The History of Blood

Book 3: Col Vaughn de Vries

by Paul Mendelson

Genres: Mystery; Psychological Thrillers

Synopsis

When the South African Police Service receive a panicked call for help from the wayward daughter of a former Apartheid-era politician, they discover only her body but, within it, a message which will take Colonel Vaughn de Vries and Don February of the Special Crimes Unit on a journey through their country - and their country's past - to decipher and resolve. As organised crime grips South Africa, new players arrive in Cape Town, determined to exploit the poor and hopeless, promising redemption. While other government agencies snap impotently at the small fish, De Vries, linked by a personal connection, resolves to follow this trail to its source and take it down from the top. As decades old webs of corruption and influence are exposed, and the boundaries of morality blur, his decisions begin to impact on his friends, colleagues and family.

Release date: July 7, 2016

Publisher: Constable

Print pages: 352

Sample

September 1994

The men stand, sullen, tired, dishevelled, their uniforms crumpled, faded. They have sat in the courtroom for three days, listening to arguments about six years of their lives, their silence ordered by superiors, instructed by their attorney. Actions are analysed by men who were not there, who may never have feared death, fighting on hostile ground, many miles from their own country.

The judge advocate describes the witnesses’ testimony as a tragic insight into the by-product of an armed struggle. He depicts the senior officers’ statements as either wilfully vague or deliberately misleading. He looks across his basic courtroom at the four men, in front of a plain rectangular school table. He asks if any of them wish to make a statement before he issues his verdict. The attorney rises.

‘We reserve our right to remain silent, sir.’

The judge advocate nods, glances down at his notes. The rustling of the papers seems to echo in the silent hall. The spectators in the small gallery shuffle.

‘I wish to make a statement.’ The voice is deep, coarse with the harsh Afrikaner accent.

The eyes of the court turn to the tallest of the four accused. After three days of silence, one will speak. The man is well over six feet tall, blond hair brushed sharply back from a high forehead. Unlike his fellow soldiers, he stands straight.

The attorney stands again. ‘Sir?’ He takes two paces towards the defendants, addresses the tall man: a whispered admonishment. The man stares back at him, silent, defiant. The lawyer turns, meets the eyes of men in the gallery, sits.

‘I wish to make a statement.’

The judge advocate nods. ‘You others may sit. Proceed, Captain.’

‘I was taught that to serve my country was my duty and my honour. I did not seek religious objection, or exile, to avoid my national service. I served with pride.’ He looks down at the three other accused. ‘All of us understood that we fight for the soul of our country and the future of the continent. It was in our blood. It was what we were taught and what motivated every action. Were it not for us, for those who fought in the century before us, our country would have been at the mercy of foreign lands, Communists and black terrorists. We sacrificed our lives for the very people who have given away everything we’ve fought for, for the people who betrayed us politically and now want to make us criminals for following their orders.’ He stops, chest heaving, fists balled. He breathes deeply. ‘Vir veertig jaar, het die weermag ons teen die rooigevaar beskerm, en nou—’

‘In English, Captain.’

He stares back at the judge advocate. ‘In English,’ he repeats bitterly. ‘For forty years we fought the Border War to save us from the threat of the reds and the blacks. And now, to appease those who terrorized us, we have given them everything, and this court will punish us for our service.’ He remains standing, staring ahead.

The judge advocate lays both palms on his desk. ‘I have heard enough.’

 

 

 

Cape Town, December 2015

He sees the enormous aircraft bank, its fuselage catching the intense white sun, the blinding light like a Biblical revelation. He grabs at the visor, slaps it down, changes gear, guns the accelerator. It is as if, subconsciously, he has decided to race it to the airport.

The freeway is quiet: no commuter traffic, no school runs, just a low mirage-filled haze beneath the thicker layer of dirty copper smog that settles daily over the townships and squatter camps on the Cape Flats. He has the air-con off, window open, his elbow and the glowing tip of his cigarette in the 120 k.p.h. breeze. His head is clear. For others today, there might be much anticipated excitement or reflection; for him, there is near-contented resolve.

