of free time to fill. Tracey did her best to keep herself
busy, running laps around the perimeter of the clinic every day, playing
vol
leyball, table tennis and pool. But it was no luxury holiday on the French
Riviera. She and her new friend Shaz admitted to fighting some very hard
mental battles every day. Shaz missed her children desperately and confessed that she didn't know how she would have survived without Tracey.

“I've been very depressed, I was even talking about suicide,” she said.
“Tracey tried to talk to me but I wouldn't listen. I was sitting there feeling sorry
for myself when she came running in and begged me to come quickly. She wouldn't tell me what the problem was. She just said she was going to be in
serious trouble. Then she took my hand and dragged me down to the gym.”

Shaz saw that the punching bag was split, the stuffing all over the floor. There was also a big dent in a steel door.

“What the hell happened?” she asked.

“I was so angry with you because you wouldn't listen to me that I punch
ed the door. Then I took my frustration out on the punching bag and it broke.”

As Shaz recounted this story, they both giggled, bonded together by the memory.

Tracey's fieriness also showed itself in the mystery of the mauve rose. She had been sitting in the garden admiring this rose. Later that day she found it on her pillow and was upset that it had been picked because she wanted
everyone to be able to see its beauty and smell its perfume. She stormed
through the dorms, demanding who had put it there, but no one would
admit to it.

“I know who it was,” Shaz told me, “but he was too scared to confess. He didn't realise Tracey would be so angry; he meant to make her happy. He
said he was afraid of the temper of a girl who could do push-ups on her
knuckles on a cement floor!”

After nearly three weeks, Tracey's weekend release was a few days away.
The weekend at home was intended to see whether she could resist temptation without the structure of rehab. The idea was that if she felt tempted,
or if something emerged as a “trigger” that would set her off, she still had
a week to confront these issues and talk them through with a therapist. Es
sentially, it was a test of her resolve to stay “clean” in the real world. It also gave us as her family a chance to learn what to expect, to understand her
triggers. And it gave us a chance to reconnect with the real Tracey, who
had been lost to us for too long.

Although she was looking forward to sleeping in her own bed, she was
apprehensive about whether she was strong enough to avoid falling back into her bad ways.

“I know I don't want to go back on to the drugs, but I don't know if I'm ready to come home,” she said.

It wasn't surprising that she was so uneasy. She had heard that one of the patients, who had recently been given a pass after his brother had been
murdered, had fallen back into taking drugs within hours of leaving the
clinic.

“Why don't you talk to your therapist about it?” I suggested. “Put your
fears in trained hands and they can help you. I'm proud of you, you know. And I love you very much.”

Friday arrived and all her fears and doubts were gone. She had confided her fears to her therapist and now her resolve to kick the habit and get back on track was stronger than ever. She spent most of the weekend quietly at home, walking around the garden with me, or alone in her room. On the Saturday night she went out with friends.

“I promise I'll stay away from drugs and alcohol,” she assured us. “Shoot, I k
now that first thing on Monday morning they're going to test me before t
hey let me back in, so I don't want to mess it up.”

Monday morning all her tests were negative. The final week seemed to
pass in a flash and then Tracey was home for good. Now that rehab was
over, it was as if an unspoken taboo had been lifted from her, and she started to open up about what had gone before.

“I'm sorry for all the heartache I caused in the past,” she told me one
evening as we sat together on my bed. “You know, if you hadn't thrown me out, I think I'd probably have landed up dead of an overdose. Or maybe a prostitute at the Durban docks. Thank you for loving me enough to stand by me.”

I was taken aback that she was accepting my harsh treatment of her, my
“tough love”, with thanks and appreciation. If this was what rehab had
done to open her eyes, I was immensely grateful.

“I love you, Mom. And now I want to tell you something, but you have to promise not to talk to anyone else about it. OK?”

“OK.” My heart beat more quickly, not knowing what to expect.

