for the immediate cause of death, that's what he found.' Andy put down the section of what Jenny recognized as heart muscle. 'Having said that, there's one thing about the stab wound I've noticed that he didn't comment on - it comes in almost horizontally.'
'Meaning what?'
He picked up a scalpel to demonstrate. 'If you're going to stab someone, the most natural way is either to come downwards with the blade coming out of the bottom of your fist, or upwards. To get it in horizontally requires a less natural motion.' He tried several variations, each requiring the wrist to be awkwardly bent.
Unconvinced, Jenny said, 'I can imagine holding it that way.'
'My tutor at King's wrote the textbook on stab wounds - it's not the norm, believe me.'
Jenny glanced back at the body. 'Are there any marks, signs of a struggle?'
'Nothing obvious. There may have been some minor contusions I might not be able to pick up this long after.'
'Any chance the first p-m might have missed any third- party DNA?'
Andy shook his head. 'All the nails were scraped; the lab tests came back negative. I don't think there was a struggle. She didn't even have any blood on her hands.'
Jenny tried to picture Craven arriving at Eva's front door. From what she'd read about the layout of the house it was more than twenty-five feet from the doorstep to where Eva's body was found.
'Could she have walked backwards into the kitchen after she'd been stabbed?'
Andy picked up another section of heart. 'Look.' He pointed a gloved finger. 'There's an inch-and-a-half gash in the aorta. Blood would have been shooting out of there at full pressure the moment the knife was pulled out.'
'So if she was stabbed by the front door, you'd expect to see blood there, right?'
'Almost definitely.'
Perhaps if Craven hadn't produced the knife immediately, Eva might have backed away from the door and into the kitchen, tried to talk to him, calm him down. But surely there would have been more signs of struggle? She recalled the police photographs: a heavy glass measuring jug on the counter right next to Eva's body. Why didn't she pick it up and smash it in his face?
'We're sure there was no sexual assault?'
'I'm guided by the findings of the original examination. She was menstruating. Tampon and ST were still in place.'
So what? Jenny thought. If a man was sufficiently psychotic to seek out a porn star and execute her, surely he wasn't going to leave without an attempt to get what he came for. Craven's first murder had been a frenzied attack; Eva's killer struck once and ran.
Jenny said, 'Can you think of any reason I shouldn't release the body? I don't want to be told in a week's time there are other tests we should have run.'
'I've got all the tissues samples I need. Do you want any more photographs?'
'If you like. I don't suppose they'll add much.'
'There is one thing that didn't show up on the ones that were taken the first time.' He turned to the autopsy table. 'What do you make of this?' He pointed to a small tattoo on the left-hand side of her bikini-waxed crotch, just below where her pubic hairline would have been. Written in copperplate script, Jenny couldn't make it out without looking closer than she wanted to.
'What does it say?'
Andy smiled at her over his mask. 'Uh, uh. This is one you've got to see for yourself.'
Jenny steeled herself and leaned in for a closer look. The tattoo said: Daddy's girl.
'That's something for the old man to be proud of,' Andy said. 'Maybe the decent thing would be to let it go un- mentioned.'
Jenny looked at it again.
'It's real,' Andy said. 'I checked. She's got another one at the base of her spine, a little butterfly.'
The two words were small enough for you to miss them at a fleeting glance, but once you'd noticed they were all you could see. The pictures Jenny had seen of Eva on the internet flashed before her eyes, most of them featuring her in close-up gynaecological detail. Surely she would have noticed the tattoo?
Jenny said, 'How recent would you say it was?'
'Hmm. I don't know if there's any way of telling. It takes a number of years for the ink to start spreading.' He reached for a magnifying glass and studied it for a long moment. 'Actually, you know what, there's been some recent scabbing, I can see where the skin's been abraded. I think there's a