Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 39, No. 13, Mid-December 1994

The Rolling Rock by Geoffrey Hitchcock

We squelched through the orchard and then took the path along the riverbank. I don’t quite know why we did this, it would have been easier to get to Rina’s by road, but we did, each of us no doubt half expecting to come across Dirk’s body stuck in some willow roots or wedged behind a rock. The four of us, George and Jean, Mary and I, had been sitting in the sun on my stoep enjoying a prelunch sherry and discussing yesterday’s party, and of course last night’s storm, when the phone rang. It was Rina — had we seen Dirk this morning? She had gone home after the party, but Dirk had gone to Hansie’s for a final celebratory drink and she hadn’t seen him since. Had she phoned Hansie? Of course. He was still asleep when she phoned, but Lisa had told her that both the brothers had got very drunk, too drunk to drive, so Hansie had escorted Dirk as far as the bridge and then come home. I told her Dirk was probably sleeping it off in the pack shed on a bed of woodwool behind some bales. I said we would have our dinner and then come over to look for him. Mary had cooked a delicious-smelling dinner, and I wasn’t going to spoil it by worrying about a drunken Dirk.

But the delectable roast lamb with roast potatoes and pumpkin, green peas, and cauliflower was slightly spoiled by Dirk. We weren’t as relaxed and appreciative as we should have been. True, we talked a lot about how lucky the two Theron boys had been to inherit a mortgage-free farm each when their parents had died in a boating accident and what a good idea it was to build a bridge over the river that separated the two farms. And about how lucky it was that the terrific thunderstorm last night had held off until the bridge opening party was well and truly over. But there was a sense of urgency that made us chew our food quicker than we should have. It wasn’t like dour Dirk to miss church — he was an elder and it was expected of him, and he would have routed Rina out to go with him, so it did look as if he hadn’t made it home last night. Had he taken a rest in the almost dry riverbed, passed out, and been swept away by the rapidly rising water that the storm produced? It seemed unlikely. Even if he had been drunk enough to sleep in the riverbed, surely the torrential rain, not to mention the thunder and lightning, would have wakened him in time for him to crawl out. We needed to get going and solve the mystery.

So there we were, making our way gingerly along the slippery track. Steve, my black cocker spaniel, rapidly becoming a brown dog, was leading the party, ears trailing in the mud and busy nose seeking scents with evident enjoyment, though what they would be after the rain I couldn’t imagine. Mary came next and then me, Jean and George bringing up the rear. Each with our own thoughts. I was thinking about Dirk, that big, strong, bearded man who rejoiced in being an Afrikaner and who refused to speak English. He treated all new newcomers as interloping foreigners, referring to them as “the Englishman” or “the Jew” or even “the Greek” (if they happened to be Portuguese). A complete contrast to his younger brother Hans, who was twelve years his junior and who had escaped from the farm and gone to university, in Johannesburg of all places. Why couldn’t he have gone to Stellenbosch and taken his degree in Afrikaans? It was beyond Dirk’s comprehension, and he gave Hansie as hard a time as he could. But it didn’t seem to worry Hans. He had decided that there was more to the world than the Ceres Valley and he intended at least to be aware of it. He took a degree in mechanical engineering at Wits and might never have come back, but he was presented with a farm, albeit a poor one, and he accepted the challenge of turning it into a good one with enthusiasm. In Joh’burg he had met a lovely tall blonde named Lisa who was a final year B.Sc. student, majoring in botany. They had fallen in love and married. Fortunately Lisa was not enamored of city life and looked forward to having some land to grow the plants she loved. They were a happy couple, and as Wits was my alma mater, too, we had plenty to talk about and we became close friends. Mary was fond of both Lisa and Rina. Dirk was the odd man out. And now he was missing.

We came round a curve and were in sight of the bridge. The pool where yesterday children had been happily splashing was now at least two feet deeper, but there was still a vestige of beach. It was clear from the debris on the banks that it had at one stage been nearly four feet deeper than that. Steve was running about and barking excitedly at a big rock in the pool.

“Look,” said Mary, “the big rock’s come adrift from the bank and rolled into the pool. Gosh, there were children climbing all over it yesterday — somebody might have been hurt if it had come loose then.”

We all clambered down to the tiny strip of beach and examined the rock and where it had come from. It was a big, roughly spherical boulder about four feet in diameter that had been lodged in the bank for many years, three or four feet above the beach. From the top of the rock to the footpath on the top of the bank was maybe another four feet. The annual risings of the river had gradually washed away some of the clay from under it, and last night’s wash must have been the last straw. Its center of gravity must have moved over the edge, the wet earth behind it had lost its grip, and away it had rolled. It hadn’t rolled very far; the soft bottom of the river had stopped it only a yard or so from the water’s edge.

Steve seemed to be fascinated by it. He jumped into the water and swam all round it, then came out, shook himself all over us, and sat staring at it. I waded in until the water was uncomfortably close to the top of my boots and prodded around with my stick. I felt something firm but yielding and prayed that it might be a rotted willow log. Reversing my stick, I managed to hook something up just long enough to see that it was a man’s hand.

I went back to land smartly. “There is a man under that rock.”

“Not possible,” said George. “What combination of circumstances could result in a man being under a rock that must have come adrift at the height of the storm?”

His walking stick didn’t have a crook on it, so I offered him mine but he declined. Mary and Jean thought we should try to roll the rock off the body, but George pointed out that if indeed there was a body under the rock it was a police matter and he and Jean should stand guard while Mary and I went to tell Rina and summon the police at the same time.

