‘The police came and arrested you while you were still in hospital, is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘What happened there?’
‘The policeman said he was arresting me and said that I had the right to remain silent. Then he asked me why I did it.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I didn’t know what to say.’
‘Did you know what he was talking about?’
‘No, not then.’
‘Well, let’s deal with the situation as matters stand now. How do you see your position now?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
I was about to ask him something else when he said, ‘I’m not feeling too well. I think I’m going to …’
Judge van Zyl stepped in. ‘Are you feeling faint?’
‘Ja.’
‘Do you want to sit down?’ Then, not waiting for an answer, he said, ‘I’ll just adjourn for a few minutes. Send word through the usher when you’re ready.’
I asked Wierda to take Labuschagne a glass of water. I sat contemplating the affair. Marianne Schlebusch had told me that we had to make Labuschagne say it in his own words, to own up to the killing. It would be the beginning of his cure; he had to say it himself, she had said. I knew I had to make him say it, but for a different reason altogether. I wasn’t there to cure him; my job was to save him from the gallows and in order to achieve that I had to get him to tell as much as he knew, and he had to do it in open court. I sat on my own while they fussed about him. We sent the usher for the Judge and Assessors as soon as Labuschagne had regained some of his colour.
Judge van Zyl turned to me as soon as he had taken his seat. ‘Is he ready to continue?’
‘I’ll ask him if M’Lord pleases.’ I turned to Labuschagne. ‘Are you feeling better?’
‘Yes, a little bit.’ He sounded weak.
‘Would you like more time?’ asked the Judge. I thought at first he was addressing Labuschagne but found that he was looking at me.
‘M’Lord, I would like to press ahead.’ I was trying to give effect to Marianne’s advice. I had to make Labuschagne talk, make him say that he had killed the men at the reservoir.
‘Very well,’ the Judge said, ‘you may carry on then.’
I took a deep breath. I didn’t like what I was going to do and decided to get it out of the way as quickly as possible.
‘You killed them,’ I said. ‘You killed them. Everyone here knows that.’ I waved my arm in an arc which included everyone from the jury box to my left to the spectators behind me. ‘Everyone knows,’ I concluded, with only the faintest note of a question in my tone.
Labuschagne started crying, softly at first, but then his sobs increased until his weeping was a torrent. I didn’t get to ask a question. He tried to speak through his tears. ‘I know too,’ he said. ‘I know, I know,’ he said between sobs. ‘I don’t know how I did it but I know I did. How could I have done it?’ he wailed. ‘How could I have done it? God help me, how could I have done that?’ He was bent over at the waist and shook his head as he asked, faintly this time, ‘How could I have done that?’
‘That’s enough,’ said the Judge and walked out of the courtroom. The usher rushed after him, but the Judge was through the door behind his chair before the usher could get to the bench. Nobody moved or made a sound as Labuschagne stood in the witness box and sobbed and sobbed.
Eventually I said to Wierda, ‘Take care of him. I’ll be back later,’ and walked out.
The robing room was deserted. I sat with my head in my hands. I had rammed a question deep into my client’s heart without warning, without preparing him for it. I had done so deliberately. And I was going to have to traverse the events at the reservoir once more.
It was half an hour before Wierda came to the robing room to fetch me. We walked back to court in silence. When we got there, the room was anything but silent.
‘Mr Labuschagne, I have to ask you again about the events at the reservoir,’ I said as soon as the court had settled down. Labuschagne nodded. He had a deathly grey pallor to his face. I ran the back of my hand over my brow. It came away sticky. I stopped just short of bringing my wrist up to my lips to taste the salt I knew must have accumulated there. Marianne Schlebusch had said that we would not get the truth out of him unless we could cause him to break down.
Make him cry, and you will get the truth, she’d said. However, I had no way of knowing if the truth would help his case.
‘But before I deal with that, I need you to clear up something for me.’ I waited for Labuschagne to show that he had heard before I set out to do what Marianne had advised.