He slows to drift towards Boucherds Quarry Road, glances at the car clock, stalled at seven thirty, tilts his wrist and sees that it is two hours later. He turns into the industrial estate adjoining the airport road, amid the warehouses, catering companies and offices that service Cape Town International. Between a huge low factory, manufacturing steel components, and the back of a garage car wash, the textured grey concrete façade of the DF Malan Motel sits defiantly among the modern minimalism of unadorned functionality. Until the new millennium, it had shared its name with the airport, which was named after the prime minister when it opened in 1954. The owner had refused to sell it to the new airport authority, persevering with his business despite its obsolescence. Previously, it might have provided on-the-spot accommodation for air-crew on a fast turnaround or passengers delayed overnight. Now those rooms not sold by the hour serve only truck and taxi drivers.

He drives across the kerb to the pot-holed car park, searches in vain for shade, settles on a space close to the covered portico, the bleached blood-red letters unlikely to entice passing trade. He winds up the window, steps out into the dry, still heat, slams and locks his door. To his right, he sees two SAPS patrol cars next to an ambulance. In the half-dozen steps to the entrance, he feels sweat gather at his armpits, around his neck, realizes there will be no air-conditioning inside to cool him. Hours will pass until he exits this building.

Colonel Vaughn de Vries sighs: this is what he hates; this is what he loves.

 

A uniformed officer ambles towards the glass doors as De Vries approaches, checks his ID, salutes lazily, thumbs towards the staircase. ‘Room twenty-two, sir. Second floor. Lift isn’t working.’

De Vries indicates the deserted reception desk to his left. ‘Owner?’

‘Up there, complaining.’

‘Cooler outside, Constable. Stay there. I don’t want anyone else through here until she’s taken out.’ He trots towards the staircase, takes the shallow treads two at a time, crosses from threadbare pink to pale blue carpet as he reaches the landing on the second floor. Static electricity hums around his shoes as he pushes through double doors to the corridor, finds a second officer leaning against the wall opposite room twenty-two.

‘Anyone else in these rooms?’

Before the officer has time to answer, De Vries hears the double doors behind him smack back against the wall, turns to see a tall, middle-aged man, pale, hair thinning, yet just too long. ‘Are you in charge?’

‘I am.’

The man holds out a limp hand. ‘Piet Grobbelaar. It’s my place. Some woman tells me no new guests. How is that right?’

De Vries ignores the hand. ‘You know what’s in that room? Until I find out why she’s there, how she died, your property is my crime scene. If you stay out of my way, I’ll give you back your business. Bug me, and it may be weeks. All right?’

Grobbelaar balks. ‘I have regulars. They expect service.’

De Vries says, ‘If you turn them away once, I think they’ll be back. Don’t you?’

The owner stands silently, shows no sign of departing.

‘Go stand in your car park. Tell them yourself. You can’t be here.’ De Vries gestures towards the doors, waits until the man slouches through them, then says to the officer, ‘He comes through those doors again, you warn him once, then you arrest him. Ja?’ He turns away, then back again. ‘In fact, stand by them. No one comes through without my permission.’

He watches the officer pigeon-step unhurriedly down the corridor. Everything is moving slowly in the static, stagnant air. He extracts two small packets from his jacket pocket, snaps on plastic overshoes, worms sweating fingers into clammy latex gloves, knocks at the door of room twenty-two, pushes it open.

The living turn to him. He meets their gaze briefly, then drops his eyes to the dark, sodden carpet, soaked bedcover and the bottom half of a skirt tie-dyed with blood. He cranes his neck to see around the end of the bed. The girl is face down. There is so much blood. ‘I’m Colonel de Vries, Special Crimes Unit. You are?’

The woman answers: ‘Warrant Officer Lee-Ann Heyns, sir. Rondebosch.’

De Vries frowns: Rondebosch is a leafy university suburb twenty kilometres away. Heyns is a slim, fit, dark-haired woman, perhaps in her late thirties. He pulls his gaze away from her to the two paramedics examining the body. One looks up, nods, the other stays low over the body.

De Vries turns back to Heyns. ‘Who got here first?’

‘Sergeant Pietersen of Langer station, plus the officer outside and the one in the foyer. I placed them there, sir. I asked Sergeant Pietersen to search all the rooms on this level and talk to the owner. Then I called your office.’

‘Why did you do that?’

‘Special Crimes Unit: high-profile murder, kidnap, robbery.’

‘Ja, but why us?’

‘The victim, sir. She’s Chantal Adam.’

‘How did you know?’

‘She called the emergency number, identified herself. When I got here and saw her, I recognized her.’

‘Before you saw her, Warrant. Why did you come here?’

