FIRST PLACE – RIETTE DE KOCK! (SHORT STORY COMPETITION 2020)

A massive congratulations to Riette De Kock who wins first place in our 2020 short story competition! Riette took the “Whodunnit” topic and turned it on its head with a unique twist. Riette lives in Hermanus and says she keeps writing stories out of love even though she has never won anything. Well, Riette, your day has come! Here’s her winning story:

“MURDER BY THE BOOK” BY RIETTE DE KOCK

He emerged from rolls of paper, his pages neatly cut, arranged in order, and glued before he was put into a press. When he came out he wore a thick hard cover. After he cooled down a bit, a designer body sleeve was put around the cover. He looked undeniably immaculate, and still smelled like printer’s ink. He was delivered by an overnight courier that morning, after which he was unpacked. He received a sticker on his back and one in his inside cover page, and was placed on a trolley. Next to him sat Passionately Yours Forever, a lusty little dame – a fresh-from-the-press beauty also. She wore a bright red rose patterned body sleeve. She was gorgeous and was shelved in the Chick Lit section.

Perfect Murder was shelved between some well-used neighbours from the Whodunnit genre. Innocently Accused’s body cover was white, with her letters were printed in silver. She was still quite new too, but his neighbour on the other side, Murder at Midnight, was ancient. The librarian moaned that he smelled like dust and mould when she picked him up to make space for Perfect Murder. He looked like he had lost his soft sleeve ages ago – if he had ever had one.

Perfect Murder didn’t stay for long. He was taken from the shelf, late afternoon, by two soft hands while a nose sniffed into his pages, before he was carried back to the counter where his barcode was scanned by the librarian. He was in the two soft hands quickly again and the nose was being pressed inside his pages once more.

“Oh, there’s nothing like the smell of a new book! I couldn’t wait for this one anymore!”

“You’re lucky. You were first on the waiting list and it’s very long!” The librarian had a low, soothing voice.

“They say it may be his last,” the girl replied.

“So they say.” The librarian finished and Perfect Murder found his way into the girl’s bag.

She loved reading him. She took him out of her library bag and smelled his pages every time before she started reading his words. When she had finished a page she tenderly turned it to get to the next one. After a while she would stop, put a thin piece of embroidery thread in where she had stopped reading, close him gently and put him on her bedside table until later, when the whole process would repeat itself.

After the girl read him he was back on his shelf for just a few hours. And so it went on for days and weeks and months.

Theirs was a small town in the Karoo – a desert area nestled in the inner belly of the South African landscape. There weren’t many shops in the small town – only a co-op store with farming goods, a post office, and a café. Apart from the tiny library, there was a school, a church, and a medical practice managed from the doctor’s home. The library was the town’s only lifeline to the literary world.

Months became years and Perfect Murder’s popularity only slightly declined. There weren’t so many readers in and around town, but theirs was the only library in a big radius and people from other towns loaned books too, which were taken to them by the postmaster in his bakkie.

Perfect Murder travelled extensively in the area. He rode in trucks, lorries, bakkies and cars and even on donkey carts and in little baskets mounted on bicycles. He was sometimes forgotten in places, found, and taken out by the same people more than once.

He eventually started looking used too and he got his body sleeve torn, which the librarian mended caringly. After another few years his body sleeve was so worn out that she fixed him with self-adhesive plastic. A thicker plastic cover was added a few years later.

Some people kept bookmarks, photos, invoices, and leaves in between his pages when they read him, while others just folded back a little corner of a page to keep their place. Sometimes bookmarks were forgotten inside his pages and then taken out by the librarian for safekeeping for when the owners would come into the library again.

The little folds made wrinkles on his pages and once a fold was made, the wrinkle stayed there forever. On a sunny summer afternoon he was taken out by an elderly woman. She left Perfect Murder open on the table while she and her friend sipped their tea. They were talking about age and life, and the visitor complained about all her wrinkles.

“Oh, dear,” the woman who was reading him said, “wrinkles are wonderful things! They are memories of our life experiences.” She giggled like a little girl. “The two of us look like well-read books – just like this wonderful old fellow here!” And she wiped her hand lovingly over Perfect Murder’s open pages. So Perfect Murder had become a well-read book, with lots of wrinkles in his pages as witnesses to his experiences.

On another hot day the postmaster took him out. He grabbed him impatiently from the librarian’s hands and hurried to his bakkie, with Perfect Murder clutched under his sweaty armpit. He was taken out by the postmaster several times after that - as wasn’t out of the ordinary in the small town where the book population was so limited. He was man-handled by the postmaster. He licked his thick fingers before turning pages, and after each reading session he would just throw Perfect Murder onto a table or on the ground where he sat. Sometimes he was brusquely kicked to under the sofa. It was very different from the safety of the library where he was handled by the librarian’s caring hands, or where he was safely sitting on the shelf between Murder at Midnight and Innocently Accused.

