‘Detective Inspector Mulholland, I understand that you have been asking questions of my staff.’ He steepled his hands on the desk. ‘You put Juliette in quite an awkward position, between her respect for the law and her duty of loyalty to me. I really prefer if you would ask me anything you want to know.’

‘News travels fast,’ she replied.

‘Bush telegraph,’ van Steenis said. ‘Very reliable.’

‘Have you ever had any accidents involving your animals?’

‘Yes. I have the workplace accident book just here. There’s been nothing serious for over two years.’

Claire picked up the book and saw that it was meticulously filled out. She was no health and safety expert but it looked like van Steenis took safety very seriously.

‘Anything involving the rhino?’

‘Dennis? No. He’s incredibly gentle. It’s much more likely to be Nora, our female saltwater croc. But we’re very careful with her.’

Once Mulholland had left, and the lawyer too had departed, Gus van Steenis sat down in his private office. He checked the CCTV monitor to confirm the departure of the detective’s car. He then changed into T-shirt and shorts, always his clothing of choice even in the cool British summers, and headed off to his personal workshop. It was a large and rather ugly metal barn well behind the main house, shielded from view by a line of leylandii. He unlocked the padlock, pulled open the corrugated metal door and switched on the light. The entire shed was turned over to tools of various kinds, from some ancient agricultural harrows and spanners right through to precision electronic kit. Van Steenis was a practical man and this was his chapel. Spread right in the middle of the shed was a large plastic dust sheet, and on it a gym mat. On this was a solidly built wooden dining chair. Van Steenis had built it himself and kitted it out. There were buckled canvas restraints on both arms and the chair’s front legs, and larger canvas belts threaded through the back of the chair. A thick grey cable ran from a large junction box on the wall to the seat-back, where it split into six smaller cables, five of which were connected by brass plates to the arms, legs and back of the chair. The final small cable was connected to a circular brass strip, which hung loosely over the back of the chair like a discarded crown.

Van Steenis went to a toolbox, got out the voltage meter and once again began to test his contraption. It was almost identical to the one that he had made for Mobutu, when he was in Zaire back in ’93, which was in turn modelled on Old Sparky, the Texas chair used until 1964. He rechecked all the connections. He wanted to be sure that it would work properly before Tuesday, when there would be a small select audience.