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Annamari and Petrus slowly climbed the stone stairs and hesitantly made their way between the tall pillars that flanked the imposing wooden door.
‘It’ll be okay, Petrus, really. You’ll be fine,’ she said.
Petrus tugged at his blue tie and kept his eyes glued to the floor as they moved into the enormous foyer. Annamari looked around, awed. She had expected the Bloemfontein Supreme Court to be imposing, but this was truly frightening. She felt Petrus falter at her side and took his arm for mutual support.
A police officer directed them to the courtroom where the prosecutor had said he would meet them. But they were early. They’d hardly encountered any traffic on the way, not even on the normally busy road between Bethlehem and Bloemfontein. Thys had suggested that they leave Steynspruit before sunrise to avoid the taxis and heavy trucks that usually ploughed the route. He’d been correct. Of course, it meant that they got to Bloemfontein before the court opened, but she’d packed a flask of coffee and some sandwiches which they shared in the car while they waited.
Now they waited again, on a hard wooden bench in the wide corridor outside the court, not sure what to do next. Petrus sat ramrod straight, his hands clasped between his knees, his black shoes gleaming, even in the dull light. Annamari patted his arm comfortingly, hoping he couldn’t tell how nervous she was.
‘There you are.’
Annamari looked up and saw Captain Motaung barrelling down the wide corridor towards them, beaming.
‘Thank you both for coming,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure who the prosecutor will call first but with your help, we’re going to put him away for a long, long time.’
Annamari nodded. He had said the same thing to her, that first time, almost a year ago.
***
She’d been in the kitchen when Pretty called to her that a car was coming up the driveway. She made her way out on to the front stoep and waited as a large black man in a grey suit and brown shoes eased himself out of the car and waddled over to the stoep stairs.
‘Mrs van Zyl? I’m Captain James Motaung of the Bloemfontein Murder and Robbery Unit. I used to be based in Bethlehem. Can I come in and talk to you for a few minutes? It’s about Stefan Smit, also known as Fanie or Stefanus Strydom and a few other names I won’t trouble you with now. ’
Over coffee at the kitchen table, Captain Motaung filled Annamari in on his investigations and how it had taken him almost two years, but he had finally tracked down Stefan Smit to a small, arid farm deep in the Karoo.
‘Your dossier intrigued me,’ he said, helping himself to another rusk which he dunked in his coffee and then popped, whole, into his mouth.
‘How did you get it? I left it with Wynand. Did he give it to you?’
‘No. I rescued it ... look, I know Warrant Officer Vorster and, well, he’s lazy. I hope he’s not a good friend of yours, Mrs Van Zyl and if he is, I apologise, no disrespect to you, but he’s sloppy. I don’t like sloppy police work.’
Annamari shrugged. She absolutely agreed with Captain Motaung, but she didn’t say so. After all, she’d known Wynand Vorster since primary school and everything; and what did she know about this fat black policeman who looked set to devour her week’s supply of rusks in one go?
‘Anyway, I tracked him down, as I said. It really wasn’t all that difficult once I got going ... he’d left a trail of complaints all across the country.’
‘Complaints?’
‘Yes. Oh, not murder or anything. More – excuse me ma’am, but there’s been a lot of complaints from women... girls too. Seems he can’t keep it in his pants, if you know what I mean.’
Annamari gripped the edge of the table and nodded.
‘Ja, but sexual assault is a very difficult thing to prove especially as the women are usually poor and frightened. He was arrested a couple of times – in Beaufort West and Smithfield and Aliwal – but they couldn’t make a case. You know how it is – he said, she said, that kind of thing. Anyway, much as I would love to get the guy for rape... but with your help, this time, we’re going to get him for murder. And there’s no women where he’s going.’
‘He raped Beauty,’ Annamari spluttered. ‘When she was just a child. Here on Steynspruit. I saw him!’
The police officer stared at her. ‘You saw him? Will you swear to that?’
Embarrassed, Annamari told him the story of that dreadful night and how the police – Wynand – hadn’t been interested and how they eventually decided it would be better – for Beauty – not to pursue the matter.
‘How old is she now? Does she still live here? Would she be willing to press charges?’
‘She’s at school, in Driespruitfontein. She’s in matric... I’m not sure if she’d be willing to. She never talks about it and ... well, it could interfere with her studies. It was so long ago... and how do you prove something like that now?’
‘There were no tests done? No photographs? Nothing?’
Annamari shook her head, the old anger and nausea that always threatened to choke her when she remembered that night, rose again.
Captain Motaung was silent for several minutes. Annamari fidgeted. Finally she got up and put the kettle on again. The detective popped a rusk into his mouth. Then another. Then he sighed and he pulled out a pen from his inside jacket pocket. He opened an official-looking form.
‘Okay, let’s presume that a rape charge is probably out of the question, although I’ll speak to the prosecutor about it. But murder is good. Let’s just get him behind bars, shall we?’ And he began to ask questions about her investigations that led her to believe that Stefan Smit was responsible – or at least involved – in her family’s murders. Petrus and other farmworkers who had been on Steynspruit on the night of the murders were also called and asked to give their version of events.
Then, with his notebook tucked under his arm, and the almost depleted bag of rusks in his hand – Annamari had insisted he take them for the long drive back to Bloemfontein – the detective made his way to his car.
‘I’ll be in touch, Mrs van Zyl,’ he said as her hand disappeared into his. ‘I’ll let you know as soon as I have the bastard in custody. And don’t you worry. When we’ve finished with him, the Warmbaths police will also want him. He is going to go away for a long, long time.’
***
Annamari swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The court orderly took the bible away and she looked up – directly into Stefan Smit’s malevolent milky blue eyes glaring at her from behind a dirty grey fringe. She looked away, bile rising in her throat. He’d aged badly, but she’d know him anywhere. She looked across at the judge, a stern-looking white man who reminded her of her father-in-law, and shuddered. This was not going to be fun.
The prosecutor asked her simple questions, and she answered as frankly and clearly as she could.
‘But then I realised that Stefan Smit – the accused, I mean – well, I realised that he’d been lying to us all those years about his wife and daughter. They weren’t even his wife and daughter and he hadn’t gone to Pretoria to visit their graves the night my family was killed, he was right there on Steynspruit when it happened but he lied about it.’
‘You’re the fokking liar!’
At the sound of Stefan Smit’s hateful voice, she swung around and stared at her accuser in horror, terrified that he was going to leap out of the dock and physically attack her. The judge pounded his gavel and a police officer moved quickly towards the frothing man.
Spittle flying, he continued his tirade: ‘She’s the liar, your honour. She’s the liar. She’s always had it in for me because she knew I could see right through her. She thinks she’s clever but she isn’t. She’s a lying whore – ask anyone in Driespruitfontein, they’ll tell you. She’s a fokking whore and a liar. She even lied to the dominee about that bastard son of ...’
Annamari swayed and gripped the edge of the witness box. She watched, unseeing, as two police officers grabbed him by his arms and dragged him out of the court. But she knew that she would never, ever stop hearing his ranting accusations: ‘She’s a liar. She’s liar, a cheat, a whore, a whore, a whore...’