The postmaster read certain sections again and again and sometimes recited passages from memory. He made notes on yellow sticky papers and left them on different pages in the book.

It was harder for rain to fall in the Karoo than on most parts of the earth and it was on such a memorable day that Perfect Murder was borrowed again by the postmaster. And it wasn’t just one of those very rare days when it rained - the heavens violently poured big, angry waterfalls down onto the almost impenetrable earth. The sky was thick with dark clouds and huge drops of water torpedoed down onto the library’s tin roof.

That evening the postmaster picked him up from where he was kicked under the sofa, tucked him under his arm, and got into his bakkie. They travelled a while before they stopped. Perfect Murder was left in the dryness of the bakkie while the postmaster climbed out and vanished into the night. But that was apparently accidental because he returned quickly to fetch him. He then entered a house and opened Perfect Murder at the page where the first sticky note was placed.

The librarian was furious with the post man when Perfect Murder was returned a few days later, because his pages showed signs of water damage.

It was early evening a few months later when Perfect Murder found himself in the soft hands of the neighbouring town’s only policeman’s wife. They were sitting on their stoep, sipping wine and watching the beautiful Karoo sunset, when the woman opened Perfect Murder. She looked at her husband guiltily.

“Do you mind, skat? I just want to finish my book. There’s only a few pages left, and I cannot wait to see who did it.”

He shook his head. “Go on. I want to read the paper anyway. Haven’t had time all day, with this murder investigation going on. I tell you, those forensics guys from Pretoria know what they’re doing. I was with them the whole day.” He picked up the paper.

“How is the investigation going?” the wife asked, now more interested in her husband’s story.

“There aren’t many leads. No real suspects either. There wasn’t forced entry and because it rained, no one sat outside, so no one saw anyone coming or going. And the rain covered all the footprints too. We hope that the forensic investigation will give us some clues now.”

There were a few silent moments, before the wife groaned. “Oh no! I hate it when this happens! I wonder if Grieta at the library knows that this book’s last page had been torn?”

“Hmm...?” The policeman responded, uninterested, and didn’t bother to look up from his newspaper.

“What kind of a person tears out the last page of a book!” She clicked her tongue. “And look here… there are fingerprints all over the back inside cover.”

She looked closer and frowned.

“Oh, my! It almost looks like dried blood…”

Suddenly the woman had her husband’s full attention. “What?”

The policeman took Perfect Murder in his hands and looked closely. Then he erupted in excitement. “Skattebol, I think you might have solved my murder case!”

Perfect Murder was put into a plastic bag by the policeman. The next morning he was taken back to the library, but not to be returned. Instead, the policeman inquired of the librarian who had taken the book out at the time of the murder.

From the library, Perfect Murder rode on the leather seat of the police van, still sealed in the plastic evidence bag. At the police station he was handed over to another man who opened the bag and took him out. For the first time in his life, Perfect Murder was handled by gloved hands. All kinds of powders were wiped onto his pages and dusted off again. His pages were looked at through magnifying glasses and photographs were taken of some – especially the last torn one.

“Silence in the court!’

It was a typical dry Karoo day when the policeman entered the court with the in-chains postmaster.

“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?”

There was a lot of talking for a long time by different people. Perfect Murder was lying on a table, a hand slightly tapping on his cover.

“Your honour, I loved Mathilda Lochner. I wanted to marry her. I would never kill her! I wasn’t even there that night.” The postmaster pleaded.

Another voice argued. “But Mathilda loved another man. She told you that she was going to marry him. And you decided that if you couldn’t get her, he wouldn’t either!”

“That’s not true! I didn’t do it! You won’t find any evidence against me anyway!”

The man, to whom the other voice belonged, picked up Perfect Murder and walked towards the witness stand. “Wrong response, Mr Reitz. You almost committed the perfect murder, but unfortunately for you, perfect murders are only found in fiction.” He picked Perfect Murder up and waved him in front of the accused’s face.

He lifted the book into the air for everyone to see. “Exhibit A, your honour. The suspect’s blood and fingerprints were found on the last pages of this book. It matches the fingerprints and blood on the piece of paper that was found under the sofa in Miss Lochner’s sitting room.”

The man put Perfect Murder down on the witness stand before the postmaster to see. His index finger pointed to the book.

“It was murder by the book, Mr Reitz, but unfortunately your partner-in-crime gave you away.”

WELL DONE, RIETTE!

KREST Publishers is a reputable independent small press publisher based in sunny Durban, South Africa. Visit the KREST online bookstore for the best book prices on new and used copies of your next read! Want to publish your own book instead? Submit your manuscript to us for consideration – we don’t bite!

Our personal best

KREST Publishers