Good old Alistair, always a trier. In fact, he’d been trying since I was a teenager and he was a pimply geek who spent his school holidays with our family. His parents were busy professionals who found it a bit inconvenient when boarding school emptied everyone out. Fortunately for him, my parents had a farm and were in the habit of picking up strays. Nowadays, Alistair was no longer pimply and was a pathologist at Dunedin hospital.

‘Mum’s in town, Dad’s in hospital – nothing serious. I need to put in some contact hours. Enough said.’

‘I hear you. So to what do I owe the pleasure, then? You only seem to call me when you want something, not just for my charm.’ He put on a dramatic sniff.

‘As much as I love the sound of your voice, you’re right, I’m that transparent – I want something.’

‘I knew it. So not even any small talk?’

‘Not today, sorry. The room has ears.’

‘Fun, how very James Bond. Fire away, then.’

‘A murder case last week.’

‘The young woman?’

‘Yes, Rose-Marie Bateman. Did you do or attend her post-mortem? What can you tell me about it?’

‘Yes, I was there. The forensic pathologist from Christchurch came down to perform it. Details? Fairly straight forward, actually. Major trauma to the head, fractured skull, intra-cranial haemorrhage which, if it didn’t kill her, would have left her with far fewer faculties than she started with. But the cause of death was drowning.’

‘She was a very bright girl, Ph.D. student.’

‘The head injury would have taken care of that.’

I felt an angry heat forming in my guts. It was a sensation that was surreptitiously replacing the blahs as my day rode on. DI Johns had helped it along, as had thoughts about the deaths that were trailing this case, criminal, medical and animal.

‘What about evidence of sexual assault or activity. Was there any semen present?’

‘No physical sign of sexual assault, vaginal or anal, which doesn’t mean there wasn’t any activity. Normally seminal fluid would last in the vagina for at least twenty-four hours, but as she’d been in the water, there was no trace.’

‘Okay. I know this probably sounds odd, but her boyfriend claimed she was a virgin. Was her hymen intact?’ I found myself blushing on the end of the phone asking such a personal question. Smithy looked at me sideways from the next desk.