Mary and I climbed up the bank and set off through another orchard towards Rina’s house, Mary leading. “Poor Rina,” I said. “Whatever will she do without Dirk?”

“I expect she’ll get used to the idea once she stops dancing for joy.”

It wasn’t the reply I expected. “Is that what wives do when their husbands have fatal accidents?”

“It is if their husbands happen to be chauvinist pigs who treat them like dirt and beat them when they fail to produce babies.”

“That doesn’t sound like Dirk. I know he is, was, a bigoted, humorless man, but as far as Rina was concerned he was a great big cuddly bear. Wasn’t he?”

She slowed her step until I caught up with her, turned, and gave me one of those loving smiles that make life worthwhile. “You are the big softie. You are my three-monkeys man, you see no evil in anyone. You don’t hear the gossip either, do you?”

“Country people like to gossip — I take no notice of it. I heard a rumor that Hansie was having an affair with Rina. That’s ridiculous.”

“Of course it’s ridiculous. And malicious. And who do you think started it? None other than big brother himself.”

“But why?”

“Why indeed. You didn’t know Dirk very well did you?”

“No, he wasn’t the sort of man you could get to know. He only liked to talk about rugby. He was a good rugby player.”

“He was a hard, rough player. He was a beast. He hated Rina because she didn’t produce a child and that reflected on him. There’s nothing wrong with Rina, and he knew it.”

Oh my God, I thought. I hadn’t realized how bad things were between Dirk and Rina, but I knew he was something of a thorn in Hansie’s side. Supposing... I must warn Mary. But that brown-haired, hazel-eyed love of my life wasn’t stupid.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, “but if something happened last night, and if they were somehow caught up in it, they certainly were not guilty of murder.”

“I couldn’t really believe that any of the three were, but something bizarre happened last night. I certainly won’t say anything to anybody that might make things look bad for Rina.”

We could see her now, pottering in her garden, snipping deadheads off roses that were still throwing a few late blooms. She looked worn out with worry, but she took the news calmly enough and I left her sitting on a garden bench with Mary and went into the house to phone. I took off my muddy boots at the back door and went first to the laundry, an enclosed piece of the back verandah, to wash the mud off my hands. There was a large dirty linen wicker basket there, and I couldn’t resist lifting the lid to look in. It was full of wet, muddy clothes. Women’s clothes. I wasn’t surprised.

I first reported the matter to Sergeant Vermeulen of the Ceres police. There weren’t a lot of police about in those days — it was a small town and the crime wave hadn’t started yet. The sergeant was the man in charge, and he said he would be there himself in about fifteen minutes. Then I phoned Hansie and told him what we had found. “We don’t know that it’s Dirk.”

“It would be real Chinaman’s luck for it to be Paul Onkers,” he said, naming a troublesome farm laborer. I suggested he come down on his tractor and bring some ropes to help with the removal of the rock. I also suggested he come by himself and not involve the gossiping farmhands just yet. I put my wet boots on again, left Mary to look after Rina, and made my way back to the river.

Sergeant Vermeulen arrived before I had time to quiz my friends on their thoughts. I didn’t know him at all. He was overweight and looked as if he would be heavyhanded and not overanxious for work, but George, who knew him through court work, had great respect for him. He spent the time while we were waiting for Hansie examining what he laughingly called the scene of the crime. He was particularly interested in the scar left in the bank.

“You can see,” he said, “that the big rock isn’t properly round, so when it rolled out, it didn’t roll straight into the river but off at an angle like a bowl with a big bias. Or maybe it came out straight and then keeled over on its side where its flatness stopped it rolling farther. It’s hard to tell which, now the flood has washed away the marks. It doesn’t matter really. Too bad, hey, somebody had to be lying just there.” He spoke English with the thick, guttural accent of those who habitually spoke Afrikaans.

Then Hansie arrived in his pickup with some rope and some poles — the tractor would be no use, he said — and with these we managed to roll the rock away from the body. Not without considerable difficulty and getting ourselves thoroughly soaked in the process. Then came the grisly task of retrieving the body. We felt around with our feet, stationed one man at each corner, so to speak, and with our faces in the water lifted the limp mass. We held it for a while to let the current carry away most of the mud and then laid it on the beach ready for the arrival of Dr. Frank Masson, a G.P. who acted as police doctor should the need arise, which it rarely did.

The water had washed away any blood that might have been about, so the body wasn’t too hard to look at. Nevertheless, Jean elected to wander along the path for a little way, just in time to meet Wynand du Toit, better known as Oom Wynand, as he came strolling along the path. He stopped and greeted her and surveyed the scene.

“Which one is it?” he asked, but before she could reply, “Oh, there’s Hansie, so it must be Dirk.”

I was standing somewhat nearer to them than the others, and I don’t think any of them heard the strange remark. Certainly not Sergeant Vermeulen, who was showing concern for Hansie. Hansie was white and shivering.

“You go home, Mr. Theron. You’ve had a bad shock, and the cold water hasn’t helped you. Go and get into a hot tub. Perhaps Mrs. Rawson would drive you? That would be better.”

Jean was only too pleased to fall in with this scheme, and the two of them drove off, leaving George and me to back up the sergeant. Oom Wynand sat on a rock a little distance away and stoked his pipe. He was a delightful old character full of patience and wisdom. He had never been a rich farmer, and now he had sold most of his land to his neighbors and kept just a wedge for himself and his wife. We had seen them earlier as we came along the river, sitting on their stoep, and we had waved and called out a greeting. Now he sat quietly smoking until the excitement was over.

