She waved her chopsticks. ‘You want something to eat?’

I shook my head.

‘If you don’t want lunch then you’re here to ask me about a man with a knife wound in his windpipe,’ she said.

I smiled at her. ‘You know me so well.’

‘You want to know if he’s going to live.’

‘It had crossed my mind.’

‘That depends entirely on the severity of the penetrating trauma.’

‘It’s a puncture wound, Elsa. A knife was stuck in Guy Philips’ throat but his throat was not cut open. I’m giving you the edited highlights, you understand.’

‘I understand. But you have to understand that there are puncture wounds and there are puncture wounds, Max. Tracheal perforation ranges from a small wound to complete avulsion. He’s survived for, what, forty-eight hours?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I would think he has every chance. But not even his doctors will know for certain. If you don’t like dak bulgogi, you’d be far better off talking to them.’

‘There’s something more, Elsa.’

She placed her chopsticks across her rice bowl and waited.

I leaned forward. My back throbbed in protest.

‘Would he have lost consciousness?’ I said. ‘He had a knife stuck in his throat – the assailant was disturbed, we don’t know why – and the victim somehow stemmed the blood for long enough to save his life, long enough to get up and get away. Was he awake through all of that? I got a couple of taps on the head and there were whole seconds when I was out for the count. This man had his throat cut. Would he have blacked out?’

She thought about it.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Please, Elsa. Have a guess.’

‘I doubt it. Because if he had blacked out then he would have bled to death. But, like you, there may have been moments when he was not fully conscious.’

‘What’s the timetable?’

‘There is no timetable! There are only a series of approximations.’

‘But we know that Hugo Buck and Adam Jones died almost instantly.’

‘Yes, because if you cut the carotid artery then loss of consciousness is within five seconds. But even that’s an approximation. And the killer didn’t get the chance to cut the carotid artery this time, did he?’

‘Because he was disturbed. Or he panicked. There were fifty kids in those woods. Or maybe he was spooked by a bird. Whatever happened, he didn’t finish the job. So did Guy Philips lose consciousness?’

‘What I’m telling you is that severing any artery will eventually result in loss of consciousness. Eventually. Suicides who cut their radial arteries – slash their wrists, in plain English – have approximately thirty seconds to regret it before they black out and then another two minutes before they die. But it is entirely dependent on the severity of the trauma. Or, more specifically, the loss of blood plasma.’