‘Oh, thank you, guys,’ Haut said, reading the package markings. ‘I know what this is: my models of the elements. It’s okay.’

The two men nodded and left. Haut opened the package. The models were wrapped in several layers of plastic. He noticed an unfamiliar smell. The inside of the package and the models were smeared with slimy, white crystals. Haut touched the crystals. He used his phone to photograph the crystals and sent the pictures to Cavalier and Wombat, and added a text: ‘Crystals all over my models and the package. Any idea what it could be?’

Haut used toilet paper and a sponge to wipe the models clean. He washed them in the sink in the bathroom. Then he put them in the apartment washing machine. He tried to wash his hands of the crystals but found them difficult to scrub off. Haut finally took a shower and used a nail brush over his skin in the hope of removing any remnants of the strange substance.

He dressed and prepared to go down to the Roosevelt’s restaurant for breakfast. Then he collapsed.

*

Haut woke in the ward of a small private hospital two blocks from the Roosevelt.

Cavalier and Wombat were standing at his bedside. Two hospital guards were outside the ward.

‘Bloody hell, Al,’ Wombat said, ‘about time! You’ve been out to it for nearly two days.’

‘Not quite.’ Haut looked at his watch by the bed. ‘I woke up last night, had a meal and then slept again until this morning.’ He sat up. ‘Can you tell me what happened?’

‘You tell us, mate,’ Wombat said. ‘A maid at the Roosevelt found you on your hotel room floor. You’d vomited. Blood was coming out of your nose and mouth. Big Brother’s people rushed you here. Their doctors examined you.’

‘And?’

‘The crystals you sent pictures of were crystal meth,’ Cavalier said. ‘It’s been analysed. We suspect it had a poison mixed in it. Any idea who might have done it, Al?’

‘Bleulance,’ Haut said, sipping water and sitting up.

‘Bleulance would most likely have been behind Dubois. But the poisoning too?’

‘We were talking about this the other night. Tielisten Allan’s man Ryan Gram could have poisoned Mon on Koh Samui, when he meant to kill me. The crystal meth and poisonous substance on the models could have been a second attempt.’

‘Especially when the woman who delivered it, Shelley Northam, told the receptionist a couple of times that you were a crazy drug addict,’ Wombat said. ‘It sounds like a set-up. A “mad scientist drug addict dies of overdose” scenario.’

‘Shelley would not have been involved with the poison or packaging the models,’ Haut said. ‘She’s just the messenger. She would have been forced to say that.’

‘The question then would be by whom?’ Cavalier said. ‘Who did the packaging? Who added the crystal meth and poison?’