She locked the car and smiled at him, waiting for a nostalgic tale. Despite her apprehension – always felt when she was about to see a cold, dead body on a slab of metal – he unfailingly managed to calm her worry.

‘You were concentrating as hard as you are now, desperate to get justice for the poor woman laid out on my table. You bring a lot of good into this world, you know.’

Kelly smiled. Only a man of Ted’s generation spoke like that. People her age were too busy bemoaning fatalistic gloom. There was no room for simple compliments. Her hair whipped in the wind and she ran her fingers through it.

Once inside, her hair settled and so did her nerves. The wait was over. Now they could get down to the serious business of finding clues. They fell into an easy silence and took the winding route through the bowels of the hospital to the mortuary. Familiar noises welcomed them and Ted handed his jacket to his assistant. His staff greeted him with affection and respect. Once scrubbed up and adorned with gowns, they entered the examination room.

‘Right, let’s have a look,’ Ted said.

Kelly watched him settle in to what was now a familiar routine. The way he moved, the instruments he laid out, his choice of saw, and scales to weigh organs; they all told a story of his method and practice learned from years of post-mortem operations. It soothed her further. He fixed his microphone and Kelly rubbed her nose under her nostrils, spreading the perfumed oil she’d applied when they’d entered. The body lay inside a thick black rubber bag. The contents were gruesome and Kelly had warned Ted that the murder was a particularly brutal one. The rage exacted upon the victim was something Kelly hadn’t seen for a long time, and it indicated passion. Passion came in different guises, and hate was the strongest of them all, closely followed by love.

She couldn’t shake the nagging presence of Amy Richmond in her head: this is what she used to do to her victims. Frenzied rage left her targets humiliated and dehumanised. She shivered and Ted noticed. She smiled reassuringly and tried to concentrate.

The noise of the zip jarred Kelly’s senses.

The familiar knot under her stomach made adrenaline pump into her body and make her feel nauseous. Apart from the discolouration, facially, Mary looked asleep. However, her body told a different story. It was bruised and swollen from the violence exacted upon it, and the only difference from when Kelly had seen her in situ was the colour of the blood: it had turned almost black. Her clothes were torn to shreds where the knife had penetrated and Kelly had no idea how Ted knew where to start and how he might count the wounds or log their shape.