Inside the house where Reeva had no place to hide

The Oscar Pistorius murder trial introduced millions to the home where the events of Valentine's Day 2013 unfolded.

Oscar Pistorius's bedroom is much smaller than you would imagine. Maybe it is because the double bed he once shared with Reeva Steenkamp is gone. So are the flat-screen TV and hi-fi system, bedside tables and glass cabinet with expensive sunglasses from his sponsors.

No one has lived here since that day her life ended prematurely and his world came crashing down.

"Man. Superman. Gunman" screamed the cover of Time magazine. A hero to millions who fell from grace faster than ... yes, a speeding bullet.

Everyone has an opinion on the case. But the one person who matters, Judge Thokozile Masipa, has never been here.

What would she be thinking standing here, we wonder.

We are inside the world's most talked about crime scene. The new owner of the house at 286 Bushwillow Street in the Silver Woods Country Estate in Pretoria is mining consultant Louwtjie Louwrens. He agreed to give us access.

A contractor still has to fix parts of the home before Louwrens and his family move in some time next year.

Louwrens says he has no issue about living in a house where someone was killed.

At R4.5-million, he says, he snapped up a "bargain".

Silver Woods is the kind of safe, secure, secluded version of suburbia that thousands of South Africans have opted for over the past 20 years. A refuge from the outside world, good for raising children and for Sunday afternoon braais.

It is just us, photographer Waldo Swiegers and a domestic worker in the house this afternoon. The helper made herself scarce when we arrived.

As we slowly walk down the passage leading to the bathroom, left shoulders leaning against the built-in closets, it is hard not to imagine what Pistorius was thinking when he made this same approach that fateful morning.

It is quite dim in this passage, even at 4pm. Then, at the end of the passage - which in reality is much shorter and narrower than it seems in photographs - a sharp turn right and we are in the bathroom.

You cannot see the toilet immediately because a wall on the right obscures the view. Take three small steps forward and there it is - that toilet cubicle.

Most of us have seen the bloody scene in police photographs, but now the cubicle is immaculately clean. The four yellow police markers against the wall where the bullets struck, marked A to D, are the only giveaway that something terrible happened here.

This is where Reeva died. This is where Reeva (it feels too impersonal to refer to her as Steenkamp) spent her final few moments. She was a daughter. A sister. A friend. A girlfriend. She starred in red carpet events and reality shows at exotic locations. And it ended inside this cubicle?

A can of Glade Aerosol Violet and Ylang Ylang stands on the toilet bowl, left behind by cleaners who spent days washing off the bloodstains. The only object that remains of when Pistorius lived here is a small pot with fake, white roses on the edge of the bathtub.

We take turns to kneel down on the spot where Pistorius, without his prosthetic legs, fired those shots into the cubicle. We imagine the evidence in court: Bang ... bang bang bang. Even though an exact replica of the cubicle was constructed inside the courtroom, it is when you kneel down here and look at the small cubicle that reality hits you: Reeva had nowhere, absolutely nowhere, to hide.

And, no, a new toilet door has not been put in yet.

We hear Swiegers take a call on his cellphone from the bedroom. From the bathroom, we can hear his every word. It is hard to imagine that Reeva and Pistorius would not have heard each other speak, even whisper, in the dead of the night then.

We return to the bedroom, our minds going back to what Pistorius told the court.

He spoke to Reeva when he woke up. She was already awake. She asked him: "Baba, can't you sleep?" He got up to move the fans from the balcony. Heard a noise from the bathroom. Grabbed his gun. Walked, cautiously, towards the sound. He shouted at the supposed intruder and called on Reeva to phone the police. He was startled by a noise from the toilet. He fired. Ran back to his bed.

Then, says Pistorius, it dawned on him that Reeva was not there - and it may have been her in the toilet.

Standing here, inside the bedroom, it is understandable why seasoned cops refuse to believe that version.

The bedroom is not big and the entire four-bedroom house is more of a "start-up mansion" than the palatial fortress it has been described as.

We leave the bathroom and head out of the main bedroom, ignoring the marks on the door (did someone kick it in a moment of anger?) and make our way to the stairs.

Here he carried Reeva's lifeless body down the 17 steps before putting her down. It is here where Dr Johan Stipp, a star witness for the state, tried in vain to help her.

In the kitchen we find a funeral notice for a Len Bekker and the invitation to the wedding of a Pistorius cousin, Nollie, on March 9 2013.

A Car magazine from December 2012 lies on the table where he and Reeva had their last supper, chicken stir-fry, on the evening before Valentine's Day.

Back outside, the houses of the immediate neighbours are much closer than we thought they would be. So close, in fact, that you can easily have a conversation with them from the balcony. It is some of these neighbours who testified that they did not hear the gunshots or a woman scream.

We feel a sense of relief when we leave and see children riding their bicycles in the street out front.

Their's are the only screams you can hear on Bushwillow Street these days ... and they are not the bloodcurdling type.

Watch our exclusive video retracing Pistorius's steps on timeslive.co.za

swartw@sundaytimes.co.za

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