Dr. Masson arrived, and we told him what had happened.

“Apart from the bruise on the back of his head, there’s not much to see,” he said. “Let’s turn him over.”

So we rolled him over, the doctor shuddering as the shattered bones crunched.

“God, that must have been painful! But only for a millisecond, I should think. Every bone in his torso seems to be smashed. But his head has escaped. That’s strange.”

“I think the rock rolled alongside of him and then flipped over.” said the sergeant.

I had been dreading seeing a smashed up, unrecognizable face, but it was hardly damaged. A little mud clung to Dirk’s usually immaculate beard, and there was a scratch on his forehead, that’s all.

There was nothing Dr. Frank could do here — he would perform an autopsy in the cottage hospital later. Sergeant Vermeulen took some photos of the body on the beach, and we loaded poor Dirk’s mortal remains into the police car. The officials drove away and left George and me to meditate.

We walked back along the path to where Oom Wynand was still puffing contentedly away. George was shaking his head. “I just can’t believe any of this.”

“Neither can I. But Oom Wynand here wasn’t all that surprised. I’m sure I heard him ask Jean which brother it was. Isn’t that so?”

Wynand shrugged one of those deep shrugs of his, where his shoulders all but cover his ears, a mannerism that prefaces a deep philosophical pronouncement. George and I therefore found suitable rocks and sat down.

“I was at the party yesterday, listening to the talk, and while everybody was saying what a good idea the bridge was, I was having doubts about it.”

“I thought it was a good idea — bring them closer together,” said George.

Wynand nodded. “That’s what most people said, but I was thinking they might be better apart. There’s never been much love between those two brothers. The big one always bullied the small one. Then he had the better deal when it came to the inheritance, and to top it off, he married Hansie’s schooldays sweetheart.”

“He did Hansie a favor there. Lisa is much more suited to him than Rina. They have much more in common, and Lisa’s knowledge of plants is a great help on their farming efforts. Rina is a sweet person, but her interests don’t extend much beyond clothes and hairdos and what’s known as having a good time. Things Dirk frowned on. She wasn’t the type to pine for a lover who was going to be away for four years. In fact, she married Dirk only a year after Hansie left. Long before he met Lisa. I just can’t believe that he can have any lingering passion for Rina. Pity, yes, but love, no. In any case, Rina would have been much too frightened of Dirk to try anything like that.”

Oom Wynand nodded his head and blew out a satisfying cloud of blue smoke. “You are most probably right, but who can know the truth when it comes to affairs of the heart? There is a rumor circulating that the two are — what do they say? — having it on. Yes, that’s what they say. Only the idle gossip of bored country people, of course, but it will have got to Dirk’s ears. Then, when I am lying awake last night and thinking about the party and the things we have been talking about, I hear shouting and arguing and perhaps even fighting coming from down here, so when I walk along the riverbank and see a body lying on the sand, the thing that occurs to me to ask is, which one?”

“So you don’t think it was an accident?”

Wynand looked startled at George’s question. “It must have been an accident, Mr. Rawson, those people aren’t murderers. Not a simple accident like the rock rolling down in the downpour just when Dirk happened to be walking by or was maybe standing there in the riverbed. No, that’s too much to believe, but there was some other circumstance we may never precisely know. The one thing we can be sure of is that whatever happened last night, none of the players had murder in their hearts; therefore, the rock rolling on Dirk was an accident.” He paused to put another match to his pipe. “Mind you, if it had been Hansie lying under the rock, I would not have been so sure. That Dirk was a hard man — a man without compassion. The colored folk who work for him won’t be shedding any tears. No, the puzzle is not whether it was an accident but how exactly such an accident happened.” He stood up and stuffed his now lighted pipe in his pocket. “I must go and tell Anna all about it.”

When he was out of earshot, George said, “Has the old man lost his marbles, or do you think he is talking some kind of sense?”

“There are no flies on Oom Wynand, that you can be sure of, and I don’t like to think of Rina or Hansie or Lisa being murderers. In fact, I can’t think of it. But there could have been an unintentional killing and perhaps an attempt at a coverup. I’ll tell you one thing, Rina was out there last night in the storm — her washing basket is full of wet, muddy clothes.”

“In that case she would be advised to get rid of them before Vermeulen comes snooping around.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve got themselves in some kind of a jam and plan to say they were all at home, safely tucked up in bed, when the storm broke. And probably that’s the best thing for them to do — it will be impossible to prove otherwise. Unless they leave incriminating bits of evidence around.”

“You do surprise me! I never thought of you as a conspirator trying to defeat the ends of justice.”

“It’s nothing to do with me, they’re your friends. If I do get dragged into it, it will be as counsel for the defense, and it will be simpler for me if they don’t do anything too silly.”

I thought about this for a few seconds, then said, “I’m with you. And I’m cold and wet. And so are you.”

We set off for home at a fast trot and were soon warming up with hot showers and small whiskies. I got into warm clothes and set off in my pickup to fetch the girls. George would have to stay and dry his clothes, as nothing of mine, apart from a dressing gown, would fit him.

I drove first to Dirk’s — I mean Rina’s — and found the ladies inside, very subdued and sipping tea. Rina was looking terrible and I thought in no state to be left on her own; she should come and stay with us at least for the night. But she and Mary had been through that exercise, and Rina was staying. So I said I would get in touch with Gert, the farm foreman, and tell him to take over the running of the farm in the meantime, which at this time of year he was more or less doing anyway. Then after more protestations that she would be all right and just wanted to be alone for a while and try to sleep, we started to move out.

