In Death and Other Details, a secret of the Colliers involving Captionem Blue comes to light through their books.
To find Viktor Sams, Rufus thinks they need to access the Colliers’ books. Lawrence Collier possibly knows something about Viktor Sams.
Upon gaining access to their books, Rufus, Imogene, and Sunil come across a bill of lading mentioning two tons of Captionem Blue.
Captionem Blue explained
Rufus explains that Captionem Blue is a banned ultra-light pigment, invented so you could see highway signs at night.
Clothing manufacturers liked it because it was cheap and didn’t bleed, except that it causes cancer, dementia, and all manner of knock-on ailments.
A quick internet search reveals that it was banned in 1989. The receipt they have doesn’t have a date on it.
The Colliers’ secret
One of Sunil’s friends helps Imogene find the date of the receipt; it’s from 2005. The receipt confirms that the Colliers were using a banned carcinogenic poison chemical in their factory in Jiangsu, China.
The use of Captionem Blue is the big secret the Colliers were hiding. Imogene confronts Anna about paying blackmail to Viktor Sams.
Anna admits that they have made mistakes in China, but the minute she found out about it, she fixed it.
The Colliers went bankrupt trying to rebuild the factory from scratch. Hence, they needed the Chuns to invest in Collier Mills. The Chuns now own 51% of Collier Mills.
Anna may deny it, but Imogene reminds her that their factory was poisoning people. They don’t know how many people got sick and died because of them.
There is more to the truth about the Colliers. Alexandra had approached Eriksen with a case against the Colliers.
She died on the spot after discovering the files she had brought were empty. Later, a scared Llewellyn kills himself too by jumping off the ship.
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