After the Truth (Book One)

Six

That night I awoke with a start, which left me confused. I was in bed and naked, and it was just before two AM. I had not meant to fall asleep where I had.

When we finally left Thiago, alone and crying in his cell, we all returned to the room upstairs where Cavalcanti had shown us the security footage. In silence, he put it on and watched Father Cardoso die again.

'So much for a simple murder,' he said eventually, as much talking to himself as to the rest of us.

Once again, I was transfixed by the priest's dying moments. I watched in minute detail, but still could see no evidence of pain in his last moments. As Father Cardoso slipped to the ground in that strange manner, it was simply that his body just gave up supporting itself. Thiago stood stunned over the corpse for a few brief moments and then grabbed his son's hand. I hadn't noticed it before, but Thiago's son looked up at the camera in the last moments before he was pulled out of view.

It was at this moment Cavalcanti had frozen the image.

I studied the picture of the young child and words came to my mind that were, looking back now, so prophetic my stomach tightens in a tiny ball as I remember.

'The truth is not always simple, but important things never are,' I said and Cavalcanti turned silently and nodded.

Those words have power, don't they? I should repeat that phrase as I speak tomorrow. My audience of world leaders and diplomats must understand the importance of the truth. It cannot be disposable or erased for convenience and power.

How often do we ignore the truth? Why is the truth so hard?

Dr Ribeiro drove us from the Policia Federal to the University Hospital to see his colleague Dr Murad. There we spent two and half hours going through the details of his post-mortem examination of Father Cardoso. Evelyn and I also made our own, external, and internal, examination of the body. We discussed and hypothesised on many possible causes of death, but we came to no conclusion. In the end, all we could do was request more tissue samples be sent back to Geneva.

When we arrived at our hotel Evelyn was in total control. Having such a strong connection with Brazil, and Rio especially, she knew intimately three restaurants within walking distance. She refused to take no for an answer to visiting her favourite.

Over some very tasty shrimp dishes, and lots of wine, we discussed what slim straws of new ideas we could garner from the security footage and witness testimony we had of Father Cardoso's moment of death.

'Maybe stress is a factor,' Evelyn said as we emptied our second bottle of wine. 'Cardoso was being accused of child abuse and Martin Bradmore was on the phone with about an investment deal that his wife told us was worrying him.'

'Stress doesn't kill on the spot like we saw in the security footage,' I said. 'It is the cause of other medical issues which lead to death, like a heart attack, but that would show in damage to the heart muscle. Stress on its own doesn't make people simply drop dead on the spot and leave no physiological trace in the body.'

'How about SUNDS, as it used to be termed?' Evelyn said just as she got a waiter's attention and ordered yet another bottle.

Fatigue and drink had addled my brain and it took a long time for me to process what she was saying.

SUNDS stands for Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome, more often shortened just to Sudden Unexpected Death Syndrome. Later, with research into the condition, the disorder is more often now termed Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome, SADS, which also works for its other, other name, Sudden Adult Death Syndrome. Little is known about the phenomena and effectively SADS is just one step above DDD as a description for a cause of death. However, there were several recent advances in the investigation of the condition.