“At least let us take your dirty laundry away with us and let Mary deal with it.”

Her eyes widened, and she went just a shade paler. “But why...”

“Just a precaution. Sergeant Vermeulen is very likely to pay you a routine visit, either later today or tomorrow morning, and it would be a pity if he found anything that might give him wrong ideas about where you were last night.”

We were at the back door, and before she could say anything, I nipped into the laundry and grabbed the wet clothes from the basket.

I explained the reason behind my action to a mystified Mary as we drove to collect Jean. At Hansie’s it was much the same as it had been at Rina’s except that there were the two of them to sustain each other so there was no problem about leaving them. But I had to know whether they too had any wet and dirty clothes to take care of. When I managed to draw Hansie away from the others, he preempted me.

“Bill, this is a terrible business; what am I going to do? Everybody will be saying I did for Dirk because of what they seem to think was going on between me and Rina. The police will be coming and asking all sorts of questions, and I won’t know what to say. I can’t pretend that things were ever good between me and Dirk, everybody knows that.”

“Look, Hansie, I want to help you all I can, but I think at this stage the less I know about what happened last night the better. George thinks the less anybody knows the better. It was an accident, right? None of you three were there after you had your fight with Dirk — Wynand heard a squabble down there when you were seeing Dirk home. But after that, nobody has reason to believe any of you were not safely home in your beds. Unless you leave evidence to the contrary lying about.”

“What do you mean?”

I told him about Rina’s basket of wet clothes, and he said yes, they had a wet clothes problem, too, but they had put theirs in a fertilizer sack and stowed it at the back of the garage.

“If Vermeulen were to come across it, he’d never believe anything else you tried to tell him. Better let me take it, too. And don’t try to explain — yet.”

We went to the garage, and I saw where they had hidden the sack behind some empty cartons at the back. Oh, Hansie, I thought, you’ll have to read a lot more whodunits before you embark on your next criminal enterprise.

We took the short way home, which was along the new connecting road over the new bridge. Just over the bridge I stopped the pickup and surveyed the scene. There was an old fence standard stuck in the ground almost in the riverbed. A relic of some long gone fenceline. You know what they’re like — like a very small railway line. Only yesterday I had tried to get it out to fix Mary’s sweetpea fence, but it was stuck fast in the clay. Now, when I went down the bank and wobbled it about a bit, it came out easily. I wasn’t surprised.

“Just what I need to fix your sweetpea fence.”

“You can’t just take other people’s property,” said Mary. “Put it back.”

I didn’t put it back, I took it home and drove it in next to the rotted support and tied the fence to it. Then I made sure the fruit drying trays had been stacked for the night, and by the time I got back to the house, the sun had set and wisps of cloud were spilling over the mountains.

Inside all was bright and cheerful. I could hear the washing machine doing its stuff in the background. No doubt George would take the clean, damp clothes home and put them through his drier. The main thing was that nobody should see them hanging on a line anywhere. George had made himself useful by getting a good blaze going in the hearth and making a big pot of coffee, and we were soon sitting around with mugs of coffee well laced with brandy. And then the speculations began in earnest. All sorts of suggestions were put forward as to what had happened last night, and the more brandy we drank, the more bizarre they became. “They” had decided they had had enough of Dirk and had got together and waylaid him somewhere, killed him with a blow to the head with a rock, and dragged him down to the river and rolled the rock on him to make it look like an accident. Of course none of us believed this — we were just looking for the most dastardly scenario we could think of. But it did seem to me that there was a vestige of truth in the idea. Suppose Dirk had attacked Rina, but Rina had somehow managed to hit him with a rock down there by the river, and Hansie and Lisa had happened along, finding Rina in a state because of what would become of her. Lisa had then maybe had the idea of staging an accident to cover Dirk’s injuries, and they had between them managed to wrestle the standard free and use it to loosen the rock. This, I suppose, was semi-plausible at best and was full of holes that would need to be plugged before it would hold any water. For example, why should Lisa and Hansie happen along? But they had been out in the storm, and so had Rina. It was too difficult to imagine, so when George suggested that we give up that line of research and work on the scene where they were all safely tucked up as they were no doubt going to maintain, we jumped at the idea and started putting up idiotic ideas such as Dirk’s taking a nap in the riverbed, being wakened by the downpour and the thunder but being too slow to get out of the way when the rock rolled.

As the evening wore on with breaks to attend the washing machine — it was an old fashioned twin tub job — and to fry up some bacon and eggs and make some salads and so forth, we finally settled on what we thought would be the most plausible scenario. Dirk staggers off after Hansie had maybe hit him and stumbles or falls down the bank and into the pool, where he splashes about trying to sober himself up. Then he climbs the bank alongside the rock but no sooner has he got to the path than he trips and falls four feet onto the rock. His two hundred seventy pounds jolt it loose, and he continues his journey backwards, landing in the riverbed and banging his head on a stone and maybe hurting himself in other places. He turns over and starts to crawl out, but the rock gets him. We were satisfied with that. It wasn’t true, but it was an explanation that would satisfy the majority that, however strange it seemed, the “accident” was possible. Now all we had to do was wait and see what the coroner made of it all.

The inquest took place in the courthouse on the Tuesday afternoon following the accident. The magistrate who sat in as coroner did a very professional job, considering he was only a jumped up J.P. He had been well briefed by Piet van Vliet, George’s partner (who had no doubt been briefed by George), and carried out the procedure to everyone’s satisfaction. He began with George and me, who explained the finding of the body, including Rina’s phone call in the morning.

