He glanced over to me, and I nodded and, half rising, said, ‘Certainly, My Lord.’ I knew immediately where Gawie was heading: he intended to remove Mevrou as a witness if the case seemed to be going against him. He would claim her heart condition forbade her to continue. She was by nature a contrary and unpredictable woman and unlikely to stick to a strict line of enquiry and he didn’t want a rogue female elephant on his hands. Mevrou had always been obese but now she was gargantuan, taking the place of three people on a courtroom bench. She seemed to be permanently breathless and Lieutenant Van Niekerk’s description of her as a beached whale was entirely appropriate. I must say, if appearances counted for anything, then Gawie had a point. I wrote a note to Janine and passed it to her, requesting her to ask Professor Mustafa to be on stand-by to examine Mevrou if Gawie decided to pull this trick.
While all these goings-on seemed to have taken a long time, in fact they occupied less than half an hour. Judge Ludorf announced that I was presenting a private prosecution and that there would be no Crown prosecutor present. ‘You may now outline the case for the prosecution,’ he said, nodding at me.
‘My Lord, Your Honours, at the heart of this case is the question of whether there is a clear motive for the murder of Mattress Malokoane. There has been a great deal of speculation that no such motive exists, that only one of the accused knew the victim, but not, in any sense, very well. Furthermore, in her work capacity she had no direct dealings with him. I intend to present evidence and show clearly that a motive for murder did exist in her mind and that she consequently involved six members of her family in a conspiracy to murder Mattress Malokoane. Thank you, My Lord, Your Honours.’
‘Thank you, Meneer Fitzsaxby,’ the judge said. ‘I now call on the counsel for the defence.’
‘My Lord, Edelagbares,’ Gawie said, nodding at each assessor in turn. ‘The defence intends to demonstrate that my clients are the victims of circumstance and conjecture. My learned friend has already pointed out that this case hinges on one person in particular, Mevrou Van Schalkwyk, who was, at the time of the murder, the matron of The Boys Farm. If, as I intend to prove, she did not instigate the murder of Mattress Malokoane she could not have coerced her six brothers into becoming involved. I intend to show that there exists no case against any of my clients. Thank you, My Lord, Edelagbares.’
It was all pretty predictable stuff: I say she’s guilty, he says she’s not, the opening to pretty well every criminal court case that ever was.
Judge Ludorf turned to me. ‘You may proceed with the prosecution, Meneer Fitzsaxby.’
‘I call Meneer Kobus Vermaak to the witness stand,’ I announced.
Court cases are, out of necessity, tedious and drawn-out procedures and I have already written about much of the evidence I was able to gather, so I won’t go into every small detail and procedure.
Over the next hour I led Pissy as he told the entire story of the incident involving the three of us at the big rock, leading to the intervention of Mattress where he lifted Fonnie du Preez and dashed him against the rock. I then turned to the judge and assessors. ‘My Lord, you will have gathered that I was personally involved in the testimony you have just heard from Meneer Vermaak. I now ask permission to retain the witness while I take the oath myself and enter the witness stand and I respectfully ask that my assistant, Juffrou Janine De Saxe, act temporarily as counsel for the prosecution in order to question me.’
Gawie Grobler leapt to his feet just as I expected he might. ‘Objection, My Lord!’
Judge Ludorf said, ‘State your objection, Meneer Grobler.’
‘My Lord, this testimony hinges on the recall of events given by a seven-year-old child. If it is taken from the original police interview, my learned friend knows that the testimony and evidence provided by a child of this age is not admissible in a court of law. I therefore ask that the prosecution be prevented from appearing as a witness in his own prosecuting procedure.’
Judge Ludorf turned to the two assessors and they spoke with each other for a few moments before he turned back to face the court. ‘You may be technically correct, Meneer Grobler, but my learned colleagues and myself would like to hear the evidence whereupon we will decide whether to strike it from the record or not. Objection overruled.’
I took my place on the witness stand and was sworn in. ‘Meneer Fitzsaxby, can you tell the court what happened immediately after Mattress Malokoane intervened at the big rock and the accident to Fonnie du Preez occurred.’
