‘Well on this occasion I agree with him. Oh, hang on, I’ve got Dr Delahaye on the other line,’ he said. ‘We might have the answer already.’ Gillard said a hurried goodbye and switched call. The dry and cultured voice of the forensic pathologist came onto the line.

‘There have been some new developments, rather surprising ones in my view,’ he said.

‘Let’s hope we are closer to some answers.’

‘When I saw how much adipocere there was in the body, I was pretty certain that I wasn’t going to be able to tell you very much about the cause of death, but actually I may have been wrong. The conversion of soft tissues to this soapy texture is the major problem, because the internal structure that any pathologist would rely on has broken down. I’ve got him out on the slab right now, in about six different pieces. There’s clearly been considerable damage to the body, broken bones, damaged neck vertebrae, a couple of missing fingers and so forth, much of it obviously caused by the excavator. I had assumed that trying to tease out whether any of the trauma predated the machinery damage would be quite difficult, and that most of the information would be derived from the wealth of associated material, clothing, pens and so on.’

‘You’re keeping me in suspense, David.’

‘I am, and for the good reason that you’re still going to need a forensic archaeologist to tie up the loose ends. There was an interesting puncture wound in the neck, which might possibly account for the damage to the vertebrae. It didn’t on the face of it seem to me likely to have been caused by the excavator. I X-rayed the head and neck, and discovered a sliver of what appears to be heavily corroded metal, partially embedded between two neck vertebrae. This would have severed the spinal cord, probably cut the right common carotid artery and was certainly embedded with some force. If it turns out to have preceded the damage caused by the excavator, it could well turn out to be the cause of death.’

‘What exactly do you mean by a sliver of metal?’

‘It’s essentially a thumb-sized fragment, but much less thick. My suspicion is that it originally could have been very sharp. I’ve copied the X-ray to Dr Clive Hancock and to you as well.’

‘Sorry, I can’t open it because I’m driving. Are you saying it was a knife, and that he was stabbed?’