A breeze flutters my face. When I look down the water’s surface is choppy. Further out I can see a lone windsurfer standing on his board, hauling the sail out of the water. I hit the button on the vape and wait for it to warm up, watching as he gets the sail upright. It bulges with the wind and he’s off, leaning further away from the board as his speed increases. I check my vape. It’s not hot. I hit the button again; the LED telling me it’s heating up comes on, then turns off. Battery dead. At this rate I’m going to have to go back to smoking joints, but not only would that mean burning through roughly four times the amount of cannabis, because combustion is so wasteful, I really hate walking around with my mouth tasting like an ashtray. I pocket the damn thing, noticing the windsurfer’s nowhere to be seen now, and head back to the building, the sun choosing this exact moment to break out from the cloud and light the glass up. I reach the window and cup my hand to kill the reflection when I’m right by it.

I’m looking into a large open-plan living space flooded with the warm late-afternoon light. An L-shaped sofa, which could probably seat twenty. Rugs on the polished concrete floor. But it’s not immaculate like the grounds. In fact, it’s kind of a mess: sofa cushions thrown all over, some ripped apart, foam oozing out of their innards; a painting, a massive canvas, which appears to have been painted just black, has three large cuts in it, revealing the white wall behind. First Marianne Kleine’s start-up offices, now her father’s house. What is going on? I start moving along the glass and see the kitchen section has suffered the same treatment: knives and forks scattered, shards of plates. A large tin on its side with spaghetti shooting out of the top looks like a quiver spilling arrows. And beyond that something on the floor I can’t quite make out. I edge to my left, trying to work it out, get a better view.

‘Rykel?’

She must’ve got bored of ringing the bell and come to find me.

‘Over here!’ I call out, unable to take my eyes off it. Because I can now see it’s a massive red stain seeping out from behind an enormous kitchen island. Worse, I’m pretty sure that slumped on the floor I can see a body.

Chateau Lafite 2000