side of her body where he picked up one of her hands and then the other, excusing himself to Isabelle as he passed her and letting Kathy know that the superintendent was still on her feet and her colour was good, but they would see, wouldn't they, once he cut the body open? He said, "No defensive wounds on the hands, Kath.
No broken fingernails, no scratches either. Blood on them both but I expect this would have come from her attempt to stop the bleeding once the weapon was withdrawn." He chatted on for a few more minutes, documenting everything the eye could see. He put her age between twenty and thirty and then he prepared himself for the next step of the process.
Isabelle was ready. Clearly, he expected her to faint. Just as clearly, she intended not to.
She found she could have done with another shot of vodka when, after the incision and the exposure of the rib cage, he took out the shears to cut through the victim's chest - it was the sound of metal cutting through bone that she found most repellent - but after that the rest was, if not easy, then at least more bearable.
After Willeford had done his bit, he said, "Darling Kath, as always, it's been a pleasure.
Could you type that up and get it over to Superintendent Ardery, darling? And by the way, she's still upright so I daresay she's a keeper. Remember DI Shatter - what an appropriate name, eh? - falling headfirst into the body cavity up in Berwick-on-Tweed that time? Lord, what an uproar. Ah, „but what do we live for but to give' ...whatever it is that we give to our neighbours and „to laugh at them in our turn.' I can not ever remember that quote. Adieu, dear Kath, till next time."
At that point, an assistant swept forward to do the cleanup and Willeford stripped off his scrubs, tossed them in a bin in the corner, and invited Isabelle to "„step into my parlour said the spider,' et cetera. I've a bit more for you in here."
A bit more turned out to be the information that two hairs had been caught up in the victim's hands, and he had little doubt that SOCO would soon inform her that fibres aplenty had been taken from her clothing. "Got rather close to her killer, if you know what I mean,"
Willeford said with a wink.
Isabelle wondered if this counted as sexual harassment, as she asked blandly,
"Intercourse? Rape? A struggle?"
Nothing, he said. Absolutely no evidence. She was, if he might put it this way, a willing participant in whatever went on between herself and the owner of the fibres. Likely that was why she'd been found where she'd been found, as there was no evidence she'd been dragged anywhere against her will, no bruises, no skin under the fingernails, that sort of thing, he said.
Did he have an opinion on what position she was in when she was attacked? Isabelle asked the pathologist. What about time of death? How long had she likely lived after the assault upon her? From what direction did the injury occur? Was the killer left-or right-handed?
Willeford fished in the pocket of his windcheater at this point - he'd left it behind a door and he fetched it over to where they were sitting - and brought out a nutrition bar. Had to keep his blood sugar up, he confessed. His metabolism was the curse of his life.
Isabelle could see this was the case. Out of his scrubs, he was thin as a garden hoe. At a height of at least six feet six inches, he likely needed to keep eating all day, which had to be difficult in his line of work.
He told her that the presence of the maggots put time of death at twenty-four to thirty-six hours before the body was found, although considering the heat, the closer call would be twenty-four. She'd have been upright when she was attacked, and her assailant was right-handed.
Toxicology would show if drugs or alcohol was involved, but that would take some time, as would the DNA from the hair, as there were "follicles attached and isn't that lovely?"
Isabelle asked if he reckoned the killer had been in front of or behind the young woman.
Definitely standing in front of her, the pathologist said.
Which meant, Isabelle concluded, that she may have known her killer.
ISABELLE ALSO WENT alone on her next call that day. In advance she studied