God, but he was tired. He settled back in his chair and cat-napped, awaking at exactly five minutes to ten feeling curiously refreshed, but when he went downstairs and crossed the square to the county court building, it wasn’t the Macek case he was thinking about.

The City Mortuary was at the back of the Medical School, a large, ugly building in Victorian Gothic with stained glass windows by the entrance. Inside, it was dark and cool with green tiled walls and a strange aseptic smell that was vaguely unpleasant.

Jack Palmer, the Senior Technician, was sitting at his desk in the small glass office at the end of the corridor. He turned and grinned as Miller paused in the doorway.

“Don’t tell me — let me guess.”

“Anything for me?” Miller asked.

“Old Murray’s handled it himself. Hasn’t had time to make out his report yet, but he’ll be able to tell you what you need to know. He’s cleaning up now.”

Miller peered through the glass wall into the white tiled hall outside the theatre and saw the tall, spare form of the University Professor of Pathology emerge from the theatre, the front of his white gown stained with blood.

“Can I go in?”

Palmer nodded. “Help yourself.”

Professor Murray had removed his gown and was standing at the sluice, washing his hands and arms, when Miller entered. He smiled, speaking with the faint Scots accent of his youth that he had never been able to lose.

“Hardly the time of year to go swimming, especially in that open sewer we call a river. I trust you’ve been given suitable injections?”

“If I start feeling ill I’ll call no one but you,” Miller said, “that’s a promise.”

Murray reached for a towel and started to dry his arms. “They tell me you don’t know who the girl is?”