Whitethorn (94 page)

‘
Ag
, you right, Tom, I don't even know if I could do that job, you know, crown prosecutor. It's the High Court, I've never done anything like that, I'm a country policeman, mostly it's just Magistrate Du Plessis from Pietersburg.'

Marie rose from the table and put her ample arms around me, then kissed me on the side of the cheek. ‘You're not only a good midwife and also a diplomat, but you've turned from a very nice little boy into a very nice man. I think you're going to be a pretty good trial lawyer, Tom Fitzsaxby. Thank you.'

‘
Ja
, we both thank you,' Sergeant Van Niekerk said quietly. Then he said, ‘You know, Tom, I'm glad. I'm still an Afrikaner, you understand? But I'm glad we going to do the right thing for a change, the death of that native boy, it's stayed on my mind a long time.'

‘Marie, Sergeant, I appreciate how much guts it took to say what you've said this morning and it is me who needs to thank you and your family. You've all stood by me, defended me and cared for me from the very beginning. I love you all very much and have from the first green sucker, one-legged ice-cream, red book and “To thine own self be true”
Shorter Oxford English Dictionary
. As for nice people, just look who's talking!'

Before I filed an indictment with the High Court in Pretoria against the six Van Schalkwyk brothers and Mevrou, whose real name was Johanna Katrina van Schalkwyk, there was one more essential piece of evidence I would have to try to obtain. I didn't like my chances and when I returned to Duiwelskrans to inform Sergeant Van Niekerk of the possible existence of the canned-fruit jar and its brandy-pickled contents he couldn't believe his ears.

‘The mutilation? Are you sure, Tom? That Vermaak kid was a born liar.'

‘
Ja
, but how could he possibly know Mattress had been mutilated unless she told him or, as he said, showed him the jar? You said the evidence wasn't made public.'

I'd since learned that when Meneer Prinsloo had been transferred to Pretoria the new superintendent at The Boys Farm had dismissed Mevrou and she'd returned to the high-mountains Van Schalkwyk family farm.

‘You're right, but would she keep it all these years?' Before I could answer, he did so himself. ‘
Ja
, she's a Van Schalkwyk, she would,
definitely
. They're all mad and bitter, that lot. It's a pity their life sentence got commuted to sixteen years. They're not true Afrikaner patriots, they're filth, vermin, but this
dorp
thinks they're living martyrs. Frans van Schalkwyk, the oldest brother, stood for the farmers' representative on the town council last year. Can you imagine? I'm telling you, man, he would have got in on a landslide, only I checked with Pretoria and you can't be a councillor with a criminal record. He can't even read!'

‘So you think it's worth a try?'

‘
Ja
, I'm game, but we'll have to go to Pietersburg to see Magistrate Du Plessis and ask him to issue a search warrant.'

‘Will he cooperate?'

Sergeant Van Niekerk shrugged. ‘Normally yes, I think so, but this isn't a normal case, Tom.'

We drove to Pietersburg and were well received by the veteran magistrate in his chambers, who, it was readily apparent, liked and respected the sergeant. When I was introduced the old man said, ‘Ah, the true genius has returned.'

Sergeant Van Niekerk and I looked at each other, not understanding. ‘I beg your pardon, Magistrate?' I said, somewhat confused.

‘Tom Fitzsaxby! I never forget a name. Duiwelskrans railway station, 1945, when they were farewelling the Afrikaner genius, Gawie Grobler, from the back of a lorry. Now tell me, son, what has happened to you since then?'

You can get lucky in this world. Over a cup of coffee I filled in the intervening years and eventually got around to why we needed a search warrant. He puffed on his pipe for a while, then said, ‘Tom Fitzsaxby, don't waste your great intellect on a rubbish case like this.' I was about to protest when he put up his hand to stop me and turned to the sergeant. ‘Nevertheless Lieutenant Van Niekerk, you shall have your search warrant; sometimes a man has to go against his own better judgement. This Van Schalkwyk woman, I remember her too.' He laughed. ‘She once came to see me in the District Court, she wanted to report Doctor Van Heerden for leaving some kind of medical instrument in a dead native's stomach. “Was it an expensive piece of equipment?” I asked her. “No, Magistrate, it was a pair of tweezers,” she replied. “Never mind, the Government can afford it,” I told her.' Magistrate Du Plessis chuckled at the memory and we all laughed.

