He turned his attention to her blood-soaked clothes. Swabs would have been taken at the site, but he put on magnifying glasses and searched for fibres. Locard’s principle of exchange usually rang true, unless an investigation was particularly unlucky. Fact was, you couldn’t kill someone without leaving something of yourself at the scene, as well as taking something away. Molecules were pesky little blighters that liked to latch on to the closest thing, both assailant and victim. A thorough hunt delivered. He found several fibres not matching Ella’s jogging kit. One looked like a hair, and the others were all black and stood out on her blue running top: probably some sort of plastic amalgamation.

Satisfied with his inspection, Ted removed her clothes and carried on. Ella Watson had no other wounds or marks on her body. She didn’t even show signs of having fallen hard; she must have collapsed pretty gently, with the weakness in her body taking over rapidly. Pooling had occurred all along one side where she’d lain until she was discovered. Death was quick, and his conclusion was exsanguination.

After just over an hour, Ted began to eviscerate the body. As soon as he pulled out the organ sac, he could see the aorta was cut in two. It would have spurted like a split balloon, explaining the amount of blood that Ella had been lying in when the emergency services arrived. He considered the way she had lain in the road and the direction of the strike, and concluded that it was possible the assailants could have got away without any obvious evidence of her blood on them. However, it was highly likely that they’d both received minute blood spatter patterns on their clothes and hands. Blood had a habit of travelling vast distances, as if the tiny cells colluded to form clues not visible to the naked eye to help catch the killer. Whoever had done this would have stained clothes. Not huge stains, but ones that would be visible in a lab. And the protein from blood wouldn’t be washed out easily. It was something for Kelly.

After a thorough examination of Ella’s internal organs, he noted that one of the stab wounds had travelled ten inches into her body and the other eight inches. They were not only very large knives, they were strikes of incredible force. The woman hadn’t stood a chance.

He finished up and decided to have a short break. He was hungry and thirsty. Perhaps he was slowing down after all.

He sent his initial findings on Ella Watson to Kelly and told her he’d get started on Keira Bradley soon. She’d been brought straight to the hospital from the crime scene.