“You know, part of the treatment in rehab is to confront your fears and let
go of any grudges or bad feelings towards other people. It's hard, really,
really hard, to look some things in the face and stare them down, but I had to do it.”

She was silent for a moment, tucking a wisp of hair behind her ear, look
ing away from me as if to gather courage for what she had to say next.

“When I was thirteen, I was raped.”

“Oh God,” I breathed. “Why have you taken ten years to tell me?”

“I think I was ashamed. I didn't know how to tell anyone. And I didn't want
to cause problems.”

“What happened?”

She filled me in on some of the details, which were very hard to hear, even
all this time later; maybe even harder because it was so far away in the past
and I hadn't known anything about it, hadn't had the chance to take action
or even to help and support my daughter.

“Who did this to you?”

“I'm not going to tell you that. But I will tell you it was someone I loved and
trusted. I think maybe that was one of the hardest things to accept.”

I tried to argue, to get more information, but she stood firm. I was dumbfounded. How could my young daughter have gone through this, yet not one other member of her family had known about it? Not even her brother,
and she told him everything. Horror, fear and guilt engulfed me. There was
a sour, metallic taste in my mouth.

“What do you want me to do? Do you want to pursue it? Open a rape
case?” I tried to keep my voice even, my tone gentle.

“No. I don't want you to do anything. I've forgiven him and I'm only telling
you because . . . I don't know, I suppose I feel I owe you the truth of what happened all those years ago.” She put her hand on mine. “Please don't
make waves, Mom. I've made peace with the past and now I just want to look to the future.”

I swallowed. “Can I at least tell Dad?”

“Yes, but promise that you won't let him take the matter any further. I
don't want either of you to do anything.”

She smiled at me and I realised, perhaps fully for the first time, just how
much she had hidden from her family and friends. Here was another reason
why she had felt she had to drug herself, so that the pain wouldn't be so
bad. Her smile was always ready and available for everyone, but it hid so
many insecurities and fears and heartaches just under the surface. Things no young girl should have to face, and especially not alone.

It was Sunday, 26 June 2005. I had no idea what to expect from our
meeting with the private investigator, but I held fast to my hope that
we would get some answers about what had happened the night
Tracey died. My friend Carolyn came round to the house for coffee
and we were saying goodbye when an ominous-looking black Jeep
Cherokee pulled into the driveway.

Two men got out and started to walk towards us. They were Mutt and Jeff. One round-faced and overweight, with short grey hair cut in a military style. He was wearing denims, a blue paisley-patterned shirt and a black leather jacket. The other shorter and a lot skinnier,
with hunched shoulders and sharply drawn features. He wore black-
rimmed glasses and looked in need of a shave. These were far from
the suave PIs of countless TV shows. With their stern don't-mess-
with-me expressions and hard, weatherworn faces, they would have
looked at home strolling the streets of Johannesburg by night, in
pursuit of nefarious activities.

“I'm out of here,” laughed Carolyn. “I wouldn't like to meet those
two in a dark alley and I certainly don't want to get on the wrong side
of them now!”

The two PIs introduced themselves as Connor and Williams and
we went to the kitchen to talk. Within moments, Buddy and I were
enduring a barrage of questions fired as if from a machine gun. They
interrogated us as if we were suspects in my daughter's murder, at
tacking Buddy and shooting question after unmerciful question at
him, regardless of his rising fury and frustration. When did you last see her? What did you do to find her? Were you close? Did you have
a fight? Was she working? Where did she work? Were you angry wit
h her? When did you contact the police? Did you speak to her friends?
Who else did you speak to? Did you throw her out the house? Who
found her? Where? Did she drink? Was she in a relationship? Was she
a drug addict? Who identified her? What were you doing the night she disappeared? Did the police question you?

Then with no warning, their tone changed.

“Sorry about that,” said Connor with a small wave of his hand. “Yo
u see, most murders are committed by people the victim knows, so we were just trying to establish what type of relationship you had with your daughter.”

