Durban

50

I took the boys for a run on the beach. It was our Saturday morning ritual.

They irritated me from the first step. They were either running too fast or too slow and they kept getting under my feet. I had to check my stride more than once and they were joking and chattering away like monkeys, as usual. After enduring this for some time I snapped at them.

‘Cut it out!’

They ran on in single file from then on, but cast reproachful glances over their shoulders at me.

Afterwards we had a shower at the municipal swimming pool and went to the shopping centre for breakfast. I felt removed from the conversation around the breakfast table and stood frustrated in the queue at the bank.

I moped around the house the rest of the day until my wife had had enough.

‘Why don’t you go and play tennis with your friends?’ Liesl suggested.

‘I don’t know where we’re supposed to be playing,’ I said.

Liesl picked up the phone and said, ‘I’ll find out.’

The game was at Colin Steyn’s. Months earlier when the game had been at my house, he had said, ‘He is as good as dead.’ That day felt a lifetime removed. I did not want to field a thousand questions about how the case was going and fell asleep in front of the television instead. The boys tiptoed in and out of the room from time to time to see if they could interest me in some game in the backyard, but I pretended to be asleep. Eventually I had to get out of the house. I was depressing everybody.

I found them still on the court at Colin’s house. They were playing with their usual gusto, rugby players who had come to tennis late, hitting the ball with more power than finesse. I sat under the shade of the pergola and waited for the tea to arrive. Colin’s teenage sons were wrestling with their dogs. It was a happy scene, the sounds of birds mixing with the drone of suburban traffic in the background. The shouts of the boys and the heavy breathing of the bull mastiffs were punctuated by the thuds of the tennis balls on the racquets.

I had to get up a few times to fetch balls that had gone over the fence and once I was called upon to settle an argument over a line call. I called the play, as I had seen it, against Colin and his partner. They appealed as soon as I announced my ruling, but I ruled that the appeal was out of time. Play resumed.

My sweaty mates came up from the court as I poured the tea.

‘My, but you look miserable,’ said Colin.

‘I saw you on television,’ said Mark. ‘And you were looking miserable then too.’

I told them about the week’s events in Pretoria.

‘How old did you say your client was?’ Colin asked, keeping an eye on his sons. They were now wrestling each other while the dogs tried playfully to get a bite of a leg or an arm.

‘Eighteen when he first escorted a prisoner, and just over twenty now,’ I answered.

‘It is a disgrace,’ said Colin. ‘They are making normal people do things for which they are not suited or qualified. It is a disgrace, making boys do their dirty work for them.’

‘But haven’t you sentenced some people to death yourself?’ asked Mark.

Colin was quick to admit that. He finished his tea before he launched into a monologue.

‘There is a process of denial involved here, I think. Everyone passes the buck to someone else. I sentence them to death, and say I do it in the name of the law. The Sheriff says he just stands and watches; it is the Hangman who does the killing. Even the State President absolves himself of blame. He simply says the law must take its course; he will not intervene. I bet you the Hangman will also have an excuse.’

He looked at me. ‘Isn’t that so, Johann? What does he say?’

I thought about it for a while. The Hangman had not featured prominently in the trial. ‘I think he would say that it is gravity that kills, not the pushing of the lever.’

‘Well, he may say that or something else like orders from higher up,’ said Colin. ‘But you see, there is a collective denial of responsibility by everyone. The worst part of it is that the public bay for the death penalty but they have no idea of the extensive legal and administrative processes involved. And, of course, there is so much secrecy surrounding the execution process itself that their opinion on the death penalty is the opinion of the uninformed.’

‘I say hang the buggers,’ said Paul, an industrialist who had been suffering regular burglaries and labour problems.

Colin ignored him. The conversation had turned too serious for a tennis afternoon. ‘You are in denial too,’ he said pointing at me with a biscuit.

I didn’t know what he meant. However, he lost no time elaborating on his theory.