‘Because I’m the officer assigned to her disappearance. Her father contacted us.’

‘Her uncle.’

‘Uncle?’

‘Her father was Willem Adam.’

Heyns frowns, shakes her head.

‘Willem Fourie Adam was a politician in the last couple of National Party governments,’ De Vries says. ‘He pushed for free elections. He was murdered – assassinated – in spring 1994, after the elections.’

‘It sounds familiar, but I didn’t connect Charles and Willem Adam. What happened to Chantal’s mother?’

‘She was deemed incapable. Psychological issues. I don’t remember how it went down, or what happened to her. I just know that Charles Adam brought up Chantal as his daughter. She was about three years old when it happened.’

‘You’ve done your research, sir.’

‘Not really. I know Charles Adam.’

She blinks. ‘You do?’

‘My daughters were at school with Chantal and Charles’s own daughter.’ He glances at the body, feeling a sudden illogical terror that the girl is actually one of his own. He looks back at Heyns. ‘Go on, Warrant.’

‘Mr Adam spoke with my CO – Captain Maart – to report that he had lost touch with his daughter, that no one had seen her, and requested our help. When I heard the call today, I thought the dispatcher mentioned the name. And the description sounded like her. I came out, and it is.’

‘Listening to radio broadcasts?’

Lee-Ann Heyns opens her mouth, checks herself. ‘Quiet day.’

De Vries nods, turns to the paramedics. ‘What have you got for me, gentlemen?’

The white paramedic looks at his coloured colleague. ‘Wrists slashed. Probably self-inflicted with the glass here.’ He gestures above him to the broken window. ‘Brutal, though. If she did this to herself, she was determined. I’m marking her time of death as between seven and seven thirty this morning, barely two hours ago.’

Heyns says, ‘That fits the limited time-scale we have already, sir. There’s debris here, glass obviously, but what looks like a cell phone too.’ She indicates the pieces with a pen and moves between De Vries and the body. ‘If you’re going to kill yourself, why call the police?’

 

De Vries leaves the room, Heyns following. From the far end of the corridor, a man appears, attired in crime-scene overalls and a head-covering that resembles a cheap pink shower cap.

‘This,’ Heyns says, ‘is Sergeant Pietersen.’

Pietersen looks first at Heyns, then De Vries. ‘Nothing. All the rooms are locked. Owner says there’s no one on this floor. I went down the fire-exit stairs, but the doors at the bottom are locked. No sign of blood or anything else. It’s all just dirty.’ He wipes his forehead with the sleeve of his overalls.

De Vries stares at him, then turns to Heyns. ‘All right. Run me through what happened this morning.’

She takes a notebook from her pocket. ‘At seven oh one, 112 get a call from a Chantal Adam. I haven’t heard it myself, but that was how she identified herself.’

‘Chantal Adam?’

‘Yes, sir.’ She waits. He shakes his head. ‘She said she was a prisoner in the DF Malan Motel. She asked for immediate help. Langer station was contacted and a patrol car was dispatched containing Sergeant Pietersen and two other officers. Another car arrived, but left again when the scene was secured. I have the details.’

‘And you?’

‘I arrived twenty minutes after the Langer officers.’

Pietersen confirms, ‘That’s right, sir.’

De Vries spins his right hand to accelerate the flow of information.

‘When we arrive,’ Heyn says, ‘there’s an argument with the owner about privacy, but we get past that, locate room twentytwo and approach. There is no answer to our calls so we gain entry using a pass key, find the scene. I enter alone, study the body for life-signs, but the girl is dead, bled out. I back out, seal the room.’

De Vries reflects that it will have been her eyes that confirmed the girl’s death. The eyes are a window in life; in death, they take a final indecipherable photograph. His job is to find out what they saw.

‘I instruct that the hotel entrance is guarded,’ Heyns continues, ‘and no guest is permitted to leave – I don’t think there are any. Looks like mainly daytime trade. I place a constable on the corridor and ask Sergeant Pietersen to check each of the remaining rooms. The owner says they’re empty, but we use the pass key to check.’

De Vries is impressed with her efficiency. She has followed procedure, ensured the integrity of the scene.

The white paramedic appears at the door, paperwork completed, preparing to leave. ‘We’re done.’

De Vries takes the paper, thanks them, turns back to Pietersen and Heyns. ‘I want you all outside while I take another look at the room. When the crime-scene guys arrive, show them up here. Ja?’ He reaches to open the door to room twenty-two, turns back, glibly gleeful. ‘Forgot to say – Happy Christmas.’