Rina was next, and he gave her quite a rough time on the subject of her not noticing her husband’s absence earlier. This brought out the embarrassing fact that they occupied separate bedrooms and that it was not a happy marriage and that her husband treated her badly because, she thought, she had failed to give him a child. She also told the coroner that she had looked into her husband’s bedroom as soon as she had risen and the bed appeared to have been slept in, so she had assumed he was somewhere on the farm. Her maid, one Sabina Ambraal, told her, however, that because of all the preparations for the bridge party she hadn’t found time to make the bed on the Saturday morning.

Then it was Hansie’s turn as the last person to see Dirk alive. Hansie admitted that he and his brother hadn’t been on very good terms. Hansie resented being always treated like a small boy, being patronized and told what to do. And on that night of all nights, when they should have forgotten their differences, they had both drunk too much, and the tensions between them had increased. At the end of the evening Dirk was very drunk, and he, Hansie, who wasn’t quite so bad, decided he had better walk his brother home because neither of them was in a fit state to drive. They argued all the way, and by the time they got to the new bridge, a real slanging match had developed. At the coroner’s insistence Hansie admitted that it was because Dirk was accusing him of having an affair with his wife, which was quite untrue and damaging to his own marriage. Dirk had aimed a blow at him, which he managed to avoid, but he was frightened because his brother was eight inches taller than he and twice his weight. He stooped and picked up a stone to defend himself, an act that infuriated Dirk, who bent to get a stone for himself. This brought his head down, and Hansie had hit him on the back of the head. Not hard enough to knock him out but enough to send him reeling across the bridge, and Hansie had, frankly, fled. A few minutes later he heard Dirk splashing about in the shallow pool and had thought, good, no harm done and the cold water will sober him up. He was very contrite and wanted to take the blame for the accident. I shouldn’t have left him to make his own way home. I could at least have stayed nearby in case he got himself into difficulties. The coroner told him not to blame himself.

Lisa made a brief appearance to confirm that her husband and brother-in-law had gone off together about one A.M. She had gone straight to bed. She was disgusted with the men’s drunken behavior, and when her husband had returned at about half past one and told her what had happened, she had merely remarked that she wished that they had both fallen off the bridge.

The police evidence consisted of the sergeant’s description of how he had been called to the scene and how he had helped to remove a large boulder that was lying on the body and how, after a brief examination by Dr. Masson, he had delivered the body to the hospital. He produced his photographs of the site and the body for the coroner’s scrutiny. He further stated that there were no signs of a struggle but pointed out that an exceptionally heavy storm had struck somewhere about two A.M., causing the river to rise and obliterate any footprints that might have existed. He told how he had later returned to the farms and questioned Mrs. Rina Theron and Mr. and Mrs. Johannes Theron as to their whereabouts on the fatal night. He had also questioned the farm staffs without learning anything that pointed to anything other than an accident. The coroner thanked him and complimented him on his thoroughness. And I suppose, apart from not spotting the wet clothes and the loose fence post, there wasn’t much else he could have done.

Dr. Masson stated that he had carried out an autopsy and that in his opinion death had resulted from the horrendous injuries that occurred when the victim had been crushed under a very big boulder. Questioned about the possibility of death’s having occurred before the man had been crushed, he said that he thought that unlikely. There had been a blow to the back of the head that he considered not serious enough to have caused concussion and certainly not death. Death had not been caused by drowning, by heart attack, or by stroke. Blood alcohol level had been extremely high, and he went on to speculate that Dirk had probably stumbled from the track and fallen heavily onto the boulder and from there onto the dry bed or into very shallow water, almost certainly injuring himself severely. Then, before he could crawl away, the rock, loosened by his fall, had rolled on him.

The coroner was quick to point out that this was pure speculation and could not be considered as evidence. For myself, I was delighted that Frank Masson had come up with the same scenario that we had invented. I suspected that George had had something to do with it, but he swore blind that he hadn’t. I felt that the doctor’s (misinformed) speculation would set at rest the minds of the many who probably could not bring themselves to believe that such an accident could happen.

The coroner then inquired if anybody in the court had anything to add that would help him with his verdict, but there were no takers. Oom Wynand knew when to hold his peace. The coroner then spoke at some length about the events leading up to the tragedy and expressed his sympathy to the family of the deceased. He said he could find no evidence to suggest foul play and brought in a verdict of death by misadventure resulting from overconsumption of strong drink. And that was that and it was only four thirty.

I felt pleased for my friends but uncomfortable in myself. The sergeant had done all he could — the only mistake he had made was not to return to the farms before I removed what incriminating evidence there was. I suppose deep down I had hoped for detectives and forensic experts and all the things you read about, but Vermeulen couldn’t possibly have called in the C.I.D. from Cape Town on the evidence he had. No, if there had been a miscarriage of justice, it rested squarely on my shoulders. I couldn’t believe any of them would do anything bad under normal circumstances, but how can anyone know how another will act under stress? I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that one of them or all of them had killed Dirk, maybe unintentionally, and that they had rolled the rock to hide the evidence. I felt sure the fencepost had been used to lever the rock loose and all the rain had done was wash away the marks.

