Dr Pullen could see that things were getting heated. She deliberately spoke loudly. ‘If you’d all like to gather round, I can show you the neck injuries and retrieve the object stuck in the vertebrae.’

She instantly got everyone’s attention. The head of the nun lay on a separate examination table. Her dark blonde hair was well preserved under the wimple. It was cut to just above the earlobes, untidy and not very straight.

‘I had to cut through the nun’s wimple so I could dissect the skin and muscle around the neck.’ Pullen handed the wimple to Lloyd.

He laid it out on a large brown exhibits bag and proceeded to tape it for any fibres which might have come from the ligature. Pullen used tweezers to pluck some of the hairs from the scalp, then put them in a plastic exhibits bag which she handed to Lloyd.

‘To be tested by toxicology for any drugs, I take it?’ Lloyd asked.

Pullen nodded. ‘Just in case she was poisoned as well, I’ll remove her stomach and contents for testing when I examine the internal organs.’

‘Has my little mishap with her head caused any problems?’ Boon asked tentatively.

‘Thankfully, there’s no further damage to the vertebrae,’ Pullen told him. ‘As I suspected, the spinal cord has been severed between the C3 and C4 sections and the hyoid bone is fractured.’ She looked at the notes she’d made prior to dissecting the throat. ‘The width of the entry wound in the neck is two and a half centimetres and the penetration depth five centimetres. However, the knife could have had a longer blade than the penetration depth. There were no signs of serration on the vertebrae which suggests the knife had a smooth blade.’

Pullen used the tweezers to lift out the small triangular-shaped object she’d seen on the X-ray. She placed it gently down on a piece of blue paper cloth. It was clearly the tip of a knife.

Pullen took some measurements. ‘It’s quite thin, two centimetres wide at the break point and narrowing to a curved tip.’

Lloyd took some close-up photographs as Pullen held the ruler next to it. ‘She must have been stabbed with some force to severe the spine and break the knife tip off.’

Pullen nodded. ‘Yes, it’s rare. The tip was embedded between the vertebrae and probably broke off when the knife was removed at an acute angle.’

‘Do you think two people could have been involved in her murder? Lifting the body and putting it in the coffin wouldn’t be easy,’ Boon suggested.

Pullen shrugged. ‘It’s possible. However, the victim is small and quite light, even though the body has mummified.’

‘If the coffin was on the ground, a single person could lift the upper body in first then the lower half,’ Jane suggested, and Pullen agreed.

‘The initial strangulation may not have taken place near the coffin,’ Lloyd suggested.

‘Could another nun have done it?’ Boon asked.

Pullen shrugged. ‘Metaphorically speaking, God only knows. All I can say at present is she was strangled then stabbed, by a person or persons at present unknown.’