'Okay let's get started,' Morgan said, and burped; he excused himself and took an antacid tablet. 'We need to know who the victim is. We'll be getting photographs in, but until we get her identified and the lab reports back, there's not a lot we have to go on. According to the doctor, the work on her body looked professional, so we could be after a suspect with medical or surgical experience.'

Anna put up her hand. 'By the way the body was displayed, knowing it would be visible from the road and therefore would be found quickly, do you think the killer could be local?'

'Possibly,' Morgan said, as he crunched his tablet. He stared ahead, as if trying to think of what he should say next, and then shrugged. 'Let's start with missing persons in this area.'

The victim was eased into a thick plastic body bag and removed from the site at one-fifteen. A team of uniformed officers had already been assigned a fingertip search of the area. Due to the good weather and early-morning frost, the ground was hard, so any footprints were few and far between.

Morgan had also asked for a house-to-house to be started on the properties overlooking the river. He knew this murder had been carefully planned, but they still might get lucky if someone had seen a car in or around the area during either the night or early morning.

Photographs of the victim were pinned up in the Incident Room to an uneasy silence from the team. In the past few years, such photographs had been kept in files rather than displayed: it was felt that the investigating detectives were not helped in their work by the emotional impact of constantly seeing death staring down at them. There was also the possibility that a relative or someone being questioned might see them and become distressed; however, Morgan insisted the photographs should be on view. He felt it was necessary for each and every one of his team to understand the gravity of the case. The murder was going to create a media frenzy. Until the killer was arrested, there would be no weekend leave.