‘The legal profession is part of the collective denial surrounding the death penalty. You, me, everyone. We stand mute as the bulk of the death sentence cases are being handled by the most junior advocates, ostensibly at the request of the Court, but in reality because no one else cares enough to ensure that there is a competent defence available to every person accused of a capital crime. And those junior advocates appear without any support system. There is no instructing attorney or an investigator to assist them.’

I opened my mouth to argue that a poor defence is better than no defence at all, but he cut me short. ‘Didn’t you do your share of those cases in your first six years? I know I did. And I can tell you with the benefit of hindsight, I was ignorant, unskilled and a poor excuse for a defence lawyer.’

He was at full speed now. ‘Look,’ he continued, ‘they hanged at least a hundred each year in those years and we just stood and watched. We acquiesced. We’ll be condemned for that one day, mark my words.’

What could I say? He was right, and everyone in the profession knew it. The profession as a whole, as a collective, would carry the shame forever. We were damned both ways. If you participated in a capital trial you were an unmistakable part of the machinery, as much a part of the killing process as the Hangman’s rope. And if you didn’t step forward to defend the hapless soul on trial for his life your decision could equally result in his finding himself on the trapdoors with his feet on the marks and a white hood on his head.

The discussion did nothing to lighten my mood and we eventually turned to our usual chatter about the tennis and where we would play next week. They nominated my court. ‘Then you can tell us all about the outcome of the case,’ they said.

They went back on court and I left after watching for a while. The next Saturday was a long way off.

I went for another run the next morning. A heavy mist had settled over the area, giving it an eerie Wuthering Heights feel. Tall trees became mere stumps as the mist obscured their higher reaches. There was no traffic – it was too early on a long-weekend Sunday for that – and none of the usual birdsong and animal noises associated with a spring morning in the leafy suburb. My running shoes made squelching noises on the oily surface of the road and the humidity quickly wet my hair and glued my running singlet to my back.

As I ran my thoughts wandered in and out of the case in much the same way that I entered and left foggy patches. Various images sprang up in my mind, the gallows chamber in a fog of its own, a car backfiring in the distance sounded like a gunshot. One after the other the crime scenes played in the theatre of my mind like those half-hour serials before the main feature in the matinee shows of my schooldays, except there was no Green Archer, no Zorro to rout the criminal and save the distressed victims. One by one I revisited the cases Wierda and I had been studying.

Halfway across a pedestrian bridge over a railway line – I don’t know why I took the bridge, because the trains were no longer running – a revelation stopped me in my tracks. Wierda and I had been pressing Labuschagne repeatedly to tell us what was so unusual about the men they had hanged during those last two weeks, but on each occasion he had denied any insight. Yet my subconscious now suggested there was something in it after all. I leaned on the bridge railing to catch my breath and to allow my thoughts to settle. What if these men did have something in common that our client had discovered? What if that discovery had driven him to despair, or violence, even murder? What if what these killers had in common was not the fact that they killed in gangs or packs, or their stupidity, or lack of rational motive? What if the only thing they had in common, apart from their utter evil and the complete lack of empathy they had shown for their victims was the way they treated women? I thought of Moatche and his two companions repeatedly stabbing their defenceless victim on another pedestrian bridge over a railway line, in full view of their female friend. They acted as if she was not there. Scheepers and Wessels had killed the women they and their companions had abducted and raped, and turned a deaf ear to their victims’ pleas for mercy. Mokwena raped and killed an old woman, then buried her in a shallow grave before he treated himself to a meal of chicken prepared in her kitchen. Delport savaged a young girl and threw her into the river to drown. And so it goes on, one after the other. There was Klassop, killing an old lady who could have been his mother, Mbele, Rabutla and Phaswa, abducting and raping Sarah Ngobeni. Hansen, Leve, Smit, Maarman, they were all the same in this respect. I had just finished reading Mbambani and Mjuza’s cases and could recall clearly what they had said to the three women who were protesting as they robbed and stabbed Mr Monakali. ‘Voetsek,’ they had shouted at the women. These men had treated women worse than dogs.