The truth will help him. That was her opinion.
‘You told us the Warrant Officer had said that you could see the prison psychiatrist if you needed help. Why didn’t you seek help? A psychiatrist could perhaps have helped you,’ I suggested.
He had broken down in tears again. His voice rose as he spoke, until the words came out in an anguished roar. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that before I started beating up my wife, before I lost my child, before I drove other people off the road and got into fights in pubs I did not want to go to? Why didn’t you tell me that before I lost my child? Why didn’t you tell me that before I killed seven people?’
He emitted a primeval, guttural animal cry, like a tortured beast under the branding iron. Every hair on my body stood upright and my skin felt too tight. The shapes around me lost their definition. I think I heard Wierda asking, ‘Are you alright?’
Judge van Zyl left with his Assessors and I again escaped to the robing room, leaving Wierda to mop up behind me. I sat down in the robing room to compose myself. Labuschagne’s outburst had shaken me. I had tried to present a case based on a solid foundation of fact with a touch of emotion to it, but now the emotion was starting to run away with us.
I made my way back to Court C and found Labuschagne sitting in my chair. His sister Antoinette and Marianne Schlebusch were fussing over him. I went and stood at the back of the court until they had propped him up in the witness box again.
When the Judge and Assessors had taken their seats, I started gently and adopted a more personal tone.
‘Mr Labuschagne, I want you to try and remember as much as you can. Please tell the Court what you remember from the moment the bakkie and the minibus came to a stop at the reservoir.’ I leaned heavily on the lectern. God knows, I was tired.
At first Labuschagne stood mute, rocking forwards and backwards slowly. I had to help. ‘Let’s start with the weather conditions,’ I suggested. ‘Was it still raining?’
‘Yes.’ He spoke softly.
‘Was it light or dark?’
‘Dark.’
I had to draw him out more. ‘How hard was it raining?’
‘Very hard, I think.’
‘What is the first thing you saw after you had stopped the bakkie?’
‘The reservoir.’
‘And the next thing you saw, what was that?’
‘The minibus.’
‘Where was the minibus?’
He looked at me. We had been over this ground before. There was a question in his eyes as he answered. ‘It was in front of me, to the left.’ He immediately corrected himself. ‘No, I mean right.’
‘What was your next sensation?’ There was no easy way to ask the question. I did not want to just ask what happened next, because I wanted him to deal with his sensations and perceptions. ‘What did you see or hear or feel?’ I added.
‘I saw lightning and I heard thunder and at the same time I smelt the hanging ropes. I could taste the smell in the back of my throat.’
This was more than I had hoped for and much more than he had previously told me.
‘What is the very next thing that you became aware of?’
‘I told you,’ he said, with resignation in his voice. ‘I heard the trapdoors opening.’
I could see that he was fully aware of the in
congruity of his answer.
‘Are you able to describe the sounds you heard?’ I asked.
He stood for a while. ‘No,’ he said eventually.
‘What did you see at that moment?’ I was venturing deeper than I had gone before.
‘I saw the bodies falling towards me.’
‘What is the next sensation you remember?’
‘I heard the Warrant Officer’s voice,’ he said looking down at his feet. He was still rocking, holding on to the sides of the witness box, but rocking slowly, forwards and backwards, as if to a beat only he could hear.
‘What was the Warrant Officer saying?’ I had to play along. We could explain later, in the closing argument.
‘Trek hom op! Maak gou! Maak gou!’
I didn’t know whether my next question was going to help his case but if I didn’t ask it, James Murray or the Judge would. ‘And what did you do when you heard the Warrant Officer say that?’
He paused for a long time, rocking, looking at his feet. ‘I must have killed them. I think I killed them,’ he said eventually, very softly.
I was quick to confirm his answer before the Judge could ask him to repeat it. ‘You said, I must have killed them. I think I killed them. Is that what you said?’
