Dead at Daybreak

∨ Dead at Daybreak ∧

42

It was one thing to leaf through the dossiers of twenty years ago and to stare in aversion at black-and-white photographs of forgotten murders. It was very different being the first on the scene, experiencing death in full color and with all your senses, the odors of blood, of bodily excretions, of death itself – that strange, loathsome sweetish odor of human flesh beginning to decay.

The visual impact of murder: the gaping, bloodred cave of the slashed throat, the multicolored mixture of entrails where a shotgun had wrought devastation, the huge rose of the exit wound made by an AK’s 7.62^mm round, the staring, dull eyes, the impossible angles at which limbs are aligned to the body, the bits of tissue against the wall, the sticky, reddish brown pool of coagulating blood, the pallor of a decomposing body among autumn leaves and green grass, in contrast with the diners at the feast, the dark insects that show up so dramatically against the pale background.

During the first weeks and months at Murder and Robbery, I often thought about the psychological implications of the work.

My daily task distressed me. It gave me nightmares and kept me awake, or woke me in the small hours of the morning. It made me drink and swear and blunted me on my stumbling path to find ways to cope with it all, become accustomed to it.

It was a permanent state of post-traumatic stress syndrome, a never-ending attack, a constant reminder that we are dust, that we are infinitesimal, that we are nothing at all.

The murder scenes were only part of it.

We worked with the scum of the earth, day in and day out, every day and every night. The trash and the debris, the crazy and the greedy, the hotheaded and the callous, the morally weak, a never-ending exposure to evil.

We worked long, impossible hours against a constant stream of criticism from the media, the public, and the politicians, at a time of great political change in an area where the differences between a white First World population and a deprived black Third World were incessantly fanned by the flames of baser instincts. We were undermanned, underpaid, and overworked.

I thought deeply (and still wonder) about the standards set for the police, about the finger-wagging accusations from every corner of the country, about corruption, malpractice, apathy, slow reactions, and irregular results.

But I was mostly worried about my own coping mechanisms. I discovered an aggression in myself that I hadn’t known existed. I researched the anesthetic, healing power of alcohol, the result of social withdrawal and a life of limited, superficial thought – and I found a refuge in the safe arms of the brotherhood of the police.

I changed, became a new person and justified it all by fighting the good fight, by using every moment to hunt evil. It was my passion; it was a passion we all shared, the reason for our existence.

And around me I saw the coping mechanisms of others – and the burned-out human wrecks of some of our colleagues fallen by the wayside.

But I survived to face my fate. Willem Nagel and I.