Sergeant Van Niekerk then asked, ‘I will need three white constables from here to operate a dawn raid, Magistrate Du Plessis.'

‘
Ja
, I will sign the authority with the search warrant; let me know if you find Exhibit A, Lieutenant.' We shook hands and I thanked him. ‘Tom Fitzsaxby, take my advice, even the greatest genius will end up badly if he starts to defend dead
kaffirs
for a living.
Sterkte
, strength,
Advocaat
.'

I would have given a great deal to have been present at the dawn raid on the high-mountains Van Schalkwyk farm, but instead had to rely on Sergeant Van Niekerk for the details. A few prior enquiries had established which of the five houses on the property Mevrou lived in and the police had decided to go directly to her cottage on the far side of the family compound. They arrived at half past five, just as daylight began to appear, entering the compound and immediately setting off a dozen farm dogs. One of the dogs, a large Alsatian, attacked one of the police officers as he stepped out of his van and it was shot on the spot. The raid went badly from that moment on. Brothers carrying shotguns and rifles emerged from the various houses in their nightshirts with their wives following in voluminous nightdresses. Sons and daughters, the snotty-nosed wild kids that had once played outside the
Dominee
's church on Sundays, now young men and women who were grown-up, were among them. Soon over thirty people surrounded the two police vans with the four policemen hopelessly outgunned.

Frans van Schalkwyk, the oldest brother, an enormous man in a dirty nightshirt and bare feet and brandishing a shotgun, stepped up to Sergeant Van Niekerk. ‘Who
fokken
killed my dog?' he demanded.

‘Meneer Van Schalkwyk, I have a search warrant to enter the home of Johanna Katrina van Schalkwyk,' Sergeant Van Niekerk said evenly, presenting the warrant to him, knowing he couldn't read.

Frans van Schalkwyk took the warrant, glanced at it briefly and handed it back. The six brothers had been incarcerated for too many years to have any respect for authority. ‘Who says?' Frans demanded. ‘Nobody is going to do a search, you hear? Now
fok
off before somebody gets hurt.' He kicked at the corpse of the dead dog. ‘He's a pedigree, you'll hear more about this, Sergeant.'

‘It's Lieutenant Van Niekerk, Meneer Van Schalkwyk, you've been away a long time. Now be sensible, man. I want to search only the home of Mevrou Johanna Katrina van Schalkwyk, that's all.' He turned, appealing to the gathered Van Schalkwyk clan. ‘The rest of you we won't disturb, you can go back to sleep.'

‘What you looking for, hey?' Frans van Schalkwyk asked. Through all this he was the only one to speak, the rest just stood slack-jawed and wary, not moving away.

‘Canned-fruit jars,' Sergeant Van Niekerk replied.

There was a moment of stunned silence, then the whole Van Schalkwyk clan burst into laughter.

‘Canned-fruit jars!' Frans cried. ‘What the
fok
are you talking about?' Then he turned to the Van Schalkwyk women standing together. ‘Does Johanna make canned fruit?' he asked.

Several of the women shook their heads, then one woman, an old crone much older than the rest, said, ‘Not canned fruit, only pickled pork, she sells it at the church bazaar. They rubbish, pigs' feet, but some townpeople like it.'

This caused another bout of laughter. Pickled pork trotters were obviously something the clan didn't think much of. The laughter lifted the tension somewhat and Frans van Schalkwyk turned back to the sergeant. ‘Only pickled pork,' he repeated.

‘
Ja
, that's what I meant, we want to see this pickled pork.'

‘She's sick,' Frans declared suddenly.

‘That's okay, man, we won't disturb her,' Sergeant Van Niekerk said, gaining confidence. ‘I don't suppose she keeps her pickled pork in the bedroom?' he added.

Sergeant Van Niekerk later confessed to me, ‘Tom, I was shitting myself. I was gambling that after all this time and the fact that they didn't know why we were there, they'd clean forgotten about Exhibit A in the canned-fruit jar. That is, of course, if it was still in her possession.'

‘But pickled pork? They could have twigged, guessed what you were searching for.'

