It was the afternoon of the 99th day of the hearings of the Marikana commission of inquiry and Judge Ian Farlam was at the end of his tether.
Seated on a raised platform on the stage of the Rustenburg Civic Centre's auditorium, he had spent a frustrating day watching a game of legal cat-and-mouse in which the cat did not have claws and the mouse could not run.
To his right sat the national commissioner of police, Riah Phiyega; to his left, Dali Mpofu, the legal representative of the injured and arrested Marikana protesters. All around sat lawyers, translators and assistants - at times numbering as many as 35 - each enduring the unedifying spectacle in his own way.
For the entire day, Mpofu and Phiyega had been asking and answering the same question in 100, perhaps 1000, ways.
Mpofu's line of questioning was aimed at establishing that police major-general William Mpembe had been removed from his position of authority because he had favoured a more conciliatory approach to the protesting miners.
The question went to the heart of police culpability. If it could be shown that a policeman who was encouraging union leaders to talk to the striking miners, to defer violence, was replaced by a more hard-line officer, it would suggest a decision higher up in the police chain of command to take more repressive action or, worse, that the shooting dead of 34 protesters had been planned by the police hierarchy.
The problem was that Phiyega insisted that she was not aware of such a decision, a position from which she would not deviate despite extensive provocation.
And so began the game of cat-and-mouse. Mpofu asked the question over and over again, in different formulations, and Phiyega gave the same answer over and over again. These, she said, were "operational issues" about which only those directly involved could give evidence.
Farlam rested a cheek on a fist. Mpofu asked increasingly obscure questions, Phiyega gave the same dispassionate answers in the same tired monotone.
At one point, Farlam pointed out that the commission would enter its 100th day the following day.
The commission had originally been asked to do its work in one month, January. It had obtained a four-month extension, until the end of May, and now it was about to ask for a further four-month extension, taking it to the end of September.
The hearing is "phase one" of the commission's work.
Phase two, which will examine the "socioeconomic" issues underpinning the confrontation, is yet to start.
Farlam tried to move things along, rephrasing Mpofu's sometimes clumsy questions in abrupt legal shorthand and putting them to Phiyega. She replied with the answer she had given all morning.
When the 4pm closing time came and went, Farlam could finally take no more as Mpofu appeared to question a ruling he had made.
Farlam said that his experience from years at the bar was that it was a bad idea to show dissent at a presiding officer's decisions. He raised a finger and his eyes appeared to bulge ever so slightly.
Mpofu responded that he was merely fulfilling "my professional obligation".
This agitated Farlam further. What disappointed him, he said, was Mpofu's "body language and a general air of respect or lack thereof". It would seem to those observing, Farlam said, that he was not giving Mpofu a fair chance.
The commission adjourned for the 99th time.
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