And when it came to crying for these men after their execution, the ones who came to the funeral service and cried over the coffins were the women. I thought of Liesl. Had I neglected her in the two weeks I had been in Pretoria? I had. I had hardly called.

I walked home slowly as the sun started clearing the mist. How could I not have seen this earlier? Was this perhaps what Labuschagne had realised, looking at his own circumstances, and why he was so desperate to seek help from his pastor? Had he treated Magda worse than had been exposed thus far? Maybe that would explain her father’s refusal to let her have anything further to do with Labuschagne. And it would explain the interdict.

Was there any relevance in this at all? Perhaps there was nothing in it, but I couldn’t help wondering why Labuschagne had not allowed his mother and his sister to comfort him. Was that not a form of abuse, and why was he continuing with it?

I spent most of the Monday in my chambers, reading up on the law. I had avoided criminal law for almost a decade and had some catching up to do.

When I got home in the late afternoon, it was time to pack my bags for the next morning’s flight. I have hated Sunday afternoons all my life, ever since my boarding school days when Sunday afternoon meant packing your bags and getting ready to say goodbye. This Monday, the last day of the long weekend, was much worse. I would have given anything not to have to return to Pretoria.

Liesl came in and watched me pack in silence until I sat down on the edge of the bed.

‘You have to get out of this case,’ she said.

‘I know,’ I said, ‘but it’s just another week and then it will be over.’

‘A week is a long time when you’re away from home.’

She had caught me by surprise. I looked at her more closely. There was a double meaning there, but was it deliberate? Liesl was looking out over the garden. The boys were playing tennis and there were squeals of delight and grunts and laughter and the usual arguments.

‘For the boys,’ Liesl added, but she couldn’t fool me. There was just the faintest hint of a smile.

She took my hand and we sat there until the boys came trooping back to the house for dinner.

I was in that deepest part of sleep that sailors call the ghost watch when I was woken by our pair of geese. They were the most reliable watchdogs and they guarded the front section of my property between the house and the tennis court, always announcing the slightest encroachment into their domain with loud and indignant fanfare. The goose had been sitting on a clutch of four eggs for some weeks, slowly losing her feathers and condition. This time there was distress in their protests and I could hear the flapping of their wings in the otherwise quiet night. I heard some panting and beasts running around.

Liesl slept on peacefully; I had always marvelled at her ability to sleep through any amount of noise but to wake up at the slightest squeak from one of our sons. I slipped out of bed quietly and grabbed a pair of jeans. I dressed in the passage and took my pistol from the safe. I tucked it in the waistband at the back of my jeans. Torch in hand I slowly opened the sliding door onto the veranda and stepped out into the night.

The geese were quiet now, which was unusual. They usually took some time to settle down after a disturbance. I ducked behind some azaleas on the terrace and snuck up on the goose’s nest. When I turned the light on, I saw them. They were dead or in the throes of dying; that much was obvious from their grotesquely splayed wings and broken necks. Their blood-stained wings fluttered in the night air, but they were dead.

I swung the torch around, looking for the killer and two dogs rushed past me towards the corner of the yard. The first jumped up and was able to drag itself over the wall, but the second hit the wall three-quarters of the way up and fell back towards me. I found to my surprise that I had run after them and had the gun in my hand. I aimed the light and the gun at the dog and followed it as it tried a second time to clear the wall, but it hit the wall somewhat lower than at its first attempt and again landed at my feet. After a third attempt it surrendered and cowered in the corner, heaving and panting.

The light shone on the dog; it was a bitch, heavily pregnant. I took careful aim. She turned and squirmed in the light. I squeezed the trigger but nothing happened. I shook the gun and squeezed the trigger a second time but still nothing happened. The safety catch was on. I released it and took careful aim again. She looked at me with fearful, guilty eyes. I pulled the trigger, but there was no power in my shaking hand.

