All of this horror she’d got through. Maybe a few extra drinks on the bad nights, a spike in her cigarette consumption on the bad days. Still, she’d absorbed the pain, dealt with the anger. Deep down, she’d learned to live with it. But today’s victim had messed with her head. There was no escaping that. The brutal beating on its own would have been hard to stomach, but she’d have got past that without too much trouble. The other thing – she could hardly bear to articulate the act, even in her head – was somehow infinitely worse. It was as if her killer wanted to deny her everything that made her who she was. Wrecked face, ruined body, not even any use for sex. He’d rendered her utterly worthless. It spoke of a contempt that chilled Paula’s heart. This, she suspected, was a murderer who wasn’t going to stop at one.

The rest of the team would be gossiping and speculating about it. She knew what cops were like. And for a little while she wanted not to be part of that. Putting together a profile of the victim based on the contents of her bag would be a good enough excuse.

In the unfamiliar territory of her new base, she managed to find the canteen and set herself up with coffee and the comfort of Jaffa Cakes. And because the canteen staff always knew what was what, she acquired directions to a small meeting room on the fourth floor where nothing was scheduled for the rest of the day.

Gloved and masked, her coffee and biscuits on a separate table, she finally addressed the dead woman’s life. The bag was businesslike – black leather, worn in but not scuffed, decent quality and capacious. It looked a bit like a scaled-down briefcase, with its neat compartments and pockets. Methodically, Paula emptied the contents on to the table, not pausing to study anything till she was sure the bag was completely empty. She was impressed with the relative absence of crap and made a mental note to clear her own bag of the accumulated detritus of everyday living.

She went with the obviously female stuff first. Lipstick, mascara, blusher, all own-brand from a chain chemist. Plastic folding comb with a narrow mirror in the handle. So, someone who cared about how she looked but didn’t make a fetish of it.

Pack of tissues, only a couple left. A small tin that had once held sweets but now contained four compact tampons. A couple of condoms in a plastic pouch. Blister pack of birth control pills, three remaining. So, almost certainly straight, probably single. If you were in a relationship, you generally left those things at home, in the bathroom or the bedside-table drawer. You weren’t going to spend the night in another bed on the spur of the moment.