looked like representatives of every possible geological period. Where they were narrow, the paths were thick with decomposing leaves and the ground was spongy and aromatic, sending up the rich scent of compost. At last the tower of a chapel appeared and then the chapel itself, a sad ruin of brick and iron and corrugated steel, its interior thick with weeds and made inaccessible by iron bars.
Over there, the pensioner told them needlessly. He indicated a gathering of white-suited crime scene officers across a parched lawn. Isabelle thanked the man and said to Nkata, "Track down whoever discovered the body. I'll want a word."
Nkata gave a look towards the chapel. Isabelle knew he wanted to see the crime scene.
She waited for him to protest or argue. He did neither. He said, "Right," and she left him to it.
She liked him for his response.
She herself approached a small, secondary building abutting one side of the chapel, near to which a body bag waited next to a collapsed ambulance trolley. The body was going to have to be carried out upon it, as the uneven paths in the cemetery would make rolling the trolley impossible till they got near the exit.
Scenes of crime officers were engaged in everything from taping and measuring to marking off footprints, for what little good this would do, as there appeared to be dozens. Only a narrow access route consisting of end-to-end boards made the immediate site of the body available, and Isabelle donned latex gloves as she picked her way along it.
The forensic pathologist came out of the secondary building. She was a middle-aged woman with the teeth, skin, and disturbing cough of a chain-smoker. Isabelle introduced herself and said, "What is this place?" with a nod at the building.
"No idea," the pathologist said. She did not give her name, nor did Isabelle want it. "No door from it into the chapel, so it can't have been a vestry. Gardener's shed, perhaps?" The woman shrugged. It didn't really matter, did it?
Of course it didn't. What mattered was the corpse, and this turned out to be a young woman. She was half seated and half sprawled inside the little annex, in a position suggesting she'd stumbled backwards upon being attacked and had subsequently slid down the wall. The wall itself was mottled by the weather, and above the body a graffito of an eye inside a triangle proclaimed, "God Goes Wireless." The floor was stone and littered with rubbish. Death had come to mingle with crisps bags, sandwich wrappers, chocolate-bar wrappers, and empty Coke cans. There was a pornographic magazine as well, a much more recent bit of rubbish than the rest of the debris as it was fresh and uncrumpled. It was also open at a gleaming crotch shot of a pouting, red-lipsticked woman in patent leather boots, a top hat, and nothing else.
Ignominious location in which to meet your end, Isabelle thought. She squatted to have a look at the victim. Her stomach rolled at the scent coming off the body: a smell of meat rotting in the heat, thick as yellow fog. Newly hatched maggots writhed in the body's nostrils and mouth, and her mouth, face, and neck - where they could be seen - had turned greenish-red.
The young woman's head lolled on her chest, and on the chest itself a vast amount of blood had coagulated. Flies were doing more business there, and the sound of their buzzing was like high-tension wires in the close space. When Isabelle carefully moved the young woman's head to expose her neck, more flies rose in a cloud from an ugly wound. It was jagged and torn, suggesting a weapon wielded by a clumsy killer.
"Carotid artery," the pathologist said. She made a gesture towards the body's bagged hands. "Looks like she tried to stop the bleeding, but it couldn't have done much good. She would have bled out fast."
"Weapon?"
"Nothing left at the scene. Till we get her on the table and have a close look, it could be anything sharp. Not a knife, though. The wound's far too messy for a knife."
"How long d'you reckon she's been dead?"
"Difficult to say because of the heat. Lividity's fixed and rigor's gone. Perhaps twenty-four hours?"
"Do we know who she is?"
"There's nothing on her. No handbag here either. Nothing to suggest who she is. But the eyes ...They're going to give you some help."
"The eyes? Why? What's wrong with them?"
"Have a look for yourself," the pathologist said. "They're clouded over, as