8 Days in the Jungle without Water and Food - COMPLETE

important for the future development of the search operation.” Miriam agreed to participate in this conversation without hesitation and everybody in the room was interested to hear the director’s question: “Could you say whether it is possible that your husband has been involved in relations with other women? We are also taking into account the possibility that your husband faked his disappearance just so that he could leave you for another woman. …” Miriam thought the question to be absurd, but she answered it seriously by saying that there was certainly no such possibility.

After the meeting, Father George, who had been patiently waiting for them, took Miriam, Nikka and the children to the von Liemandt residence. In the rush after the meeting Miriam even forgot to offer him a refreshing drink. Fortunately, Nikka later remembered to do that.

That afternoon Miriam and Nikka started their search on the beach of Cades Bay. There they learned from a local man that the sea had been extremely rough on the previous Wednesday; this information again made them think of the possibility that Tony might have had an accident on the beach. It seemed probable that Tony, being tired and hot on his return from the mountain, immediately jumped into the water where the shock resulting from the cold water caused him to have a heart attack. However, the local man also said that the sea would have washed the body ashore and the locals would have surely found it in the past week.

In spite of these encouraging words, Miriam and Nikka were for a long time wandering about the beach, poking around in the bushes. It was very hot, well over 30 degrees. When they came to a semi-official rubbish dump Miriam couldn’t resist opening the rusty containers even though the area smelled very bad. Actually, the smellier the containers were the more she wanted to see their contents. If somebody did rob and kill Tony he might have got rid of the body here, she thought – and in that moment she realised that she, too, was looking for her husband’s corpse.

On their way back Miriam and Nikka felt compelled to speak to Winnie again as they believed that Winnie was the last person to see Tony. They found the lady in front of her house where she was sitting together with her daughter, who, Miriam thought, was behaving rather oddly, muttering something about Tony not being on the island any longer, because he had left Nevis …

That evening Miriam, Nikka and the children again came back to Nisbet so late that the reporter Suzanne had to postpone the interview with Miriam once more. The atmosphere at the dinner was really depressing. Kathie told Miriam about her latest telephone conversation with Ginette and that the dowser from New York had said that Tony was alive, but walking in circles on a gravel ground.

Everybody was very tired; Deyan and Niko were also sleepy due to the time difference.

Niko was the first to leave the table. He staggered to his apartment and, without even getting undressed, lay down on his bed and fell asleep instantly. When Deyan followed him a while later he found it very difficult to wake him up – but he needed Niko to unlock the door of their bungalow as it wasn’t possible to enter it without a key.

In Slovenia the news about Tomazic’s disappearance was, by now, widespread. As they had no details of the accident, some reporters wrote about it briefly, mainly conveying the contents of the official statements, while others added their own, more or less groundless, comments and guesses.

Some reporters were annoyed simply by the fact that the person responsible for handling the matter at the Foreign Ministry was Andrej Ster, who was a good friend and a previous party colleague of Tomazic.