The public inquiry was being presided over by a government member of parliament, Miles Jensen. He was young for a politician, in his late thirties, and ambitious. Tom assumed he saw the high-profile chairmanship as a chance to make his mark with the media. He was persistent to the point of rudeness in his questioning, but Tom had been done over by professionals — lawyers — in his days as a uniformed constable appearing in court cases.
Jensen had asked Rachel to tell them about the physical evidence in the villa relating to Robert Greeves and his tragic death.
‘There was a quantity of hair found in the bathroom, mostly on the floor, and some strands on a sheet of newspaper. It was black and grey in colour and subsequently matched positively to a DNA sample obtained from Mr Greeves’s home.’
‘And the sample was obtained how?’ Jensen queried.
‘From one of Mr Greeves’s hairbrushes in his London home. There was also blood and CSF in the bedroom where Mr Greeves was held captive, and four severed plastic cable ties.’
‘CSF?’
‘Sorry,’ Rachel said. ‘Cerebral spinal fluid. It’s what surrounds the brain, in the skull. There was CSF mixed in with the blood, which is typical for this type of wound.’
‘And these fluids, the plastic ties, were all subsequently matched to Mr Greeves?’
‘Yes. The blood and CSF were a positive match and there were skin cells and some blood on the plastic ties, which we surmised had been used to bind his wrists and ankles to the bed on which he lay. There were also strands of Mr Greeves’s hair in some of the bed springs, near where his head would have been.’
‘And the pattern of the bloodstains? What can you tell us about that?’
Rachel took a sip from a glass of water on the table in front of her. Tom noticed that she glanced quickly around the room, though by the time he turned his head to see if he could spot who she was looking for, or at, she was already looking back at Jensen. ‘It was consistent with the pattern resulting from a small-calibre gunshot to the head at close range — that is, where the blood has poured from the entry wound rather than been expelled via an exit wound.’
Jensen prompted her with a couple of other questions in answer to which she elaborated on the pattern on the floor of the room. It was gory stuff and Tom noticed a couple of pale, shocked faces among some of the politicians present. He wrote a word down on his notebook. Consistent.
‘Thank you, Ms Rubens. Unless there is anything else you think might be of interest to the inquiry, I would like to thank you for your presence and your testimony.’
‘There is one more thing,’ she said. From the way he looked up from his notes at her, Tom guessed that Jensen had not been expecting any additions. He had, however, invited her to elaborate. ‘The floor had been wiped.’
‘Wiped?’
‘Yes. The perpetrators had partially smeared the blood on the floor, wiping it with what we guessed was a rag, perhaps the size of a tea towel. Detective Sergeant Furey’s initial report concluded that Mr Greeves’s body had been dragged a short distance — about a metre — from where it fell, and was then wrapped in some sort of fabric. From fibres gathered at the scene we can say this was a wool and nylon mix blanket. While this is true, we also found evidence through a smearing pattern and other fibres — possibly from a tea towel — that the perpetrators had made some attempt to clean up the bloodstain, but perhaps gave up.’
‘You found no such “tea towel”, though?’ Jensen asked.
‘No. It was… well, we thought it was a bit odd.’
‘How so?’
‘Well, it wasn’t like a sponge or a wet towel or anything. If they were trying to clean it off the wall they couldn’t have done a worse job. All it did was spread it around, sort of smear the bloodstains.’
‘I see,’ Jensen said, in that way, Tom thought, that people do when they want to sound learned but really have no idea what to make of what they have just heard. ‘Perhaps our terrorists weren’t as professional as they seemed?’
‘I don’t know, Mr Chairman,’ Rachel shrugged.
Having been suspended and therefore not included in the follow-up investigations, this was all new to Tom. It seemed, on the face of it, that all the correct boxes had been checked. The villa had been sealed off and gone over with a fine toothcomb; plaster casts had been made of footprints and tyre tracks where possible — not easy in the sand — and fingerprints lifted and cross-checked. The only prints that had been identified were Greeves’s and Bernard’s. The terrorists had apparently worn gloves the whole time, or wiped the place clean before they left.
Tom closed his suitcase and looked around the bedroom, making sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. He patted the breast pocket of the single blazer he was taking — the navy blue one — and felt the passport and ticket folder. He had the case in one hand and a day pack with his carry-on stuff in the other. He kicked the bedroom door closed and walked down the stairs. Halfway down his cell phone started to ring, but as his hands were full he couldn’t reach it.
Downstairs, in the hallway, he took out the phone and it beeped, telling him he had a message. ‘Hi, it’s me,’ Sannie said on the recording. ‘I’m about ten minutes away. I still don’t know if this is such a good idea. Call me if you want me to keep driving.’
He thought about her, about the nights they had spent together. He’d invited her to stay at his place after the first day of the inquiry, but thankfully she’d gone back to her hotel first, to get some things. He’d arrived home to find Southwood Lane almost blocked by TV vans and unmarked newspaper cars. He’d slowed as he approached his home, then rammed his foot down on the accelerator as a couple of the vultures recognised him. Rather than give them the satisfaction of a car chase, he’d stopped at the tube station and made it onto a train before the first of the paparazzi had even found his car. He’d taken refuge, hating that he’d run from his own home, in Sannie’s hotel room. He couldn’t have risked going out again later in the evening in case they trailed him to Sannie, and he couldn’t not see her again.
She was what had kept him going as the case mounted against him, and he loved her for the way she was sticking by him. Even when she was giving the evidence that sealed his fate, he’d known by the quick glances she’d given him as he spoke that she would see him through this.
‘Inspector Van Rensburg.’ Jensen had paused to clear his voice. ‘Tell the inquiry, if you will, what Bernard Joyce said to you and Detective Sergeant Thomas Furey on the beach in Mozambique just before he took his own life.’
Sannie gave a precis of the statement that Tom had typed up from his notes, which had already been tendered to the inquiry as written evidence. Having it in writing wasn’t enough. Jensen was an astute enough media player to know that the press needed someone saying all this. Without Sannie’s account the words might not be available in the public domain until the full transcripts were released with the inquiry findings. That could be weeks away. The reporters who crammed the room had been biding their time, and not at all patiently, for this moment. Jensen, Tom reckoned, had probably tipped off a few, because it seemed there were more journalists in there at that moment than there had been since the opening session.
‘Yes, that was Mr Joyce reflecting on his own actions — his belief, which most of us would disagree with — that he could have done more to save Mr Greeves. But there was more, wasn’t there, Inspector?’
Tom saw her eyes shift to him and he prayed none of the reporters had been sharp enough to catch and understand it. ‘Yes,’ she said.
Jensen drew out, word by painful word, Bernard’s assertion that during his abduction he had cried out to Tom for help.
And, as Jensen had pointed out in his summation after Sannie had stood down, the record of evidence had already shown that Detective Sergeant Furey had slept soundly — after consuming alcohol, and entertaining the female manager of the luxury safari lodge in which he was quartered — and had apparently not heard Bernard Joyce’s call for help.
Tom was finished even before he took the stand, as he’d known he would be all along. It didn’t hurt any less, though, knowing the outcome. He reckoned he’d put on a brave face. He’d answered every question put to him fully and honestly, even as the words chipped away at any vestige of residual professional respect he might have held onto.
‘Did you take any illegal drugs that night, Detective Sergeant?’