‘Objection, My Lord, it was not an accident but the result of a deliberate action by Mattress Malokoane.’
‘Objection sustained, Juffrou De Saxe will rephrase the question.’
‘Meneer Fitzsaxby, can you tell the court what happened immediately after the incident when Fonnie du Preez was hurt?’
I then told the court how I’d gone to Frikkie Botha together with Mattress and told him what had happened, of how I had immediately been warned to say nothing or Tinker would be killed, whereupon Frikkie Botha had gone directly to the big rock and instructed us not to follow.
Judge Ludorf turned back to his two assessors and there was a fair bit of nodding going on as they talked quietly. He then turned back. ‘The evidence we have just heard would appear to be pertinent to the case and is not subject to misinterpretation, even by a seven-year-old. It may be included in the record of proceedings.’
I returned Pissy to the witness stand and he told the court that, with Frikkie Botha’s connivance, they’d invented the accident to Fonnie du Preez. He told how they’d evolved the story of how Fonnie stood on the rock urinating and had stepped back, slipping on a loose crust of rock that had caused him to fall and sustain a broken arm and nose and require stitches to the head. Then later, under intense interrogation from Mevrou in the sick room, Pissy had told the truth: that he had been regularly sexually assaulted by Fonnie du Preez, but then he’d lied again and told her that it had been the pig boy who had indecently assaulted him, that the real reason Fonnie had been injured was that he’d decided to ‘teach the kaffir a lesson’ and had come off second-best.
‘Meneer Vermaak, did you have reason to believe that Mevrou Van Schalkwyk believed you when you said the pig boy had sexually assaulted you?’
‘Ja, definitely, I was crying a lot and she started to comfort me and I knew she believed me.’
‘How did she comfort you, in what manner?’
‘She pulled my head into her chest and held me.’
‘Did she say any words to comfort you?’
‘Ja.’
‘Can you tell the court what she said? Can you remember her exact words?’
‘She said, “Shhsh, skattebol . . . that kaffir is already dead, you hear.” ’
There was a sudden uproar in the gallery and Judge Ludorf banged his gavel and demanded silence. During this commotion I glanced at Mevrou who appeared to show no immediate reaction. Or perhaps her enormous size made it difficult for her to move, and her eyes were set so deep within the folds of her cheeks that they appeared as tiny pinpricks of light. When the silence returned, she suddenly pointed an arm the size of a large ham at Pissy. ‘He lies, that one always lies!’ she shouted.
‘The accused will refrain from shouting out in court,’ Judge Ludorf admonished, whereupon he adjourned the proceedings for lunch, announcing that the court would convene again at half past two. It is traditional for opposing barristers to meet before the court opens proceedings in the morning and to also take luncheon together. This is so each side can outline the line of enquiry they’re going to take in the next session. I had arrived at the High Court early so as to engage Gawie in a mutual briefing session prior to convening in the judge’s chambers for a pre-trial run-down. Gawie either deliberately, or because he was running late, arrived just in time to go into Judge Ludorf’s chambers. As we adjourned for luncheon Gawie’s junior, Herman Venter, approached to say Meneer Grobler apologised but would be unable to lunch with me. I explained that I thought it
was important.
‘I regret, but Advocate Grobler is simply not able to attend,’ he insisted.
I should point out that this mutual and fraternal briefing is not mandatory, but I wished to inform him of the existence of the canned-fruit jar. I confess I was annoyed. Gawie had chosen, on several occasions during the lead-up to the trial, to demonstrate an uncooperative and unnecessarily arrogant stance towards me. I had put this down to his playing to the expectations of the people in Duiwelskrans and the Afrikaans press. Rather petulantly, I’m afraid, I turned to Venter. ‘Would you please give a message to my learned friend: tell him he still needs to read the shit squares if he wants to know what’s going on in the world.’