I half expected Buddy to throw them out of the house, but he swal
lowed his indignation and said he was prepared to listen to what they
had to say. They told us a little of what would be involved if they were
to start an investigation, then they outlined what the costs would be.

“OK, so now you know more or less what you're in for,” Connor
concluded. “You need to think about it and discuss it together before
you decide whether to hire us or not. Just don't take too long to make
up your minds. Three months have already gone by since the murder
and that's a long time.”

After the third-degree Buddy had been put through, I didn't expect
him to be keen to hire Connor, but the straight talk, no-holds-barred approach seemed to give him faith that here was someone with the
strength of character to fight for our daughter. By that evening we had made our decision. I phoned the PI to tell him we would appre
ciate his help and to get his bank details. I wanted to transfer money so that he could get the show on the road.

“No, don't worry. Plenty time for that,” he said. “My agents will go
out straightaway tomorrow to start snooping around to see what they
can find.”

For the first time I felt a bit more optimistic about getting the answers
we so badly needed. My biggest regret was that we had waited so
long to take this leap. Three months had passed, and with hindsight it now appeared that Tracey's murder had been virtually a cold case from day one.

Monday morning bright and early I got the first phone call from
Connor. Keen to get cracking on this case, he wanted us to go with
him to show him various places of importance. He also came around that evening and we spent a long time on the computer plotting the
positions of the cottage, the car and where Tracey's body had been
found, going over and over the facts as we knew them. It didn't mat
te
r how often we went through it all, nothing seemed to make any
sense.

These three significant points formed a triangle. When we tried
to figure out what could have happened, something felt wrong. Her
body was discovered on the left-hand side of the road that led from
her cottage to the highway, as if she'd been heading away from home
.
But from the direction the car was facing on the highway when it was
found, it appeared to have been heading back towards the cottage.
Had she been trying to walk home? This didn't make sense to those
of us who her knew her intense terror of the dark. She wouldn't even
get out of her car to open a gate at night; she'd rather sleep in her car
than have to get out in the dark. One of us would always have to wal
k
her to her car and watch her as she drove out of the driveway at home.

Had Tracey run out of petrol and been offered a lift by strangers?
This also didn't make sense to those of us who knew how wary she
was of strangers offering help. Had she been forced out of the vehicl
e and then her body dumped?

Or had something happened to her on the way from the cottage and by the time (we surmised, but didn't know for sure) the car ran
out of petrol on the highway, was someone else driving? Had one of
her housemates been driving from the cottage to the highway with
her when something happened, thrown her body out the car and then
run out of petrol on the way back to the cottage? It was a mystery.

“Do you think it's possible that she died in the cottage and her
housemates set up the murder scene to deflect suspicion?” I asked.

For the first time no one scoffed at me. No policeman told me I'd
been reading too many novels. Instead, Connor weighed my question.

“Well, if drugs were involved it's certainly possible that they might
have dumped her body to save their own skins,” he said.

This awakened a demon in my mind, persecuting me with stark pictures of Tracey unconscious but alive when she was dumped like
a bag of garbage. If a full-on intensive search had been conducted,
could her life have been saved? I tried to kill the demon, ram it down,
down where there was no room to breathe. But it was far too early on my journey of grief and I was helpless.

“Look, there's lots of groundwork to be done,” Connor said, matter
-of-fact. “Taking statements, that sort of thing. So don't expect instant
results. But if we uncover anything important, I'll definitely phone
you. In the meantime, I'm going to contact Captain Kotze to tell him I'm more than willing to help in the investigation and to share any information I find out.”

Having heard our story, Connor had a list of questions he wanted
the police to answer. We had some questions of our own, and he
added these to his list. How had the rope that was around Tracey's
neck gone missing? Why had the investigating officer not visited the
scene of the crime? Why had no evidence been taken for testing, not even her panties, which had been found a short way from her body? Why had no forensics been conducted on her car? How had every
thing I had given Captain Kotze gone missing, including the strange
pendant we had found in her car?

