‘The resemblance isn’t close enough to make them sisters.’

‘Palanski’s a kid,’ said Riker, who said this of everyone under forty. ‘And it’s not like he worked with her every day.’

‘… the hands are crushed, no blood loss. Injury sustained after death…’

Riker opened his notebook and pulled out his pen. He kept his eyes away from the woman on the table, bereft of her sheet, exposed to the lights, the eyes of men, the cold air. ‘The body was found in the park, four or five blocks from Mallory’s neighborhood on the Upper West Side. The victim was wearing a blazer and blue jeans, just like Mallory. And Mallory’s name was on the tailor’s label.’

Dr Slope was staring down at the corpse. ‘Kathy Mallory’s eyes are so green they shouldn’t be legal. How could Palanski confuse the color of her eyes with these pale blues?’

‘He wouldn’t have touched her eyes,’ said Riker. ‘He was scared of Mallory. Even when he thought she was dead, he was scared of her.’

‘… Rigor mortis is still present in the neck and jaw…’

Dr Slope moved closer to the table, nodded to the younger pathologist, and picked up a clipboard which dangled by a chain. Now he turned back to Riker. ‘What have you got so far?’

‘Coffey’s got a preliminary report from the West Side squad. The ME investigator on the crime scene estimates the time of death at yesterday morning between 6:00 and 9:00. An entomologist is working on the bug larvae. Maybe they can narrow it some. Your man figures the body was moved within an hour of death.’

All that was written on the page of his notebook was the word bugs.

Riker didn’t have to look directly at the woman to know what was being done to her. The young man with the mask and the knife was making the first incision crossing from shoulder to breastbone, and then on to the other shoulder, his blade describing a V. In peripheral vision, Riker saw the next slice, the downward motion of the knife hand cutting the body open from the breast to the mount of Venus. The smell of blood mingled with urine and feces. He could hear her liquids running into the holes at the sides of the table.