As the murder team donned their paper suits, Bill Smart removed his, rolling it into a ball and dumping it into the waste bin provided. As he bent down to remove his protective shoes, he had to pause and take a deep breath. In his thirty years as a forensic expert, he had never come across anything so grotesque. It was the hideous gaping smile that had got to him. It would get to them all.

Anna adjusted her mask as she followed Morgan into the tent. This was now her fourth murder enquiry and she had come a long way since that first cadaver that had made her instantly sick. She had not seen DCI Langton, who she had worked with on the Alan Daniels case, since then, but she had often heard about his exploits. She doubted if he had paid any attention to hers, or the fact she had upped her rank from Detective Sergeant. Her subsequent cases had been domestic; to have cut her teeth on a serial killer like Daniels was something a good few junior detectives envied.

The detectives stood in silence outside the police tape encircling the body.

'She's been severed at the waist. The two sections of her body are about ten inches apart,' Morgan said quietly. He gestured with his gloved hand. 'Mouth slit each side. Hard to tell what she looked like before this was done to her. She's got abrasions all over her body.'

Anna inched further forward, staring down at the dead woman. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a young rookie detective turn away and hurry out of the tent. Anna didn't look up. She knew exactly how he felt, but remained calm as she took in the awful sight.

'We won't have anything from any clothes, obviously. First priority is to identify her.' Morgan blinked as flashbulbs went off; photographs were being taken from every angle. He looked over to the doctor, a rotund man with thick glasses, who squinted back.