Dozens of photographs were taken before Ted announced that it was time to open her up. Kelly looked at her watch: he’d been at it for over three hours already. It was time to check in with her team. She had hoped that Ted would have given her a cause of death by now, because homicide victims usually show visible signs of their demise on the outside. Apart from the restraining wounds around her wrists, this was not the case for Carry. Ted would only know for sure when he examined her internal organs and that would take countless more hours, which Kelly did not have. There was always the chance that a body found by water would produce evidence of drowning, but there was no evidence that Carry had been for a swim, and she was found on the beach rather than in the water.

She stretched and considered her options. Then, she heard the first slurp of skin being peeled back, and it turned her stomach. Ted reached for his Stryker saw and Kelly knew that Carry’s chest was being sawn open so the coroner could get to her organs. She decided that she’d let him finish up with the saw and then excuse herself with a promise that he called her the minute he knew more. She caught sight of Ted grabbing Carry’s gullet and rooting around for the base of the tongue; he was trying to eviscerate all of her organ sac – containing gullet to anus – in one. It was no easy task: it weighed as much as a few serious dumbbells in the gym, but Ted was a seasoned professional. However, he realised halfway through pulling it out of the cavity that it was heavier than usual.

‘Thought so,’ he said.

‘What?’ Kelly asked.

‘There’s water in her lungs. You have your cause.’

‘Could she have been unconscious?’ Kelly asked.

‘Yes, it’s possible, or she could have been restrained still.’

‘In broad daylight, next to Thirlmere? It’s highly unlikely.’

‘I agree,’ he said. ‘I still think we’ll find evidence that there isn’t lake water in there.’

‘All right, Ted, I’ll wait a little longer, then I really need to be going.’

‘I’ll examine the lungs first.’ He slapped the sac onto a stainless steel slab next to the one holding Carry’s body, and it reminded Kelly of a fishing programme, when large specimens were landed after a fight. A fish’s body out of water looked just as awkward and bulky, flopping onto any surface it came into contact with, and wobbling until it settled in an ungainly fashion. Carry’s organ sac did the same. And it stank. Ted expertly cut away one lung and weighed it. As he did so, the bronchial tubes leaked water all over the gurney.