Dr Graham took a sip from a bottle of water, sitting next to her collection of glass eyeballs. ‘The analysis says your victim probably came from the north-east of Scotland – basically, draw a lumpy circle containing Kintore, Torphins, Coldstone, Craik, Ardlair, Insch and Inverurie. She spent most of her life in there. Apparently the only other place that’d match the strontium and one-eighty is the backwoods of Sutherland and Ross and Cromartyshire.’

Dr Graham flipped over to the last page. ‘One more thing – there’s a disjoint between the thirteen-C and the fifteen-N isotopes. Elevated fifteen-N means she was suffering from a long-term illness. Which explains the pitting on the skull. . .’ Dr Graham picked up the cast and ran a finger around the eye socket. ‘See the marks? ’

‘And you’re positive she died thirty-five years ago? ’

‘Stable Isotope Analysis doesn’t lie.’

‘Sod.’

She hugged the skull. ‘But doesn’t that—’

‘If it’s less than fifty years we’ve got to treat it as a suspicious death. If it’d been more than fifty years we could have written it off as archaeological, because whoever killed her would probably be dead by now anyway. She’d be someone else’s problem and I wouldn’t have another sodding murder on my hands.’

Logan drummed his fingers on the viewing-room table.

Where the hell would Agnes Garfield get her hands on a murder victim from thirty-five years ago?

Dr Graham cleared her throat. ‘Look, I don’t want to seem greedy, but Miss Dalrymple tells me you’ve got a badly decomposed body that needs identifying? ’

‘Hmm? ’ He glanced back towards the cutting room. ‘Steel won’t let me authorize another facial reconstruction, I already asked.’

‘Well. . . We could maybe try for the basics. Do you know if they did any X-rays? I’m here anyway.’

Worth a shot. Especially as it looked as if everything else was a washout.

He was back two minutes later with a bulky brown cardboard folder. ‘You’re in luck, they did the head and chest before they cut him open.’

Dr Graham dipped into the folder and came out with an X-ray of the skull from straight ahead, and one taken side on. She held them both up against the viewing-room window. The light from the room beyond was just bright enough to make the bones shine. ‘Can you hold these for me? ’

Logan did and she leaned in close, peering, squinting, poking at the film with a finger. The upper and lower jaw were a mess of cracks and shattered teeth – just a couple of molars hanging on at the back, one cheekbone broken into three separate bits.

Then she nodded and stepped back. ‘You see how the nasal aperture is quite narrow? And the zygomatic bones are wide and prominent? ’

No idea.