‘All right, what else do we know?’

‘Nothing good,’ Ailsa said. She busied herself pulling the sheet down to reveal the whole body. ‘Are you taking your antibiotics?’

‘Yes, and Luc’s been looking after me. He’s so scared of you, he’ll hardly leave my side.’

‘That’s got nothing to do with fear,’ Ailsa said. ‘Take a deep breath; this isn’t what you were expecting. We’ve located the weapon that was used to make the incisions into Mrs Hawksmith’s arm. It’s a penknife, one of those multitool jobs, too. Expensive.’ She looked disapproving. ‘I’ve been able to match the precise width of the blade to the cuts, as well as blood on the blade itself, so I’m one hundred per cent certain that this is the weapon. Fingerprints on the blade match Mrs Hawksmith’s and there are no other prints on it.’

‘Okay,’ Ava said slowly. Everything Ailsa said was making sense given the scene, but the pathologist seemed tense and angry. ‘That indicates suicide. I saw an expert this morning who said that while an organised suicide scene might be unusual, it’s far from impossible. So what are you not telling me?’

‘It’s not suicide,’ Ailsa said. ‘I’ve been doing this job thirty years and I’ve seen more people end their lives than I care to recall. This is something else, Ava, and while everything that happened to this poor woman might, technically speaking, possibly be self-inflicted, I refuse to believe it was.’

‘Tell me.’

‘The blade couldn’t be found at the scene because it was inside her body,’ Ailsa said. ‘I found it while I was checking the body cavities. The blade had been folded back into the knife after the incisions were made and then it was inserted into her rectum, as high as it could be pushed using a digit.’

Ava stood silently. There weren’t many things she heard in the mortuary that left her lost for words, but just occasionally she still found herself dumbstruck.

‘Can I go back out, come in again and see if you give me different news?’ Ava asked eventually.

‘Only if I can come with you,’ Ailsa said.

Either side of Fenella Hawksmith’s body, they stared down at her. Ava shook her head.

‘So either she cut herself, folded up the blade, inserted it into herself, then did up the handcuffs and waited to die …’ Ailsa began.

‘Or someone did all those things for her,’ Ava finished the sentence.