A moment’s silence then, his voice flat, Grisha said, ‘I have only ever seen one body more severely beaten than this. And that was the victim of a biker-gang punishment beating.’

‘Thank you. What about sexual assault? I mean, before the superglue, obviously.’

‘I treated the superglue with solvent so I could examine the genital area. I would say she had recently had violent sexual intercourse, vaginally and anally. There are internal tears that would suggest a pretty brutal rape scenario. Again, there’s old bruising in the genital area, and some internal tearing that is partially healed.’ He let out a heavy sigh. In all the years she’d known him Paula had never known Grisha to be blasé. Being confronted with the terrible things humans did to each other still caused him distress. ‘No semen. Either he used condoms or a foreign object.’

‘A foreign object?’ Fielding’s question was clinical.

‘A dildo. Maybe even the baseball bat he used on her head. It’s impossible to say.’

‘Then theoretically it could be a woman?’

Grisha gave a hollow laugh. ‘Theoretically it could be a woman, yes. She’d have to be pretty strong, to move your victim around. But yes, it could be a woman.’ Silence, while they all thought about that one. ‘One other thing,’ Grisha said. ‘It was hard to pick up at first because of the bruising and the damage to the skin. But I found three instances of two puncture wounds close together. One on her right shoulder, one on her left thigh and one on her stomach, by the navel. The one on her shoulder was almost totally healed. All that’s left are the purple-pink marks of scar tissue.’

‘Knife wounds?’

‘No. Much smaller and shallower. There are some tears to the skin in four of the cases. I can’t be sure but I think they might be damage inflicted by taser probes.’

‘You think he’s tasered her?’ Fielding sounded intrigued.

‘I can’t be certain, I don’t have much experience in this area. I’ll need to do some research. But yes, that would be my cautious opinion at this point.’

‘That would explain how he acquired her without any report of a struggle somewhere public…’ Fielding’s voice tailed off as she thought through what she’d just heard.

Paula took her chance. ‘Hi, Grisha. It’s Paula here.’

‘Hi, Sergeant Paula. How’re you enjoying your promotion?’

‘I can’t remember when I last had this much fun without laughing. Grisha, what have we got on time of death?’ Fielding gave her a dirty look, as if she’d been caught speaking out of turn.