They crossed the marble-pillared porch, passed the two guards posted on the front door and entered a large central atrium garishly decorated in gold and ivory. A nine-foot-tall bronze sculpture of Ken Seguma dominated the middle of the floor space. The atrium was filled with a chaotic arrangement of artwork: Greek statues, Renaissance paintings, ceremonial masks. Colonel Lubowa guided them off to one side, down a long corridor adorned with gilt-framed mirrors and crystal chandeliers. At first sight, everything looked impressive. But the fittings were as worn and tired as the exterior. Damp patches stained the walls. The arms on some of the chandeliers were broken or damaged. Everything looked in need of a lick of paint.

Lubowa led them to the end of the corridor, turned right, then walked down a shorter hallway. Bowman saw peeling silk wallpaper, a faded ceiling mural. At the far end, the room opened up into a lavishly furnished salon. There was a bar to the right, with a row of leather-seated stools and a rack of spirit bottles mounted to the wall. A white Steinway grand piano. At the back of the room, a set of French doors led out to a terrace overlooking a swimming pool set at the foot of the sloped rear garden. The sound of chirping crickets drifted through an open window.

Eight figures sat at a pair of giltwood tables on the left side of the room. At the nearest table, Bowman saw a short, stout woman in her late thirties. She wore a pair of half-moon glasses and a bright-green dress intricately patterned with strange shapes and symbols. Bowman recognised her from the photos he’d seen back at the Shed. Christel Seguma. The tyrant’s third wife. She was dandling a screaming infant on her knee. Next to her was a wide-hipped woman in her fifties with a traditional Karatandan head cloth covering her hair. A slight, well-groomed man was seated beside the two women. He was dressed in a silk tunic embroidered with gold. The brother and sister-in-law.

The other four children sat cross-legged on the floor around the second table. Two boys aged around nine or ten. The president’s sons, Bowman presumed. And a pair of twin girls. The brother’s children. They were younger than the boys. Five or six, maybe. A few years older than Sophie had been when her killers had cruelly ended her life. The twins were dressed in matching yellow dresses, the boys in dapper suits. One of the girls held a cuddly toy bear. The boys were playing a game on an iPad, arguing over whose turn it was to go next. They seemed oblivious to what was going on around them. Which was probably for the best.

A ninth figure walked up and down the terrace. A tall hard-bodied guy with an unkempt beard, holding a clamshell phone to his ear. Bowman caught sight of his face through the glass.

Mike Gregory.