Steeped in Blood (6 page)

We finished fixing the window, and then she haggled over the price, but finally we were paid and we left. The story took a rather amusing twist, as I was due to be the guest speaker at an anaesthetic conference later in the month. I will remember to my dying day the look of surprise and horror on her face when she arrived at the conference with her husband, only to find the handyman sitting at the top table as the guest speaker!

I soon realised that the University of Durban-Westville was not for me, but I was not keen to be a full-time handyman, so I started looking for another position in the academic world.

An advertisement appeared for a lecturer at Wits in the Department of Biochemistry, and I applied. In 1981, three years after I had left Johannesburg, I was on my way back to work at Wits. Disillusionment was not far off. The back-biting was as bad at Wits as anywhere else, and it was particularly bad at the medical school. So much energy was being consumed just fighting battles with colleagues, and this was not where I wanted to be.

I also found that the way in which funding was provided appeared to be problematic. Universities were given grants in return for producing a certain number of papers on an annual basis. Driven by volume, not quality, some papers that were produced can only be described as rubbish. I could not be party to this, and I objected to the ‘publish or perish’ mentality, as, in my view, it leads to cheating and the publication of mediocre information.

I am not a conformist and wanted to publish only what I felt was worthwhile. But, coupled with my huge lecture load, I found that publishing useful, quality articles in the journals was difficult, which inevitably led to problems with the dean and the vice-chancellor of research, Professor Peter Tyson.

I also experienced petty office politics. One instance concerned the use of instruments. There was a particular instrument called an integrator. A colleague, Richard Cantril, had one in his lab, and I asked him if I could use it. He told me that I couldn’t, as he was using it all the time. During tea one morning, I went to his laboratory, lifted the lid of the box it was housed in, and signed the chart paper with my name and the date. Eight weeks later, I approached him again and received the same answer – he was using it all the time. I opened the lid to see my name and date in the same place, undisturbed. I pointed this out to him, and he had no answer. The motto at Wits seemed to be that not only must one be seen to succeed, but others must be seen to fail. Teamwork and pride in the achievement of colleagues was an unknown ethos.

During my time at Wits, I organised the weekly journal club, and it was at one of these meetings that I met Hillel Shapiro, a forensic pathologist. He was accompanied by Dorothy Gill, from the Department of Health. Shapiro gave a very interesting lecture, and I realised when talking to the two of them afterwards that there were major problems in the field of forensic science in South Africa. There were no private forensic laboratories, and I saw this as a huge opportunity.

Dorothy, an analytical chemist from Britain, had been warning the authorities that there was a problem with the blood-alcohol testing procedures. After some discussion, she decided to resign from the Department of Health to start a forensic practice with me. Without much planning as to how I would start a private forensic laboratory, I decided to take the plunge and resign my post at Wits. I would seek my future outside the world of academia. A new chapter of my life was about to begin.

‘It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble,
it’s what we know that ain’t so.’

– WILL ROGERS,

American actor, humorist and social commentator

I waved the academic world farewell, saying goodbye to the regular pay slip. In preparation, I paid off my accommodation expenses a year in advance, so my only worry would be my living expenses for the next year.

Dorothy Gill found a position at the Jockey Club (now the National Horseracing Authority of Southern Africa). Unfortunately she would cut all ties with me after my involvement in a case against the Jockey Club, and we would not go into business together.

It is illegal to race a horse whose performance has been enhanced by certain substances, and, up until the early 1980s, blood samples
had to be sent overseas to be analysed. In about 1984, the Jockey Club set up its own laboratory for testing in South Africa.

Around 1988, the first big case that came up was that of Alan Forbes, a wealthy trainer who owned and raced horses. Amidst ongoing friction between Forbes and the Jockey Club, one of his racehorses, I’m Proud, was tested, and traces of naproxen, an anti-inflammatory drug, was supposedly found in its bloodstream. Forbes was accused of enhancing his horse’s performance by using drugs.

He was entitled to have his own expert cross-examine the Jockey Club expert at the hearing, and I was called in. The head of their laboratory testified at length about how he had conducted the tests and reached his conclusion that naproxen was present in the horse’s bloodstream, but I managed to poke many holes in his evidence. He quoted from books, and I brought these same books with me, pointing out that his quotes were simply not there. In the end, the Jockey Club expert was disbelieved. It was a walkover, and Alan Forbes was acquitted.

I was subsequently called in to assist another trainer. This time, the Jockey Club would not allow me the privilege of cross-examining their expert – I was not permitted to attend the hearing. I flew to Durban with the trainer and suggested to him that we act in the following way: he would go into the hearing with a tape recorder and ask the first question. He would then come to me with the recording, and I would listen and give him the next question. This is what we did – by tea time we had asked only three questions!

The chairman of the inquiry was livid and said he wanted all the questions at once. I said that I couldn’t do that because each question would depend on the answer to the previous question. Out of frustration, they eventually let me into the hearing, and after one or two questions, I demolished their expert again.

Animals (and people) have different levels of hormones in their
systems. To prove that abnormal levels are the result of a substance being administered artificially, you have to prove it statistically, using the sample you have taken. The flaw in their case was a misunderstanding in the evaluation and analysing of this sample. The statistics were incorrect, and I even called in a statistician to show how wrong the basis of their calculation was. It was a technical error on their part, but this case was enough for them to ban me from ever being involved with the Jockey Club again. It’s hardly fair, but no trainer can approach me again to assist them. I am not allowed to cross-examine their witnesses either.