The funeral the following Thursday went off according to tradition. The predikant mouthed the usual words about the Lord moving in mysterious ways and managed to put in some strong words on the subject of intemperance. The eulogy was spoken by Andries du Plessis, who said a lot of nice things about his fellow elder and a lot more about his prowess on the rugby field, where he was going to be most missed. (He kept quiet on the subject of wife and laborer bashing.) Then it was dust to dust in the pleasant little village cemetery, and the considerable crowd of mourners made its way to Rina’s. She and Lisa had organized an enormous spread of sandwiches and all the traditional cakes. There were urns of tea and coffee and, for those brave enough to partake after the predikant’s sermon, there was wine, beer, and brandy.

Like all funerals, it was both a sad occasion and a chance for old friends and relatives, some from afar, to get together. I was introduced to many aunts, uncles, and cousins as “my good friend and neighbor,” which, under the circumstances, I thought a fair description. George and I and our wives wandered among the mourners, chatting idly but all the time on the lookout for the slightest sign of dissension on the coroner’s verdict or any sign of a smear campaign starting. Only Oom Wynand said anything and that was to remark that it had been a good decision.

It was when the party was over and Mary and I were making our way out, expressing our sympathy in the usual manner and asking if there was anything we could do to help, that Hansie said, “Yes, there is — quite a big thing — I want to tell you about what really happened. I know you don’t think the coroner got it right, and though you don’t want to believe that any of your friends could commit a terrible crime, you can’t be comfortable with Dr. Frank’s scenario, knowing, as you do, that we were all out there in the rain.” I gave an uncomfortable little nod. “Then come round to my place tonight, bring George and Jean, and we’ll try to put your doubts at rest.”

When we, all seven of us, were comfortably seated around a very pleasant fire in Hansie and Lisa’s big living room, holding steaming mugs of Irish coffee, Hansie began.

“We will tell you the story of that dreadful night, and if you don’t believe it, you will understand why we didn’t tell it in court and told so many lies instead. When Lisa finally managed to kick Dirk out, he was so drunk that I went with him to make sure he got safely off my property. I was very drunk, too, but I was happy drunk and he was mad drunk. By the time we got to the bridge, I realized that he was murderous drunk, and I was scared. I didn’t want to get in a fight with him — I wouldn’t stand a chance. He kept saying he knew I was having an affair with his wife and if he ever caught me around there he would murder me. His language was foul so I started to edge away, but he had decided he would do for me right there and then. He took a vicious swing at me, but I saw it coming and dodged. The momentum of the intended blow swung him round so his back was towards me, and I aimed a kick at him. He doubled up with pain and went staggering across the bridge, and I turned and ran, flinging taunts over my shoulder as I went. I shouted to him to cool off before he went home — I guess I was sort of drunkenly excited at getting the better of him.”

“Nobody ever died from a kick in the balls,” said George. “Why did you say you had hit him with a stone?”

“Ah well, I didn’t know what the doctor would make of the bruise on the back of his head.”

Of course this didn’t satisfy George, but he let it go and Hansie went on.

“A hundred or so yards on, I stopped to see if he would come after me. Then I heard him splashing about in the water and thought the silly so-and-so had fallen down the bank — but good, the cold water will help sober him up.

“Lisa was still in the kitchen finishing up when I got home. I told her what had happened, and she said, serve the brute right. She had started up the stairs to bed when a thought struck her: what if he drowns? They’ll accuse you of murder! Why should he drown, I asked; the water’s not two feet deep in the pool and only a trickle elsewhere. She started up again and then came back. What if he doesn’t drown? He’ll go home and murder Rina. We’ve got to go and stop him. Normally I would have scoffed at the idea, but I had seen the murderous mood he was in. I told her to put on her boots and coat, as it was going to rain. I got mine, too, and headed for the pickup. I took a three foot length of three by two that was lying near the garage.

“We drove quietly down the road as far as the branch to the bridge; then we stopped and listened. It was a weird night. The moon was about three quarters full and nearly overhead, very bright and casting dark shadows. To the west the clouds were piling and already reaching nearly to the moon, and there were distant flickers of lightning. The atmosphere was electric, ominous. We left the pickup and walked softly, arm in arm, clinging to each other.

“We both heard it at the same time — a grunting, groaning, cussing kind of sound like two sumo wrestlers struggling. It must have been Dirk, but what could he be doing? Terrible thoughts came into our heads, and we began to move faster. Suddenly there was a cry of triumph, and we began to run. When we got to the bridge, we stopped and hid behind some bushes. Dirk was standing alone, brandishing a fence standard he had wrestled from the clay. He hefted it like an assegai and started forward purposefully. I let go of Lisa and started after him.”

“But I grabbed him and pulled him back,” Lisa took up the tale. “ ‘Don’t be a fool,’ I whispered, ‘he’ll kill you with that thing, that bit of wood won’t help you. Rina’s not in danger yet — we can follow when he starts off for the house.’ ”

But he hadn’t started for the house; instead, he had taken his weapon to the rock and set about loosening it, scraping earth from under it, levering it away from the bank. The two watched him, fascinated, trying to imagine what was in his mind. After what seemed hours, but was probably about ten minutes, he had the boulder loose — so loose that he could rock it to and fro. It was a wonder it didn’t roll on him. All this was easy to see in the bright moonlight, though wisps of cloud were now scudding across the moon, dimming it but not blotting out the light.

“He stood back,” Hansie said, “and admired his handiwork. It was clear from his stance that he was pleased with himself. Then, the fence stake still in his hand, he started up the bank. We started to move, but he stopped dead still for a moment as if he had seen something unexpected. He put the stake down quietly and, very stealthily, made his way back to the riverbed and lay face down like a drowned man, one arm spread out to the side and his feet in the water. We should have moved then, but we were rooted to the spot, not knowing what was going on...”