‘Yes.’
‘Please remember to speak up so that His Lordship can hear you,’ I said. ‘What makes you think you killed them?’ I asked, again taking the risk of an unhelpful answer.
‘When I was running I did not understand, but later, I just knew I must have killed them.’
‘How sure are you now that you killed them?’
‘I am sure, but sometimes … I am not sure.’
‘Can you explain that, please? How can you be sure and then not be sure?’
I watched Judge van Zyl as we waited for the answer. I tried to encourage Labuschagne by nodding when he made eye contact.
‘There was one part of my mind that said, You have killed them, but I wasn’t sure. I could not remember doing it. All I could remember was the bodies afterwards, lying in a row, with blood and water over them. And I was the only one there, so it must have been me. And now I know it must have been me.’
It wasn’t as complete an answer as I had wanted, but the best I was going to get.
I gave him no warning as I changed the topic.
‘Have you been able to make up with Magda?’
He started to speak but was overcome by tears again. The Judge cast a strong look of disapproval in my direction. He was ready to adjourn again, but I did not want him to.
I ignored the snivelling. ‘Have you seen Esmè since your arrest?’
Labuschagne looked at me through his tears and shook his head. ‘No.’
I feigned ignorance. ‘Have they, Magda and Esmè, not come to visit you in the cells?’
‘No.’ He blew his nose. He did not know that we had asked Magda to give evidence, but that her father had intervened and had sent Wierda packing. But we had a subpoena ready and the Sheriff was going to serve it later in the day.
‘They have not attended court at any time, have they?’ I asked, even though that had been widely reported in the media to be the case.
‘No,’ he said looking towards the back of the court as if he expected to find them there.
I changed the subject again without warning. ‘Mr Labuschagne, how did you feel while you were in hospital, and afterwards, after you had been arrested and charged?’
‘I just wanted to be dead.’
‘Do you still feel like that?’
His silence was the answer. He stood crying with his face in his hands. The Judge was about to speak, offering another break so that Labuschagne could recover, but I spoke first. ‘I would like to carry on, M’Lord.’
‘Why?’ I asked Labuschagne.
‘I am so ashamed of myself.’
‘Why are you ashamed?’ The answer was obvious, but I had to ask.
He tried to control the sobbing and spoke with a heaving chest. ‘I can’t believe I did that. How could I have done that?’ he asked me. I noted that he referred to the incident as that, indicating that he was still not able to associate himself with it.
That gave me the opening I needed for my last question. ‘Could you tell His Lordship how you see yourself now? Two years ago you were a school prefect and active in the church, and now you are here in court, on trial for murder.’
‘I don’t know. I don’t understand. I just don’t understand.’
I did not wait for Judge van Zyl to offer a further adjournment. ‘I have no further questions, thank you,’ I said and I sat down.
The Judge suggested that we take the tea adjournment early and we agreed. Wierda and Antoinette went over to the witness box, each with a glass of water.
Labuschagne was still crying, but softly now, as the cell sergeant escorted him down the steps to the cells. I stayed in court because I wanted to be alone.
I was about to sit down when Antoinette Labuschagne suddenly spoke behind me. ‘How could you be so cruel?’ she demanded.
Caught by surprise I turned around, but wasn’t given a chance to answer.
‘How could you do that to him?’ She stood with her hands on her hips. Her eyes were red and puffy and it crossed my mind that she must have been crying. ‘It is your job to protect him and instead you hurt him,’ she said. In her anguish Antoinette looked a little like her brother. They had the same eyes.
The court had emptied quickly and Antoinette’s parents were the only ones left with us. I looked at the elderly couple behind the dock. They were watching their daughter remonstrating with me.
‘My job is to defend him,’ I said to Antoinette, ‘and that is what I am trying to do.’ I spoke so that her parents could hear.
Antoinette wasn’t having any of that. ‘You don’t have to hurt him to defend him.’
