Wessel Ebersohn

That search commenced yesterday and by midnight we had still found nothing. Freek was so sure that the victim’s blood was in the house that we went back again today to continue the search. We were met there by the suspect’s attorney who said that this was harassment and, if we found nothing, he was going to bring an action against the minister. “In that case,” Freek said, “I doubt you’ll be bringing an action.”

“We’ll see,” the lawyer said.

It was a good three hours later that we got round to the kitchen. On reflection, we should have started there. We were both looking at the bottle of tomato sauce, what the Americans call ketchup, when the thought came to me. I put it into words, but I think Freek and I had the same thought at the same moment. “Does that stuff coagulate?” I said.

“I don’t believe so,” Freek said. You could see where it was coagulating at the top of the bottle. “Let’s have a look at the contents of that bottle.”

The most interesting part of the entire matter was that he had a night in which to get rid of the tomato sauce bottle’s contents and wash the bottle, but he chose not to. It is an old weakness of psychopaths that they have to demonstrate their cleverness. This one tried too hard.