After a coffee and a raspberry Danish in the hospital staff canteen – both marked with red stickers to indicate that they were unhealthy – Ted stretched and made his way back to the mortuary to scrub up again.

Keira’s body was different in the sense that the wounds indicated rage rather than speed. The amount of adrenaline required to fuel murder varies wildly. Ted was experienced enough to spot the difference between a pre-planned adrenalin-charged hit such as that on Ella Watson, and a split-second decision to lash out. For a start, Keira’s wounds were mainly in her stomach, and numbered eleven in total. Kelly had told him that Keira wasn’t robbed either; she’d still had a stash of cash and drugs on her. This attack smacked to him of panic, not the controlled power he’d seen with Ella. He reckoned it was an argument gone wrong.

Stomach wounds were generally the result of a lesson being taught to a rival or an inferior. In this case it could have been a man showing a woman her place. Ted confirmed that there was only one assailant and one weapon: a small, pointed knife, about six inches long. Given that they were all anterior wounds, the attacker would have a substantial amount of blood spatter on him – or her – but if they were wearing dark clothing, it might not be immediately obvious. However, they would have a lot of blood on their stabbing hand, and perhaps even slashes as the knife became slippery with blood and the attacker lost control. Again, it was something for Kelly.

It was Keira’s fingernails that caught Ted’s attention. He gave them a good scrape and placed some of the matter in bags to be tagged, and some in test tubes to be cultured, then finally a sample onto a slide for his electron microscope. With a bit of luck, it wasn’t just dirt and grime under there. Fingertips were generally hives of nasty bacteria, fungus and yeast. But with a victim of homicide, close attention was paid to what else might lurk under there. Ella Watson’s had been pristine. That was not the case for Keira. They were stuffed with the normal keratin debris and skin cells found under dirty nails, so the chances of finding not only her own DNA but that of whoever she’d been close to in the hours before her death were good. He also found three hairs, deep in the hyponychium of two nails. Keira’s hair was black, but the hairs were chestnut brown. Either her personal hygiene was questionable and she hadn’t washed her hands for a long time, or she’d grabbed her attacker.