The amount of blood was staggering. She paused for a moment to take in the violence of the crime. Ella Watson had yet to be formally identified, but from the link to her husband’s phone, plus the bank card, they had little doubt. The tent was particularly large, to cover the blood pool from prying eyes outside. The path’s camber sloped off to one side, and the blood had run away from her body and collected near the grass.

The tent was airless, hot and silent except for the click click of the CSI’s camera. There was a hint of Girl Guide expedition about the musty smell, but the prevalent odour was that of death. Rot set in soon after a human organism took its last breath, and the flies weren’t very far behind, regardless of the season. Kelly knew the body hadn’t lain there long because the fitness trainer had seen the victim run past, alive and well, around one o’clock.

She greeted the CSI. Click click.

‘Two single knife wounds, consistent with a surprise attack. No defence wounds. No weapons, though forensics are searching. Both wounds are very deep and hit major arteries. It’s very specific: femoral artery and aorta.’

‘Skilled.’

It gave Kelly another scenario: gang initiation. It’d become more and more prevalent, and random victims were selected as well as rival gang members. Ella Watson didn’t look to Kelly like a gang member, and she could see clearly now that this was no robbery because of the stunning ruby ring on her right hand and the diamond-laden wedding bands on her left. Her iPhone still sat in the running wallet and the woman wore an expensive watch.

Kelly had already got her team back at Eden House working initial background on the Watson family. They lived in a huge pad on Ullswater that was probably worth three million quid. Ella was a well-to-do middle-class housewife. A text came through with an attached copy of her driving licence and passport: Kelly could see immediately that the photos were of the woman in front of her.

She approached the body.

‘The perp must have been covered in blood,’ she said as she walked around the corpse, looking at it closely, studying its final position. There were no bloody footprints leading away and not much splatter at all. ‘Or maybe not: it was quick, she hardly moved,’ she added, thinking aloud. They all did it as a matter of course.

The CSI nodded. ‘She’s tried to use her hands to cover the wound, and collapsed. God, what a way to go.’

The body was surrounded by plastic number markers, next to items of interest. Kelly would have to give the go-ahead for them to be removed and bagged. Ella’s headphones still lay where they’d presumably been knocked off by the impact of the attack.