‘Ok. As for Natalya, she lasted a bit longer. Like Reeve, Natalya did eventually bleed to death, but the stab wound to her side didn’t sever the renal artery, just nicked it really. The blow actually caused quite a lot more damage to the kidney itself, and it was fifty-fifty as to whether she would have died from blood loss or from the effects of the lacerated kidney, which would have poisoned her from the inside. She was still alive when the killer was interrupted, I hear, and probably was for several minutes afterwards.’

‘Paramedics pronounced her dead on their arrival.’

‘They did, which was close to ten minutes after the 999 call.’

‘Would a quicker response have saved her?’

‘Possibly, but I’d say it’s quite unlikely.’

‘What about the other wounds on Reeve? Are they defensive wounds?’

‘I’d say some are. It will take me a while longer to properly analyse them all, but I can see that some of the bruises and cuts are probably two or three days old.’

‘So he was in a fight?’

‘Possibly. Or maybe he played rugby or some other contact sport. Martial arts. Who knows? But there’s definite evidence of a struggle in the lead up to his death too. This wound here…’

Ledford lifted up Reeve’s right arm, revealing a long deep cut riding up to the elbow. Dani hadn’t spotted that back at the apartment.

‘…I’d say was inflicted by the same knife that killed him.’

‘He held his arm up to defend himself.’

‘Most likely. There’s also a rather nasty lump on the back of his head. The result of a blunt force blow.’

Dani looked at Ledford. ‘What are you saying?’

‘I can’t be definitive. Perhaps he was hit over the head with an object, or perhaps he fell and smacked his head on something. Closer examination of the apartment may give the answer.’

‘There were no objects recovered that looked like they’d been used as a weapon.’

‘There is potentially some significance to that head injury.’

‘You think he was unconscious when he was stabbed?’

‘There’s no evidence of him trying to drag or move himself away, either in terms of marks on his hands and fingers for example, or in relation to marks or blood trails in the apartment.’

‘And he didn’t try to raise the alarm either. But you said he would have died very quickly from the stab wounds?’

‘That’s true. But thirty seconds, a minute, is still plenty long enough for someone to fight for their survival.’

‘So you do think he was unconscious then?’

‘Whether he was stabbed in the gut first, then took the blow to the head, or the other way around, I can’t be sure. Although the result would be the same, it could tell you something about his killer, their motives.’

‘What about the dirt under his fingernails?’