‘
Ja
, that, I admit, maybe. But the old woman said it first. I said canned-fruit jars. I just got lucky with the pickled pork part. The Van Schalkwyks, they make the best smoked honeyed hams in the Northern Transvaal, so when the woman said pickled pork, me saying we wanted to see the canned-fruit jars made some sort of sense. After that it was easy, man. I'm not married to a nurse for nothing.'

‘Meneer Van Schalkwyk, we don't want to make trouble, but you see we got here a medical problem. Someone who bought Mevrou Van Schalkwyk's pickled pork, maybe at the church bazaar, got sick soon after eating one pig's foot. Doctor Van Heerden sent what was left in the jar to the pathology lab in Pietersburg. They still not absolutely certain, you understand? But now we must have the rest of the jars for testing. It may be this new pork poisoning that's going around.'

Sergeant Van Niekerk laughed as he told me. ‘Tom, I don't know what is pork poisoning or even if a person can get it. “It's only a routine search,” I told them.'

‘
Ja
, and you bring three policemen and kill my dog for a
fokken
routine search?' Frans van Schalkwyk snarled.

‘The dog attacked one of my men. Listen, this is nonsense, I don't want to have to arrest you, you hear?' At this the Van Schalkwyk males all started to laugh and Sergeant Van Niekerk heard the sound of several rifle bolts being pulled back and shotgun barrels snapping shut. ‘They all stood there in their nightshirts and their dirty bare feet, the women too, you can see they also dirty and their hair is unwashed, they like wild people, man. It's filth standing there, holding guns and all the women have no teeth! I can tell the three young policemen with me, they shit scared.'

‘I wouldn't blame them,' I said to the sergeant.

‘Then a miracle happened, Tom,' Sergeant Van Niekerk recalled. ‘The old crone stepped forward, she's munching her gums and her hairy chin is nearly touching her nose. “Give them the jars! That one is no good! Your
ousis
is a drunk and she's always made trouble. Now she's poisoning the pork with her dirty ways, she's not boiling the jars. For fifteen years it's only women and children here. Do you want to go back to Pretoria? I don't want you to be hanged for killing a policeman!” She pointed to the smallest of the houses. “Not for
that
one! Now listen to your
ouma
, Frans!” she squawked.'

‘And that was it?'

‘
Ja
, man, the old woman was the
baas
. After that they led us to Mevrou's house and surrounded it while we entered. “Go in, she won't wake up, she's too drunk,” Frans van Schalkwyk said to me. “But you
only
take the pickled pork, you hear? Nothing else.” '

Sergeant Van Niekerk shrugged. ‘In the end, Tom, it was as easy as that. Behind three-dozen big canned-fruit jars of pickled pork we found this small half-jar that is Exhibit A. It was covered in dust and looked as if it hadn't been moved in years. I carried it out, inside my shirt, in case her fingerprints are on the glass under the dust. I also take two jars of pickled pork trotters with me, so they won't see what's inside my shirt. I hide Exhibit A inside the glove box in case someone takes a look in the police van. Then I go back into the house. We didn't even wake Mevrou up. You could hear her snoring in her bedroom. She's sawing down a whole forest. So I open the door and there she lies, like a great whale lying washed up on the strand. She's sprawled crossways on the big brass bed with her nightdress pulled up round her waist, her fat legs over the edge. Everything up her nightdress is showing. Then I think “fingerprints”. I go back to the van and get the equipment – the ink pad and paper – and I go inside and she's still snoring, so I take her thumb-print and her forefinger, two good prints. I put the search warrant in her hand and close her fat fist tight around it, and she's still snoring like a sawmill and I wonder what she'll think when she wakes up and she's got two fingers turned black all of a sudden.' He laughed. ‘Nobody can say later I didn't serve the warrant to her in person. Then when we leave and Frans van Schalkwyk shouts out, “Don't think you've heard the last of this, you killed my dog, you
fokken
bastards!”'

‘Oh, that reminds me, Sergeant. Do you know where we might get a good Alsatian pup? It's just that, you know, after a while they may realise what we were looking for. For instance, Mevrou could alert them. If we deliver a puppy together with a note to say the pickled pork got the all-clear, it might just throw them off the track.'