 

He lets the door close slowly, snap shut. The room is strangely silent, despite the broken window, the relentless wind blowing against the opposite side of the motel buildings. Beyond the shattered pane, the factories and warehouses sparkle grimly in the bleached sunlight, the garage car-wash still and deserted.

He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. Above the distant interference of traffic on the N2 freeway, he hears the mournful tune of a Christmas carol, ‘In the Bleak Mid-winter’. His mouth smiles; he wipes perspiration from his forehead.

Chantal Adam’s body lies almost at right angles around the end of the low bed, her head partially submerged in the thick bloody gruel which envelops her torso. He can see only one side of her face. He expects it to be a mask of agony, but finds it strangely relaxed, almost . . . accepting.

 

The camera flies low and fast over the water, a vast plain of silver-grey, topped by parallel lines of sparkling white foam. It angles up to show the Waterfront, the newly completed Green Point football stadium, the skyscrapers of Mouille Point. The angle widens to encompass the City Bowl, Signal Hill, the huge, dark, broad form of Table Mountain. It seems to climb the almost vertical slopes, following tiny hikers ascending the Platterkloof paths, the cable car rising, rotating, until the lens zooms in on the girl.

She wears a white lace dress, her hair blown back from her face, arms outstretched until she reaches into her pocket and brings out a Mountain Bar. As she bites into it, the music reaches a crescendo and the sun appears behind her, igniting an aura of gold around her body.

 

He looks down the grey corridor, polystyrene tiles hanging down at angles from the low ceiling. In a black and white photograph, it might be art.

He stands still in the stale, fetid air, remembering Chantal Adam only as a young teenager, a friend of his daughters, more perhaps of Kate, the elder. He remembers driving – he thinks both of them – to the Adam mansion in Constantia for an afternoon of sweets and cakes and games in the sunlit garden.

He recalls the later story of Chantal Adam. Her journey from teenage beauty in Cape Town, on the cover of magazines, for ever the Mountain Girl in the famed commercial, leaving for New York, the newspaper stories of parties and drugs, her return to Cape Town, the gleeful tabloid accounts of her demise, supposedly cast out by her family, her body shrunken, her face unrecognizable.

On the second-floor landing, he finds Heyns, Pietersen and another uniformed SAPS officer. He shrugs. ‘Shit shift.’

They say nothing. De Vries has visited his two daughters in Johannesburg, exchanged modest gifts, even met up with his ex-wife. Now, for him, Christmas Day is like any other, except that his building is quiet, with fewer officers and technicians on duty than usual. He stares down at the car park through the tall, dirty window, imagines families sitting down for their Christmas meal. ‘Better here than at home,’ he tells them. ‘The people you celebrate Christmas with, there’s a reason you haven’t seen them all year.’

 

The Local Criminal Records Centre, attached to Langer Township, dispatch a photographer. De Vries sends him away. The Special Crimes Unit use their own people. The stocky little man sighs heavily, muttering as he returns to his vehicle. De Vries wonders how many corpses he photographs, perplexed that he is disappointed to miss one.

The Forensic Task Team from the Special Crimes Unit takes over the scene. De Vries rings the tarnished brass bell on the front desk, does not wait for the manager to answer, but lets himself into the man’s office. He finds Grobbelaar on the telephone. When he hangs up, De Vries sits opposite him. The room is hot and claustrophobic. ‘Just you here today, sir?’

Grobbelaar lights a cigarette, inhales deeply, studies the tip. ‘Only me on duty over the holiday period. It’s quieter here for a few days.’

De Vries can scarcely imagine the DF Malan Motel, even on a good day, as a hive of activity. ‘You sign people in?’

‘Ja.’ Grobbelaar swivels the plastic-bound register towards De Vries.

‘I can’t read that.’

He turns it back. ‘Think that’s the idea. Most of my guests come and go, stay anonymous.’

‘What time did she arrive?’

‘They. Her and a guy. This morning.’ Grobbelaar wipes sweat from the ragged edge of his moustache. ‘Maybe six thirty?’

‘Any cameras?’

‘No, man. That wouldn’t work here. We’re an old-fashioned kind of place. Low rates, no rules.’

De Vries sighs. ‘You didn’t recognize her?’

He shakes his head.