After lunch with Janine, I resumed questioning Pissy. He repeated how he confessed to Mevrou that he’d been sexually assaulted by the pig boy and she had then called the superintendent, Meneer Prinsloo, and consequently Doctor Van Heerden had been called in to examine him. Pissy then told of the subsequent meeting involving himself and Fonnie du Preez, Frikkie Botha, Meneer Prinsloo and Mevrou, where Frikkie had done a backflip and feigned surprise at the news of Mattress sexually assaulting Pissy, pretending to believe this new version of what had happened at the big rock, then how the boxing match had been arranged to teach Mattress Malokoane a lesson before handing him over to the police.
‘Meneer Vermaak, was there any further occasion when you heard Mevrou Van Schalkwyk refer to the death of Mattress Malokoane?’
‘Yes, once.’
‘Can you explain the circumstances to the court?’
‘It was the Sunday, a week after the murder, and I had a bad cold so Mevrou said I must stay in the sick room. I was asleep and she made me wake up and she switched on the light. I could see she was very drunk and you could smell the brandy on her breath. She held up this canned-fruit jar.’
Pissy then explained what had happened when the drunken Mevrou had shown him the jar containing the sexual organs. He finished with Mevrou’s final words: ‘ “Kobus, lissen to me, I want you to hold it so you know an Afrikaner child is always safe from a dirty kaffir’s black piel. Here, take it, hold it against your heart so you’ll never forget! Then I’ll keep it forever for you. It’s our little keepsake.” ’
‘My Lord, I have no more questions for this witness.’
Judge Ludorf turned to Gawie. ‘Meneer Grobler, do you wish to cross-examine this witness?’
Gawie came to his feet. ‘Yes, thank you, My Lord.’ He turned to Pissy. ‘Meneer Vermaak, we have heard in your testimony how you lied about the accident to Fonnie du Preez on the big rock, how “ostensibly” you told Mevrou Van Schalkwyk the truth that Fonnie du Preez had sexually assaulted you, then you withdrew this claim and told her that you had been sexually assaulted by Mattress Malokoane. Now you say Mevrou Van Schalkwyk believed your latest lie and threatened to kill, or cause to be killed, Bantu Malokoane.’ Gawie paused, milking the moment. ‘Tell me, Meneer Vermaak, which of your lies are truths and which of your truths are lies?’
Pissy, not intimidated by Gawie, replied, ‘I already told you, man.’
‘So do you expect us to believe the last lie you told?’
‘You mean the one about the pig boy sexually assaulting me? No, man, that was a definite lie.’ I have already remarked on Pissy Vermaak’s mental acuity, he was not going to let my learned friend get the better of him.
‘Meneer Vermaak, I now ask you, is not this ludicrous story of a mythical canned-fruit jar yet another fabrication, a figment of your overheated imagination?’
Pissy smiled. ‘Ja, I admit, with me it’s hard sometimes to tell what is the truth. But with a thing like a canned-fruit jar with somebody’s private parts floating around, that’s not something even a person like me can just go and invent all of a sudden, out of the blue.’
‘My Lord, I have no more questions for this witness,’ Gawie said.
‘Thank you, Meneer Vermaak, you may step down,’ the judge ordered.
‘I now call Doctor Van Heerden to the witness stand.’
Doctor Van Heerden told of examining Pissy and discovering severe bruising. I asked Janine De Saxe to hand me an envelope.
‘Doctor, will you examine the contents of the envelope, please.’
Doctor Van Heerden removed four small yellowed and cracked photographs. ‘Are these the photographs you took of the bruises sustained around the anus of Kobus Vermaak?’
Doctor Van Heerden looked at the photographs. ‘Good Lord, these are meaningless, I simply have no idea.’
‘Doctor, if you turn them around you will see that you signed and dated them four days before, or depending on the time the alleged murder took place, five days before the murder.’
Doctor Van Heerden turned each of the photographs over. ‘Yes, that is my signature,’ he confirmed.
‘I tender these photographs to the court as evidence,’ I said, handing the envelope to the clerk. ‘Doctor, did you operate on the jaw of Meneer Frikkie Botha on the Saturday two days after you examined Kobus Vermaak?’
‘Yes, he was brought into hospital with a broken jaw sustained in a boxing match at The Boys Farm. I wired his jaw and kept him in hospital that Sunday night and released him on the afternoon of the Monday.’
‘That was on the Monday afternoon of the morning the body of the murdered man was discovered?’