I slipped the safety catch back on and waited for the rush of adrenalin to pass and my ragged breathing to return to normal. The bitch lay down after a while, panting, feathers stuck to the side of her jaw. I stood there for a long time before I walked away and opened the gate and watched as she slunk off into the night. Then I fetched some plastic bags and picked up the bodies and the bloodied feathers. The dead geese were limp and warm to the touch. It was not going to be easy to tell the boys their pets were dead, killed by a neighbour’s dogs.

I was sitting at the kitchen table trying to work out how to tell the boys when Liesl walked in; I had not heard her bare feet on the stone tiles. The gun lay on the table in front of me. She stood at the door with her hand at her throat. Her eyes went from the weapon on the table to me. I told her about the geese. She sat down with me. We had a cup of tea.

‘You are going to have to dispose of the geese and tell the boys,’ I said. ‘I just don’t have the strength for it right now.’

Liesl nodded. ‘They’ll be sleeping when you leave,’ she reminded me.

I should have remembered.

‘Take a shower and come back to bed. You have a hard week ahead,’ she said.

I looked down and saw that my feet were dirty and my hands sticky with blood and feathers.

They came for me too at six o’clock, James Murray and the Judge.

‘Put on your day clothes, no shoes and no underwear,’ they said.

‘It’s not my turn,’ I pleaded.

‘Everyone gets a turn. Today it is yours,’ they said.

When I didn’t move they dragged me out of my warm bed. I looked down and saw that I was dressed already, exactly as they wanted, in my day clothes. I couldn’t see my shoes. Where were my shoes?

They tried to take my fingerprints at the table in the passage but I fought them off. I clamped my hands firmly under my armpits and twisted from side to side, shouting at them, ‘Leave me alone, it’s not my turn!’ But they held on and tried to drag me away. They couldn’t hang me without taking my fingerprints, could they? They forced me to the floor and I landed on my side, my knees drawn up into my abdomen and my hands still clamped under my armpits. I tensed up for their next assault.

I felt a cool hand on my cheek. ‘It’s okay, it’s okay,’ Liesl said and held me. She pushed her fingers through my hair until I fell asleep again.

I woke up aching all over. Liesl’s face was only inches away, her big questioning eyes staring at me.

‘You have to get out of this case,’ she said again, this time at the airport, and kissed me goodbye. I was ready to board my flight.

‘I have to get the case out of me,’ I said. I tried to make a joke of it, but she knew me too well to let me get away with it.

My wife smiled knowingly and walked away.

Guilt followed me through the gates to the departure lounge. I had been home for three days, a long weekend at that, and couldn’t remember any meaningful interaction with my sons.

I caught the six-thirty flight from Durban and Wierda picked me up at the other end at seven-thirty. We made small talk until we got to the outskirts of Pretoria. I was desperately tired. We were driving past the old prison in Potgieter Street.

‘What have you decided?’ Wierda wanted to know. ‘What are we going to do today?’

I thought about it as we passed the prison complex. I looked for the sign that had been there when my father and I had come into the city from Johannesburg many years earlier.

PRETORIA SENTRAAL GEVANGENIS
PRETORIA CENTRAL PRISON

I turned to look back as we passed the last few buildings of the complex, but the sign was no longer there. I felt a strange disappointment.

We had four witnesses to call: Magda Labuschagne, who in all likelihood was going to be an unwilling witness; the principal of Labuschagne’s high school, who had volunteered to give evidence; and two experts, Marianne Schlebusch and Dr Shapiro.

‘I think we should call the wife and the principal first, and then the two experts. That way the experts can use the facts established by the wife and the principal to support their opinions,’ I suggested. ‘What do you think?’

Wierda agreed. ‘Yes, I could go along with that. We need to finish with a strong witness.’ He caught my eye. ‘I think we are going to need to finish strongly if we are to stand any chance of winning.’ This perfectly echoed my own view.

We drove in silence until Wierda parked his car in the basement of his chambers. ‘Shall we have some breakfast?’ he asked.

‘Good idea,’ I said, ‘and you can talk me through the next case.’

The case took me right back to where I had started earlier that morning, in the province of Natal, to a remote place an hour or so south of Durban.