‘They arrive together? As a couple?’

‘I don’t ask.’

‘But I am asking you: they look like lovers? Brother and sister?’

Grobbelaar smiles. ‘I don’t know.’

De Vries leans across the desk. ‘Start thinking, because right now you’re giving me nothing and, trust me, this isn’t my season of goodwill.’

‘Okay. They didn’t seem like lovebirds. Happy enough. She could have been a pro, maybe part-time. I didn’t ask. He’s white . . . tall . . . blondish hair, ponytail, thin face, skinny guy. T-shirt, jeans. Nothing special.’

‘Keep thinking,’ De Vries tells him. ‘You’ll be talking to a police artist. I want details: tattoos, watch, dark glasses. How did they arrive? Car?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t see a car. I was in here. The bell goes, I take their money.’

‘Cash?’

‘Ja.’

‘I need it.’

‘Need it?’

‘It’s evidence.’

‘No, man. They paid.’ He has his hands flat on the desk in front him, his body half out of the chair. De Vries sees the half-smoked cigarette between shaking fingers. ‘It’s my money. Anyway, it’ll be lost with the rest in the till.’

‘It’ll be on top. Show me the till.’

Grobbelaar looks down, glances up to see De Vries following his gaze. He turns a key, opens a desk drawer to his right.

De Vries stands up, peers over him. The drawer contains less than a thousand rand, mainly in fifties and hundreds. ‘How much?’

‘Two fifty for a day room.’ Grobbelaar reaches for the notes.

‘Don’t touch the money.’

De Vries puts a glove on his right hand, extracts the notes and drops them into an evidence bag, seals it. ‘You’ll get a receipt. The man handle the cash?’

A nod. De Vries sits down. ‘The room key. You get it back?’

Grobbelaar pats his pockets impotently. ‘No.’

‘Any luggage?’

‘No . . . Maybe, ja. A rucksack. On his back. Saw it when they went to the stairs.’

‘What did it look like?’

Grobbelaar shrugs. ‘I don’t know, man. What does a rucksack look like?’

‘Colour?’

He closes his eyes. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Either of them say anything?’

‘No. “Morning”, “thanks” – that’s it.’

‘Exact money?’

‘Ja.’

‘The girl say anything?’

‘No. Seemed a little nervous, maybe a bit wired. Not unusual.’

‘No shit,’ De Vries says.

 

*  *  *

‘They call me. I come.’

‘Sorry.’

‘I’m on call. One Christmas out of every three. Not so bad.’ The scene-of-crime supervisor looks up. ‘Until you see her, of course. First signs are suicide.’

‘There was a man in the room with her.’

‘On second thoughts . . .’

De Vries smiles perfunctorily. ‘You heard what happened? She calls us, says she’s a prisoner. We find her like this.’

Dr Steve Ulton gestures around the room. ‘There’s not much, Vaughn. Room’s pretty dirty, lot of traffic. Window was broken from the inside.’ He gestures into the open air. ‘Glass down there too probably. Got a guy taping it off. At least it’s a small scene. We’ll get everything, but it’ll take some sifting through.’

‘A struggle?’

‘I’d say so.’

‘You look at the bed?’

‘Filthy. That duvet covers a multitude of sins. Literally. It’ll all be looked at but, again, first impressions are not that this was a scene of passion – not sexual passion anyway.’

‘What was it a scene of?’

Ulton shrugs.

De Vries says, ‘Anyone downstairs today?’ The mortuary for the Special Crimes Unit is in the basement of his building.

‘No. But I’d wait. Think it’s Doc Kleinman tomorrow. Be quicker than to go anywhere else.’

‘Okay.’ He tilts his head at Ulton. ‘You don’t recognize her?’

‘No.’

‘Chantal Adam?’

‘Name rings a bell.’

‘The “Mountain Girl”?’

‘At the top of Table Mountain?’ He stares at her face. ‘You sure?’

‘Ja.’

‘Is it?’

De Vries grimaces. ‘When you’re done, Steve, we’ll take her there just now.’

‘Give me thirty minutes.’

De Vries backs out of the room, stepping over a technician by the door to the tiny bathroom. In the corridor, he finds Warrant Officer Heyns. ‘You draw the short straw today?’

She smiles. ‘Single woman, no family. I volunteered.’

‘You said you were called by her father – her adoptive father?’

‘Yes, sir. Are we going to inform the family today?’

