‘Can you smell that?’ he asked. Kelly struggled to decipher what exactly he was referring to. There was such a buffet of smells awaiting detection during an autopsy that she didn’t know how to answer.

‘Soap,’ he said. ‘It’s highly perfumed. Look at the bubbles.’ He went to the liquid that had leaked and rubbed it between his gloves fingers. Sure enough, it produced a soapy soup. As Kelly came closer, she also smelled perfume.

‘Why the hell would she have soapy water in her lungs?’ Kelly asked Ted.

‘She drowned in a bath?’

‘The dogs were called off and her wounds were cleaned?’

‘A trick?’

‘Or genuine care, and someone else was involved? It means she was in a home of sorts, or at least somewhere she could wash. But why the restraints? Was it all a sick role play? I need some air, Ted. Will you call me as soon as you’re done?’

‘Of course. I think I’ll be another three hours or so.’

Kelly left the sterile metal environment of the mortuary and ripped off her overalls. She gathered her personal items as quickly as she could and went out into the corridor to get the lift back up to civilisation where murderers didn’t play games, or set dogs on terrified women.

Animals.

They were looking for a remote and quiet location, with pets, and a vehicle. Carry could have been driven to Thirlmere in her own car, but that couldn’t be the case, because her car wasn’t seen again after travelling south on the A591.

That’s where they should search. On the way back to her car, she called the office and asked to speak to Rob.

‘How’re you doing on my pentacle?’ she asked. She updated him on Carry’s autopsy so he could enter the details on HOLMES.

‘Sorted, guv. Piece of cake. You can open the map and impose any shape you want in any size. I’ve done what you said and inputted Mary’s house and where Carry Tomlin was found in Thirlmere, and a perfect circle, with a perfectly mathematically correct pentagram inside, gives us a few options. Threlkeld Quarry isn’t an exact match, but then I’m assuming that our killer isn’t also a mathematician or an astrologer.’

‘I’ll be back in under an hour, I’m just leaving Carlisle.’

Ted had already booked into a hotel in Carlisle for the night, knowing that he’d want to put his all into the operation, and be exhausted afterwards. Kelly felt guilty that it was her work that was so demanding of him.

‘I want a detailed search of a three-mile radius around where Carry’s body was found: fields, woodland, farmhouses, youth hostels, caravans… the lot.’

‘Yes, guv. By the way, I called Fred O’Reilly as you asked, to find out if he had a pentacle for his altar.’

‘And?’