Unfortunately – or maybe fortunately – Dorothy cut ties with me because of these hearings. So, I was on my own in my fledgling practice and set about finding clients. With great anticipation, I placed an advert in the South African attorneys’ journal
De Rebus
, only to discover that attorneys either didn’t read it or couldn’t read. I watched my slender reserves of money dwindle at an alarming rate.

In order to feed myself, I had re-established my handyman business in Johannesburg, and was doing handyman work in and around the city. One of my suppliers was a glazing business called MUG Glaziers. I became friendly with the owners, and they asked me one day if I would be interested in running their shop in Green-side, a suburb of Johannesburg. I thought about it and realised that my resources were good for another two months at the most, so I accepted the offer. I was now an apprentice in the art of glazing – in fitting shower doors. Ironically, I was now learning the business in which my father had been involved during the Standerton days.

One day, while I was applying silicone to a shower door near Sandton City, my pager went off. (This was the pre-cellphone era – I had a small radio pager in case of emergencies.) It was a law firm. I found the nearest public telephone and called the attorney immediately.

With great excitement, I spoke to Reg Kossuth, who was acting for an insurance company called Commercial Union Life. Hillel Shapiro, the forensic pathologist I’d met at Wits, had suggested that he call me. The company had a problem and they wanted to know if I would be interested in investigating it. The documentation was delivered to me, and eagerly I started reading.

It was the case of a young woman who had been found dead in her bed, in Durban, with a packet of antidepressants and a bottle of wine by her side. She ran her own business and had recently taken out a substantial life insurance policy, with her husband designated as the beneficiary. Her death had occurred within the two-year suicide exclusion clause contained in most insurance policies, which prevents people from taking out policies with the sole intention of committing suicide and making money out of it for their beneficiaries. My brief was to determine whether her death had been a suicide or not.

I flew to Durban to investigate the case, and discovered that the woman had been a severe and chronic depressive. She was on significant doses of antidepressant drugs and had visited several doctors. She had had the scripts from these doctors dispensed at various pharmacies, using different names, and she’d even forged some of the prescriptions. These facts should have been disclosed to the insurers when she took out the policy. In instances where this does not happen, it is known in insurance jargon as a ‘material non-disclosure’.

I did not conduct any analysis in this case – I obtained information from the mortuary. The results were puzzling. One particularly strange aspect related to her liver. The liver was weighed at the autopsy, but the recorded mass differed significantly from the mass of the liver that was received for analysis. I suspected that there had been a switch in the samples, and that the organs of another body had been sent instead. Whether her husband had had a hand in this was never established, but it was strongly suspected.

The claim was repudiated successfully because her state of depression had not been disclosed. No one challenged my finding. I now came to the daunting task of submitting an invoice: I didn’t have a clue what to charge. My girlfriend at the time suggested that I charge R100 per hour, a figure that seemed exorbitant to me. I followed her suggestion and submitted my account with bated breath. To my surprise, I received a letter of thanks and a cheque for R10 000 in return! This was more than I had earned in an entire year as an academic, and I realised that a good living could be made in private consulting. My career as a budding glazier was cut short – all my energy would now be channelled into running a private forensic practice.

One of my first steps was to call Hillel Shapiro to thank him for referring the case to me. After some difficulty in getting through to him, I finally spoke to his secretary, Maureen Stroud. She told me that Shapiro had passed away the previous week and that she was busy sorting out the estate and tidying up his affairs. I was shocked and deeply saddened by the news.

It had become clear to me that I would need some administrative support in my practice, so I called Maureen about a week later to ask her what her future plans were. She wasn’t quite sure, so I invited her around to my house to offer her a position as my secretary. (I had typed the first report with one finger on an IBM Golfball typewriter.) Over a cup of tea Maureen agreed to come and work for me, and we sealed the agreement with a bottle of marmalade and a jar of beetroot preserve, which I had made. Maureen was to work for me for the next twelve years, and she proved to be a godsend in many ways.

We set up office in a pair of semi-detached houses in Fox Street, opposite the Jeppestown post office in Johannesburg, and I began to establish a laboratory. Setting up a laboratory was no cheap exercise, and I decided to lease the equipment to start with. John Green and MLS Bank loaned me the money, and I spent it with gay abandon.

Shortly after Maureen had joined me, she sat me down one day and asked me what I thought I needed to earn in order to service my debt. The thought had not even crossed my mind – I hadn’t a clue. My passion is for science, and once a case is completed, I have no interest in the financial side. This is perhaps a result of my childhood experiences of the terrible trauma caused to my family by my father’s horse-racing addiction. I earn the money, and what happens to it after that is of no consequence to me.

Maureen took over and ran the business for me with little intervention from my side. She spoke to the bank manager, arranged an accountant to submit tax returns, and single-handedly kept the practice afloat despite my excesses. She set up processes that I still use today, and I owe her a huge debt of gratitude.

At one point, the practice was particularly slow and we needed to cover our overheads. I recall telling Maureen the story of the verger at St Peter’s Church in London, who couldn’t read or write. When a new vicar came into office, he told the verger that he should either learn to read and write or vacate the position. The verger felt that he was too old to start learning new things, so he left the employment of the church. As he was walking down the street, he felt like a cigarette, so he looked around for a tobacconist. There wasn’t one anywhere. So he walked down the adjacent street, and then the next street – nowhere could he find a tobacconist.