9

Sarah and Joanne, the crime scene examiner, had put on their face masks, plastic overshoes and double gloves, then pulled up their hoods and pulled the drawstrings tight. It was stifling, hard to move freely, hard to see. Sarah’s mouth and nose were already moist from the mask.

Joanne crouched down and pushed the door open from the bottom.

Inside, it was dark and cramped. Neither Joanne nor Sarah wanted to touch the light switch, so Sarah scanned the hallway with her torch while Joanne laid down footplates. Coats were hung on the wall, a pile of shoes below them. The laminate floor was trampled and smeared with numerous bloody prints. A door immediately to the left: Sarah pushed it open and glanced inside.

A small bathroom with a heated towel rail throwing too much heat into the small, airless space. Blood-soaked clothes lay in a heap on the floor. A bloody towel was in the bath. The sink and taps were smeared with blood, as was the hand towel.

Behind this remained traces of an unremarkable bathroom, tidy and feminine. Pumice stone on the side of the bath. A box of Tampax and bag of sanitary towels in a small wicker basket by the toilet. A dark soapstone oil burner on the side of the bath. Neat rows of nail varnish on the shelf under the mirror.

Sarah stepped back into the hallway. It ended in a frosted-glass door, a smear of blood on the opposite side. Joanne knelt down and pushed the door open.

There was a lot of blood: the sitting room smelled of it, a metallic tang. The woman was lying on her back in a pool that had seeped across the floor and created a shallow lake, its dark surface crinkling as the blood congealed and dried. By her side was an empty Johnny Walker bottle. There was blood splatter on the walls, blood on the glass coffee table, blood on the television screen. Two dining chairs had been overturned. There was a bloody handprint on the sofa, another on the wall near where the victim had fallen.

In the middle of this carnage the table was a strange oasis of calm: on its surface an empty whisky glass, a divided clear plastic tray of coloured rubber bands. There was also a half-eaten children’s yoghurt, a spoon still inside it. By the sofa was a wheeled case with a pull-along handle. It was partially unzipped.

It was hard to know where to start. With so much blood and so much potential evidence, it would be difficult to work here. They could expect to need the scene for days.

Joanne laid down footplates along the shortest route to the side of the corpse.

The victim was clothed. Jeans. T-shirt with short sleeves, wet with blood. Bare feet, painted toenails, a tattoo of a lotus flower on the inside of her left ankle. Her mouth and eyes were open, her eyes staring towards the left corner of the room as though there was something there that had caught her unending attention. She had trauma to her right cheek. Probably just a punch, but an effective one. Her long hair was matted in a bloody clump to her left. Her right arm was across her chest and her hand, drenched in blood, had fallen palm down. It had probably slipped down from her neck where there was a bloody lesion, a slice of flesh that gaped. The whole of her neck and chest was soaked; Sarah guessed at an arterial wound that had squirted blood before the victim had quickly lost consciousness, fallen and died.

She squatted by the body to get a better view. Broken fingernails. Bruising to the inside of the forearm. This woman had put up a fight. On the victim’s left wrist, two loom bands. Sarah would not touch her: it would be best to photograph first and get the pathologist down to make an initial examination at the scene.

‘OK?’ she said, her voice muffled in the mask.

Joanne nodded.

‘Let’s just check the child’s room. Then we’ll go out and have a chat about next steps.’

The curtains were drawn in the bedroom and a purple light seeped through them. The bed had a matching owl duvet and pillowcase. On the wall was a Frozen poster and a framed school certificate: Student of the Month. AMAZING! Keep up the good work. There was a picture of the girl herself, wearing pink sunglasses, a feathered headband and beads, her arm round the shoulders of a similarly dressed girl of the same age. They were both smiling. Underneath was printed in italics, Happy Birthday! Best friends forever. Love you, Irit.

One of the drawers was open. There was no sign of disturbance, just a neat pile of ironed and folded T-shirts. The top one carried the image of a dolphin jumping out of a calm turquoise sea.

The room was perfectly tidy. There was no clue as to where the child had gone.