Rina took up the tale. “They were worried about me, and I was worried about me, too. When all the guests had gone and the servants had cleared up, Hansie invited us to go to his place, but I was scared. I knew that if I went home with Dirk he would beat me up. So I said I was too tired and drove home in the car. I locked my bedroom door and went to bed, hoping he would be sober and in a better mood in the morning. I knew Dirk wanted to get rid of me, and I’d have gone willingly enough, but he wanted to discredit me and that’s why he had started the malicious rumor about Hansie and me. I think he had really come to believe it himself, though I’m sure it was his own invention. It was deadly quiet, and I lay there listening. Sometime after one o’clock I thought I heard voices in the distance. I got up and opened the window and could hear raised voices coming from the direction of the new bridge. It was too far for me to distinguish words, but I was sure Dirk and Hansie were quarreling.”

“You recognized the voices?” I asked.

“I think it was probably too far away for me to be sure — I suppose it could have been two farm laborers, but I never thought about it, I just assumed it must be the two brothers. The shouting went on for what seemed several minutes, and then quite suddenly it stopped. Oh my God, I thought, he’s killed Hansie, and now he’ll come and kill me. The locked door seemed frail — one kick of his great boot and he’d be in. I started to barricade the door with a chair, and then I noticed the window. The only thing to do was to get out. Stop panicking, I told myself, it will take at least ten minutes for him to get here. I knew it would be cold out there, so I took enough time to dress warmly in trousers, jersey, and my warm parka. I found my torch and went out the front door.

“The first thing that struck me was how light it was. The moon was not far from full and over halfway up the sky. He’ll see me from a mile away, I thought. I hurried through the garden, keeping to the shadows whenever I could, and then into the orchard, but it didn’t provide much cover with its nearly leafless trees. I dodged from one to the other as quietly as I could and prayed that he wouldn’t see me. I don’t know what plan I had in mind; I obviously wasn’t thinking clearly. I should have been heading for your place, Mary, but I suppose some instinct told me to keep our troubles in the family, so I was heading for Lisa and Hansie. Suddenly I was out of the orchard and almost at the bridge. I ducked behind a bush and listened. Not a sound. I crept out from my cover and prepared to make a run for it, over the bridge and up the road to safety. I willed my trembling legs to do it.

“And then I saw it. A body lying face down in the riverbed, half in the water. I wanted to cry out and scramble down to it, but my fear prevented me. The moon was still bright, though clouds had begun blowing across it. I could see from the size of him and the thick black hair that it was Dirk. Perhaps at that point I should have run for it, but I couldn’t bring myself to just leave him lying there. I slithered down the bank. ‘Dirk?’ I whispered. ‘Dirk?’ I took a step towards him, and then some instinct made me stop. I saw a river-rounded stone a little bigger than an ostrich egg lying at my feet. I stooped and picked it up. I moved a step nearer. He gave a pitiful moan. Another step. ‘Dirk, what happened? Are you hurt?’ He groaned again. I moved right up to him. ‘Dirk, are you all right?’

“And then he spoke, his voice cold and menacing. ‘I saw you sneaking out of the house to go to your lover, you scheming bitch. I knew you would come this way, so I laid this little trap for you. Now I’m going to kill you and leave you here on the sand while I find your randy boyfriend, and then the two of you will lie here, and the big rock will roll over you, and the world will know that it was God’s just retribution.’ While he was saying this, his hand shot out and grabbed me by the ankle in a bone-crushing grip. There was no time to argue; I brought the stone down hard on the back of his head. His face dropped back onto the sand, and his grip relaxed. I turned and ran and tried to scramble back to the track, but my legs gave way. Then there were comforting arms about me.”

She was sobbing quietly, and Mary went and knelt before her, taking her hands. “You poor, poor child, but there’s nothing to fear now. It’s all over now.” Rina wiped her eyes and managed a faint smile.

“Yes, it’s over now except for the nightmares.”

“They will pass,” said Jean. Rina nodded.

Hansie took up the tale.

“As soon as we saw Rina go toward Dirk, we started to move. Please don’t ask me why we didn’t cry out — I’ve been asking myself why ever since. We might have prevented a tragedy if we had. There was such a conspiratorial air about that it didn’t occur to us. We didn’t have much more than a hundred yards to go, and we set off at as good a pace as we could, me grasping my three by two in one hand and steadying Lisa with the other. But everything happened so quickly we got to the bottom of the bank only just in time to catch Rina. She was in a terrible state, screaming that she had killed Dirk, and nothing we could say would comfort her. The only thing to do was to hold her until she calmed down. I was conscious of Dirk lying there dangerously close to the loosened rock, but comforting Rina seemed to be of prime importance. Then everything happened at once. The moon finally went out for good, leaving us in total darkness, and the rain began to fall in great stinging drops. Thunder rolled in the hills quite near us, and suddenly there was one hell of a lightning strike on the mountainside just behind my farm. The thunderclap that followed was like nemesis. It shook the ground, and in the light of another strike I saw Dirk try to struggle up and the great rock start to roll.”

There was a stunned silence, all of us too shocked to speak. We just stared at Hansie, openmouthed.

Hansie went on. “You are shocked, aren’t you? Can you imagine what it was like for us? You don’t want to believe it, and you don’t have to. We didn’t want to believe it, but we had no choice. I left Rina in Lisa’s care and made my way to the rock, using a torch that made little impression in the teeming rain. But it showed enough for me to see that it seemed to have done a crooked roll and was sitting squarely on poor Dirk. Only his head protruded and his lower legs and one arm. I felt for his pulse, but there was none, thank heaven.