‘Yes.’
Gawie then cross-examined the doctor. ‘Doctor Van Heerden, when you discovered Meneer Vermaak’s bruising, did you ask how it happened?’
‘I was well aware of how it might have come about, Meneer Grobler. I simply took the photographs and asked that the superintendent report the matter to the police.’
‘And you were not curious as to who the perpetrator might have been?’
‘I asked at the time, but the superintendent was non-committal. The Boys Farm tended to be a law unto itself. The photographs I signed later when Sergeant Van Niekerk brought them to me at my surgery.’
‘And the superintendent didn’t volunteer who he thought might be responsible?’
‘No, he didn’t.’
‘And you didn’t find that unusual?’
‘No, as I mentioned before, Meneer Prinsloo, the superintendent, was a man who kept things close to his chest.’
‘Thank you, I have no more questions for this witness, My Lord.’
The next witness I called was Fonnie du Preez. Fonnie du Preez worked as a bouncer at the Lonely Hunter and Pissy had persuaded him to be a witness for the prosecution. Quite how he had done this I can’t say, but he’d told me Fonnie had taken one hiding too many in the ring and he was looking after him. ‘Ag, what can you do, Tom, we go back a long way, man, even if it is the backside we go back to.’
‘Meneer Du Preez, will you tell me why you were sent from The Boys Farm to the reformatory?’
‘It was for misbehaviour, Sir.’ Fonnie spoke slowly, his speech was slightly impaired.
‘Misbehaviour. Was it sexual misbehaviour?’
‘Ja.’
‘Can you be more explicit?’
‘Explis—? I don’t know what means that word.’
‘Can you tell me who you sexually misbehaved with?’
‘Pissy . . . Kobus Vermaak.’
‘Will you tell the court what form this misbehaviour took?’
‘Lots of things.’
‘Come now, Meneer Du Preez, I am led to believe that as an adult you are not inexperienced in homosexual matters. What precisely did you do to Kobus Vermaak?’
‘I pissed on him and he sucked me off.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Ja, nee, also the other.’
‘The other. Did you sexually penetrate him?’
‘Ja, that.’
‘How many times would you say this penetration took place?’
Fonnie frowned. ‘I don’t know, man. Lots of times. Pissy said he liked it.’
Fonnie then verified the true story of what had happened between us all at the big rock, gra
phically recounting the incident. He then verified the meeting where it was decided that Frikkie Botha would fight Mattress. While he was fairly slow-witted, he was a good witness, backing up what Pissy had maintained. Gawie declined to cross-examine.
The time had come to call Lieutenant Van Niekerk to the stand.
‘Lieutenant Van Niekerk, were you the investigating officer involved with the murder of Mattress Malokoane?’ I asked.
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘Did you do this investigation on your own?’
‘Yes, Sir, the town only has one white police officer. I must do everything.’
‘Would this be true if Meneer Malokoane had been a white man?’
‘Excuse me, I don’t understand the question,’ Lieutenant Van Niekerk said, surprised.
‘Are you qualified to do a murder investigation, Lieutenant?’
‘For a non-European, yes, definitely. For a white man, no, I must call Pietersburg or Pretoria.’
‘In the case of a dead man and in the absence of a coroner, would you not be required to call a doctor to establish the cause of death?’
‘Not for a native boy. I would just ask the doctor to issue a death certificate.’
‘Without seeing the body?’
‘Ja, in this case the cause of death . . . a person doesn’t have to be Einstein, you hear? You see, the body must be buried in three days. We do it quick, we don’t have a place to put the body, only the shed at the police station. It was late summer and a body can stink very quickly.’
‘Lieutenant, can you describe the state of the body of the man when you found him?’
‘Ja, he had been dragged behind a vehicle, face down on a dirt road and his face was missing, and all the front of his body, the flesh and skin, was torn and ribs were showing, the bones themselves. Also the knees and the front of the legs and the insteps of the feet, they were worn down to the bones.’
‘So, would you say there was no way of identifying him?’
‘That is correct, but ja, I found a way.’
‘Can you tell the court how you identified the murder victim?’
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