' Ai Mae, coitadinha. ' O mother, poor little thing.

There were four or five Policia de Seguranza Publica boys ignoring the total contamination of the crime scene and talking to two members of the Policia Maritima. Another two hours and there'd be girls on the beach to chat up and then not even the Policia Maritima would have had a look in. I introduced myself and asked them who'd found the body. They pointed to a fisherman sitting further along the harbour wall. The position of the body above the flattened sand of the highest tide mark told me that the victim hadn't been washed up but dumped, thrown, from just about where I was standing, off the harbour wall. It was a three-metre drop.

The Policia Maritima were satisfied that the body hadn't been washed up but wanted it confirmed from the pathologist that there was no water in the lungs. They gave me authority to start my investigation. I sent the PSP men along the harbour wall to move the onlookers back to the road.

The police photographer made himself known and I told him to take shots from above as well as down on the beach.

The girl's naked body was twisted at the waist, her left shoulder buried in the sand. Her face, with just a single graze on the forehead, was turned upwards, eyes wide open. She was young, her breasts still high and rounded not far below her clavicles. The muscle of her torso was visible below the rib cage and she carried a little puppy fat on her belly. Her hips lay flat, her left leg straight, the right turned out at the knee, its heel close to her buttock and right hand which was thrown behind her. I'd put her at under sixteen and I could see why the fisherman hadn't bothered to go down to look for life. Her face was pale apart from the cut, the lips purple and her intensely blue eyes vacant. There were no footprints around the body. I let the photographer down there to take his close-ups.