The metaphorical plume.

The GSR plume, of which anonymous reported, as coming from all openings of a longarm firearm when discharging, and gathering most notably in the cocked arm holding the rifle against the shoulder, escaped the Bain investigators. It was their mistake for not searching for the heavy chemicals contained in the settled plume before Robin's body was moved, and for keeping the pathologist outside the house for many precious hours while the scene was contaminated. It was the investigators 'mistake' to falsely identify the whereabouts of a lens fallen under a ski boot and to later say it was somewhere else anyway. It was the investigators mistake not to investigate the allegations of incest against Robin, or to search fully his history leading to the murders and his own death, and another mistake to rely on a 'confession' that would surely be made to Uncle Mike - a benefactor of the will of the deceased parents.

The mistakes were coming thick and fast, there was the 'mountain' of evidence against David, the withheld evidence about David's mother's glasses, about the time of his arrival home, there was the mistake of burning the house and not testing all the forensic traces, there was the mistake in the dishonesty of Milton Weir in not ensuring that witnesses statements were amended at their request, there was the mistake in not realising David's honesty when he admitted his belief that only he had access to the rifle and that the special treatment that Robin gave his daughter Lanient was simply 'money and rides.' And the special treatment that our Appeal Court gave the disintegration of the case against David by slamming the door on it, by being conservative, short-sighted and lost in their own divinity.

The things lost for David Bain, all those things that the plume of injustice covered, the spreading from the rifle of the ignored Gunshot residue and the spread of the fine mist of injustice settling over one terrible morning in Dunedin. Then settled over a Nation as we watched a man stolen of his life by those that would not speak up their mistakes or prejudices, those that would not question the unsettling series of mistakes or the culmination of those and let an innocent man go free from the attention of his persecutors.