He turned to Brock. ‘As you know, Chief Inspector, evidence of asphyxia is often uncertain, and if it was a plastic bag…’ He shrugged. ‘And to tell you frankly’-he lowered his voice and switched off the tape recorder that had been running at his elbow-‘I find it difficult to have much confidence in the judgement of her doctor, whatever his name was, who called us out, although I couldn’t say that at the time.’

‘He was a bit of a character.’ Kathy smiled and the pathologist rolled his eyes, returning to his paperwork.

After a while he put the clip-board down and pulled a packet of rubber gloves out of a drawer. Kathy knew the procedure-first the Y-shaped incision on the front of the body, from shoulders to crotch, and the taking of blood from this cut for alcohol analysis before opening the body cavities; then the systematic opening of skull and body cavities and inspection of organs in place, and their removal in turn for individual examination. Just thinking about it seemed to drain the thing on the table of what was left of its humanity, as if its soul were shrinking from the approaching knife.

‘You all right?’

Kathy started, then nodded at Brock. ‘Yes, sir. I was in Traffic for two years.’

‘Ah, yes. Blood enough for a lifetime. All the same, not much point in our hanging about, eh?’

He waited for her to agree before speaking to Mehta. ‘We’ll leave you to it then, Sundeep. Anything occurs to you, we’d appreciate an informal opinion.’

‘I always oblige when I can, Brock. But this time, I would not hold my breath.’

They left, closely followed by the woman from the coroner’s office.

It was a fine September morning, and after the chill of the mortuary the city seemed soaked with warmth and life by the glittering sunlight, although the leaves of the plane trees were already curling yellow and showering down with each gust of breeze. Traffic was heavy, and Kathy made slow progress across town.