‘I think so. No PM until tomorrow, crime-scene guys will be here most of the afternoon. We’ll take her back to my building, then go on to the family.’ He stares down at her, not unhappy that she will be at his side today. ‘Looks like you’ve earned yourself a brief secondment to the elite divisions, Warrant Officer. I’ll be watching you very carefully.’

 

*  *  *

‘You’ve been at Rondebosch how long?’

‘Three years. Mainly working in Constantia.’

They are smoking, windows wide open, as they drive out from the centre of Cape Town towards the Southern Suburbs. The Langer officers have returned to their station, Chantal Adam’s body is in the morgue, refrigerated. The Forensic Task Team are returning to their labs. It is, after all, just another day.

Lee-Ann Heyns says, ‘It’s not easy. I’m eight years overdue promotion. Should have made lieutenant by now, maybe even captain. But I’m bad news three ways: white, Afrikaner, woman. There’s not a month goes by I don’t get passed over.’

It’s a story De Vries hears every time he speaks with white officers.

‘I had to push myself forward to accompany our captain when Charles Adam asked him to call at the family house.’

‘He’s known by you guys?’

‘There’s been trouble before with Chantal, ever since she came back from America. Captain Maart’s a snob. Adam is a rich, successful man.’ She looks up at him. ‘But I forgot, sir. You know the family.’

‘Not well. Not for a while now.’

‘Don’t think anyone knows how he made his money, but he spends it so everyone can see – parties for politicians and celebrities, a new treatment centre for the hospital in Wynberg, projects on the Cape Flats. Now magazine had him on the cover last year. “Charles Adam: Gentleman Philanthropist”. Something like that.’

‘What did he say about his adopted daughter?’

‘He has another daughter, and a son. Both older than Chantal.’

‘What was she? Twenty-two, twenty-three?’

‘Almost twenty-four. Her father told us that she didn’t want anything to do with the family, or the money, or the house, anything. She dropped out of university, went her own way.’

‘What made Charles Adam call your captain this time?’

‘Apparently, she’d told him she was going to leave the country, never come back. He said she’d been seen with . . . I don’t remember exactly how he put it – but the wrong people. He wanted us to be aware, keep a look out for her, maybe bring her home.’

‘How could we do that?’

‘It had been done before. I guess he thought we might come across her.’

‘With the wrong people . . .’

‘In the wrong places. And we have.’

‘We have.’

‘And she’d been in trouble in the past, here and in the States.’

De Vries shakes his head. ‘Not this much trouble.’

 

The slate-tiled porch to the old Constantia mansion is lined with red poinsettias, the door wreathed in conifer and red ribbon. A black servant, dressed formally in a dark suit, shows them into a double-height hallway, panelled in oak. De Vries stares at the vast Christmas tree nestling in the crook of an elegant stone staircase, a Norway spruce, deep green and aromatic. Ahead of them, the double doors to the dining room are open, and they can see past the remnants of a Christmas lunch – empty crystal decanters, cheese plates, a pudding on its stand – to a broad lawn outside where a large group has gathered under an enormous oak.

They are led to their left. The servant knocks and enters, holding the door for them. ‘Colonel de Vries, and Warrant Officer Heyns.’

‘All right, Joseph.’

Charles Adam rises from a chintz sofa, offering his hand. ‘Christmas Day, an officer of your rank . . . I already know the news is bad.’ He gestures for them to sit opposite him, gazing at De Vries. ‘I know this officer.’ He glances at Heyns. ‘But I feel I know you too.’

‘Our daughters were at school together, sir,’ De Vries says.

He squints at De Vries. ‘My daughter, Chantal?’

‘Yes. I had two daughters there, Kate and Lulu. Their grandmother had attended the same school. She sponsored them.’

‘I think I remember them. The name Lulu certainly. She came here perhaps?’

‘For a birthday party. Maybe eight or nine years ago. I delivered and collected them.’

‘Are they well?’

‘They are, sir.’

Adam’s face falls. ‘But that’s not why you’re here.’

De Vries leans forward. ‘I’m afraid, sir,’ he says gently, ‘that Chantal was found dead this morning.’

Charles Adam closes his eyes, breathes in slowly and very deeply. He stays frozen for several seconds. ‘I see.’

‘I regret I have no details for you. We believe that she may have taken her own life, but we also have reports that at least one other person was present. I will be leading the investigation and will . . .