Connor had already seen the police photographs, such as they were
.
It appeared that only two photographs had been taken of Tracey's body and in both of them her face was covered and the rope was hidden. Although this provided no answers about the manner of
her death, it certainly hinted at why Captain Kotze had never taken
them to Dr Kloppers. Two miserable, sub-par photographs were all he
had; he was right to be embarrassed.

I now had two fights on my hands, one with the police and the second
with the doctor from the mortuary. To my way of thinking, neither had done his duty. Both had tried to cover up the truth of their in
competence.

Stuffing my grief down deep, I searched for the right channels for
my complaints. I was still in weekly contact with the labs and with
Dr Kloppers, whose advice and help were invaluable. With Connor's
assistance I was feeling more confident that some of our questions
would be answered. And I was hoping that somehow, in this time of
mayhem and madness, I could find the time to learn how to move
forward in my strange new existence. But life had other plans for
our family.

I arranged for Tracey's housemate Trudy to come to our house for
Connor to interview her. I had to spend some time tracing Wally and
Wilma, the other two housemates, because they had left the cottage
and seemed to have disappeared from the area. I phoned the company
Wilma and Tracey had worked for. Wilma no longer worked there.
I went through Tracey's papers to find a number for either Wilma or
Wally, phoning every number I could find until finally I got lucky and
Wilma answered.

“I just phoned to find out how you're doing,” I fibbed.

“Yes, well, Wally and I are in Cape Town now and planning to get married,” she replied.

I asked to speak to Wally but he refused to come to the phone.
Wilma whispered that if I phoned again, to phone at a certain time
of day when she knew Wally wouldn't be around. I took the hint and
phoned the next day at the time she had suggested.

“The private investigator needs your help with Tracey's murder,” I said.

She reluctantly gave me the street and the suburb they were living
in, but not the street number. I wasn't sure if she was telling me the
truth. Luckily, my friend Carolyn worked for a company that had a branch in Cape Town, and one of the employees lived in the same
suburb. We gave her a description of Wilma and Wally and she prom
ised to scour the street looking for them. Two days later, she gave us the licence plate of a car parked in the drive of people who matched
their description. It was a simple matter to phone the traffic depart
ment and say that the driver of the car had helped me out and I want
ed to express my appreciation. I got the full street address and name
of the registered owner. After six days, a little detective work and a
few small lies, I had confirmation that I found Tracey's housemates.

I told Connor I would meet his expenses for a flight to Cape Town to
interview them. He and his firm's senior management decided that
the company would carry half the cost of the airfare. And that's how,
nearly four months after Tracey's body was found, two of her housemates were interviewed for the first time – not by the police but by a private investigator in the pay of her bereft parents.

As soon as he got back from Cape Town, Connor and his partner
went to the cottage after dark to test the scenario that Wally had
sketched of the events that night. They parked their car in the same
place as Wally said Tracey's car had been parked. One of them re-
enacted her free-wheeling to the gate, opening and relocking the
gate and turning in the road while the other waited in the doorway
where Wally said he had stood to watch her go. They could see no
activity at all. It was way too dark in a semi-rural area where there
were no lights and only a slither of a moon on the night in question. The two investigators repeated this exercise more than once and at
no stage could they see what happened at the gate or in which direc
tion the car moved once it was out of the gate. They proved what
Wally said was impossible.

In fact, there were many contradictions and flaws in the three house
mates' versions of events. Their statements raised serious doubts
about whether Tracey had left the cottage alone or whether one or
more of her friends was with her. It seemed possible that something
had happened at the cottage. A cut nylon rope was found at the cottage
that matched the one we had found in her car, but Connor couldn't
establish whether it was the same as the rope that had been round
her neck because this had disappeared and no photographs had been
taken of it. It also came to light that a black kit bag belonging to
Wally had been in Tracey's car on that fateful night but now appeared
to be missing. The bag contained various items Wally needed for his job as an assistant mechanic, so it was strange that he had never queried the whereabouts of the bag.