“There was nothing I could do besides get the girls home as quick as I could. As I made my way towards them, I tripped over the fencing stake. I wasn’t thinking very clearly, but I felt its presence there could be misconstrued, so I picked it up and managed to find the hole where it had come from and put it back. Then we got Rina up the bank, and I fetched the pickup and drove her home. While Lisa was getting Rina’s wet clothes off, I went to the phone to ring the police. I wondered if there would be anyone on duty. Then I thought, even if there is, it’s one hell of a night to bring anybody out, and what could they possibly achieve? So I didn’t ring. Instead I went into the kitchen and put the kettle on and made a big pot of strong tea. Lisa got Rina into a hot bath — the poor kid was in a state of shock and shivering. Eventually we had her tucked up in bed with a big mug of hot sweet tea, and by then I’d had time to think. I thought, this thing is so bizarre that there’s a good chance nobody will believe us, and if they don’t believe us, we will be charged with murder and very likely convicted. On the other hand, if we simply said that I had seen Dirk to the bridge and had a bit of a fight — somebody, Wynand at least, might have heard us — nobody could prove that we weren’t all safely tucked up in bed. So we decided we would all stick to that story. The rest you know.”

“You got away with it,” said lawyer George, “and I was sure you would, precisely because there was no evidence that you hadn’t all been in bed as you said. There was, of course, equally no evidence that you had been — Rina had no alibi, and a husband and wife alibiing each other doesn’t hold much water. But it was heard in a little country court where villainy is not the order of the day. And I must say you put on a very good act! You took a chance, though, by leaving wet clothes around. You have Bill to thank for getting rid of that bit of evidence.”

“On George’s advice,” I said.

“Legally speaking,” said George, “the case is closed, so now that you have put us fully in the picture and set our minds at rest, let’s leave it at that.”

“Oh no!” said Mary. “How can we just leave it at that? Our dear friends have been through hell, suffered terribly, and we say you got away with it — good for you! I want you to know that we all love you, and that includes my amateur detective husband, who tried to put all sorts of terrible ideas into our heads. And that, though we knew there was more to it than came out at the inquest, we never doubted for an instant that you were innocent of any crime. Though I’m not sure that the aforesaid husband can be included in this.”

But even as she said it she was giving me one of her loving smiles. She knew it had been harder for me to keep faith because my engineering training had taught me to rely on logical thinking rather than blind faith or intuition.

Lisa came to my rescue. “That’s not quite fair, Mary; Bill was the one who covered up our mistakes for us, took our dirty wet clothes away before the sergeant could find them and get the wrong, I mean right, idea. So it’s to Bill more than anybody that we owe lifelong gratitude.”

“Really it’s to George, who staked his reputation and risked being struck off the rolls by advising me to do the dirty work.”

“That’s correct,” said George in his best yes-your-worship fashion. And then with a smile, “Though I doubt if doing some washing for a neighbor in distress could be considered a crime.”

“The certain thing is this — we all owe you an eternal debt of gratitude,” said Hansie. “You have no idea how much more confidence we had going into the inquest, knowing that the good sergeant wouldn’t be springing our dirty linen on us. The thing that worries me, Bill, is this: what made your nasty, suspicious mind — correction, your alert, inquiring mind — send you rooting in Rina’s washing basket?”

“Just that — my alert, inquiring mind. When we first saw the rock lying in the river, I wondered why. Everybody else was quite happy to believe the rain had brought it down, and sure, there had been a flood and the water had been lapping the rock and no doubt eroding a little of the supporting earth away. But that earth is hard, impervious clay, and the water would have lapped the rock for only a little while. Still, there has to be the point of overbalance somewhere. Then I saw something that startled me and sent me prodding around in the water with my walking stick. There was a fence standard some twenty or so yards upstream from the rock. It had been there more or less forever, and at one time it supported a fence running north and south. Now it seemed to me it would be for an east-west fence. You may think that pretty sharp of me, but I’d been looking out for such a stake and while I was at the party I had tried to see if it would come out easily. It certainly would not, it would have needed somebody much stronger than I to shift it. Yet here was the afternoon sun showing up the holes in the web. So I looked in Rina’s basket, found wet clothes, and put two and two together. And made five! Sergeant Vermeulen moved about the scene of the crime, as he called it, and took lots of snapshots but not one of the pole, so I felt it safe to assume he hadn’t even noticed it was there. I thought I’d pinch it before it set in the ground again and before it might arouse his interest. Nobody will find it now — it’s holding up Mary’s sweetpea fence that fell down the day of the party. I don’t suppose you want it back, do you?”

“Hell, no. I don’t even want to think about it!” Hansie looked at me and shook his head, “It’s going to be the devil having you for a neighbor, Bill, if I should ever decide to embark on a life of crime.”

“Don’t worry, old man — I’ll probably catch you out, but George will be sure to get you off.”

And so we left after a lot of hugging and kissing and protestations of lifelong friendship.

And now, three years on, nobody talks about that terrible night. I suppose it’s best forgotten, but I can’t help thinking of poor Dirk, who got so little sympathy. What a tormented soul he must have been — insanely jealous of his pipsqueak brother who failed at nothing while he, Dirk, a real man, was unable to father a child. And at Hansie’s, after the bridge party, did it leak out that Lisa was pregnant? Was that the last straw that drove him to madness?