I didn’t agree with her, but there was no point in getting into an argument about it.
She wasn’t done yet. ‘You don’t believe him either, do you?’ she said, wagging a finger under my nose. ‘You think he is guilty.’
I waited for her to leave, but she stood her ground. ‘It is not for me to believe,’ I ventured. ‘All I have to do is to defend him.’ It is a lawyer’s gambit, but it never works with the public.
Antoinette turned to her parents in triumph. ‘You see,’ she said, ‘I told you he doesn’t believe Leon. We should have got him a Pretoria advocate.’
I wished they had, but didn’t respond. There was no arguing with Antoinette when she was on the verge of tears. My silence just aggravated her more.
‘What kind of lawyer are you?’ she said. ‘What kind of lawyer doesn’t even believe his own client?’ She shook her head. I noticed that her shoulders were shaking.
I didn’t know what to say, so I started walking away, but she grabbed me by my robes and pulled me around to face her again. ‘Don’t you dare turn your back on me,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you answer me?’
She was extremely annoying and I felt like smacking her out of her hysteria. She reminded me of my own sister as a child, nagging, mocking, teasing and pushing – well within range for a smack but at the same time totally out of range because she was a girl. When I spoke I did so very softly, so that only she could hear. ‘Antoinette, I am doing my best for your brother, but it is not an easy matter defending him. The case is difficult enough without my having to deal with distractions like this. Please leave me be.’
She too dropped her voice. ‘But how can you not believe him?’ she asked again.
I shook my head. How could I tell her that the worst thing I could do to her brother was to believe him?
When I took too long to come up with a response she turned abruptly and left with her parents. By the time she got to the door she was bent over and in tears. Her father put his arm around her and led her into the foyer.
When I turned to sit down I realised that she had followed me all the way across the floor to the foot of the registra
r’s dais. Only then did I find the answer I should have given.
‘I can’t believe him and defend him at the same time,’ I said to the empty courtroom.
Palace of Justice
41
After Antoinette and her parents had left the courtroom I stepped up the registrar’s dais and sat down in her chair. I tried not to think about the case. I was bone weary, tired to the depths of my soul. I sat back and wished I had never laid eyes on Court C. I was looking up at the skylights when reality slowly returned. It was a truly magnificent courtroom. I closed my eyes and searched for an escape, anything to take my mind off the trial, but there was none. I looked at the room from the front, taking in the registrar’s view of the proceedings. I had been working with my back towards two-thirds of the room. I took in the features of the room. I was in awe of the quality. Even though the whole building was badly in need of a facelift, the underlying class was there in every fitting, in every decorative feature and in the roof lights and glasswork. I was a little surprised that I had noticed only the decay earlier.
I looked down from the registrar’s chair. The registrar’s dais was two steps up from the floor, but not as high as the ornate bench behind it, and had the second best view of the courtroom. Below the registrar’s desk was a smaller desk where the court stenographer sat with her machine. We had microphones at every position, including the dock. Sound wires crisscrossed the floor.
The jury box was to my right, against the wall. It was also on a raised dais, and enclosed. There were two rows of wooden benches in the jury box, with seats of red leather. To my left, hard up against the registrar’s throne, was the witness box. There was no comfort there; it had no seats and imprisoned the witness in a space no more than one square metre. Behind the witness box were the old press boxes, now occupied by the usher and the investigating officer.
The room was empty and I thought I would be able to just sit there in peace. I tried hard not to think about the case, about what I had done, about what the Judge was going to do, but there was no escape. I imagined the Judge’s view of the courtroom. What did he see from above?
Immediately in front of the registrar’s dais there were six curved tables, arranged in three rows of two. These were for the lawyers. The furniture was of heavy, solid hardwood with turned legs and beautiful carved patterns. The tables had working areas inlaid in maroon leather and the seats of the chairs were similarly covered.
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