Mason and Price laid the plastic sheet down on the ground, pinning it down as it flapped in the wind that combed the sodden earth.

‘Thanks, Bill.’

‘Eve,’ said Mason. ‘You want us to get her body out of the water?’

She pointed in the direction of the approaching APTs.

‘We’ll have a word with Harper and Kline. Discuss what we’re going to do in a minute.’

Clay made out the bumps and indentations on the side of the woman’s head, the scarlet of her facial muscles washed out by the water in which she had been submerged. Her eyes, standing out from their sockets like lumps of blood-flecked putty, looked like they’d been inserted into her face by the hand of a blind and luckless sculptor.

She looked at the woman’s chipped and broken teeth and knew that the stone had been placed into her mouth cavity with considerable anger.

The unzipping of a body bag close at hand hauled Clay back into the wider scene. Harper and Kline laid the body bag on the plastic sheet.

‘What do you want us to do, Eve?’ asked Mason.

‘Stay on the plastic sheet, weigh it down.’

She looked at Harper and Kline as they assessed the body.

‘You need help getting her into the body bag?’ asked Clay.

‘If we take her feet, will you and DS Hendricks take her by the hands?’

Hendricks walked towards the top end of the body.

Harper placed two hands on her right foot and Kline on her left.

Getting to her feet from a kneeling position, Clay felt stiffness deep in her muscles and a ripple of electricity like pins and needles danced down her joints.

‘One.’ She checked Kline, Harper and Hendricks’ positioning. ‘Two.’ She took a breath, prepared for the weight of the lift. ‘Three.’

Lifting the woman from the water, Clay matched the lightness of her corpse with the slimness of her body. Water poured from her back and ribs as she was suspended in mid-air.

‘Walk backwards, please, Harper, Kline. There are no obstructions on the path between you and the body bag.’

As Clay and Hendricks stepped forwards, past the sides of the hole, the woman’s head flopped and bounced, and the stone in her mouth sat caged behind her teeth.

With both hands wrapped around the woman’s wrists, Clay felt a wet stiffness in the flesh, and felt her own hands slipping down towards the woman’s hands.

‘OK, Eve?’ asked Hendricks.

She nodded, tightened her grip and said, ‘Can we get a move on here, please?’

Clay counted twelve heavy paces before they arrived at the body bag.

‘Lower her down,’ said Clay.

Her disfigured head was the first part of her to enter the body bag, followed by her back, buttocks and legs.