Only when Mitch and his colleagues had erected the tent did Kim give the instruction for the coats to be removed.

‘Quick thinking,’ Mitch said, coming to stand beside her. ‘Thanks for that.’

Kim acknowledged his words while trying to keep the agony emanating from her leg showing on her face.

She always hoped to land Mitch as the crime scene manager. His speed and accuracy in prioritising and coordinating a crime scene in consultation with herself as the investigating officer was something she’d never had to question. And in turn she ensured she followed the ISP rules as soon as she arrived. Identify, Secure and Protect.

Add in the role of the pathologist, normally Keats, it was up to the three of them to determine the six Ws: Who is the victim? What happened? Where did it happen? When did it happen? Why did it happen, and hoW did it happen?

‘Your best mate’s here,’ Mitch said, nodding towards Keats who was passing by the squad cars.

The pathologist approached looking from her to Bryant. He began singing the song ‘Reunited’.

‘Good to see you too, Keats,’ she offered.

He regarded her for a moment. ‘Is that grimace you’re trying to hide due to my arrival or your recent injury, Inspector?’ he asked.

‘Well, both are a bit of a pain in my—’

‘Keats, good to see you,’ Bryant said, stepping in and offering his hand.

‘Who do we have here?’ Keats asked, taking a step forward, underneath the tent. ‘That was a question to you, Inspector, as I’m reasonably sure you would not have resisted the temptation to have a look in my absence.’

Yep, he knew her well.

‘Doctor Gordon Cordell, gynaecologist to the stars.’

‘Really?

‘Not so much the stars but definitely the affluent,’ she said.

‘The name seems familiar,’ he observed, taking the driving licence from her outstretched hand.

He glanced at the photo and shook his head. ‘Can’t place him.’

‘In the papers, a few weeks ago. In connection with the Heathcrest investigation,’ she offered.

A wave of sadness washed over his face. ‘Yes, how could any of us forget that one?’ he asked of no one in particular.

Keats had been the one to attend Heathcrest and pick up the pieces, literally, of a man he had come to know as a colleague. And although she had been forced away from the scene prior to Keats’s arrival, she knew that however deeply affected he’d been by the sight of Dawson lying broken on the ground, he would have swallowed it down and done his job.

‘Didn’t you suspect him of carrying out illegal abortions?’ Keats asked, bringing her back to the present.

Indeed.

And Kim had been appalled that the team had been unable to bring any charges against him. The scandal that had stained the Winters family was deep enough and neither Saffron nor her father had been prepared to make him pay. But he’d paid for something now.

‘Okay, let me at him,’ Keats said, lowering himself to the ground.

At the first sight of the rectal probe, Kim stepped away.

Bryant followed.

‘You don’t think this is connected to the Heathcrest investigation, do you?’ he asked.

Kim shrugged as she took out her phone.

Stacey answered on the second ring.

‘Stace, our victim is Doctor Gordon Cordell.’

‘From Heathcrest?’ she asked with a brittle edge to her tone, as though even saying the name of the place was like speaking around shards of glass in her mouth.

‘The very same,’ Kim answered. ‘Do some digging, Stace. See what he’s been up to since we last saw him.’

‘Will do, boss.’

Kim ended the call, her mind already working overtime. Were the Spades, a secret society at Heathcrest, involved in his demise? Had he operated on the wrong girl? Had he spoken out of turn or did he know something about someone? Jeez, the list was endless.

‘We’re ready to turn him, Inspector,’ Keats called to her over his shoulder.

Due to the victim’s size, Mitch and two of his colleagues had gathered to help.

Gently they turned him onto his side and then onto his back with a cloth laid to catch any evidence from the wound to the back of his head.

‘Bloody hell,’ Kim said, her eyes widening at the sight before her.

‘Literally,’ Bryant added.

A line had been sliced across his throat from ear to ear. The bottom skin hung down like an open mouth. The blood had escaped the wound and saturated the loose skin, travelling down his chest and colouring his clothes scarlet.

Crime scenes very rarely, in her experience, mirrored horror films but this was the exception.

As Keats had turned him the ground beneath had been revealed. A red river glistened up at them.

‘From behind?’ Kim asked the pathologist.

Keats nodded. ‘I’d guess, at this point, that the victim was kneeling, his head was pulled back to expose the neck and then…’

Keats made the sign across his neck.

‘I’m pretty sure I can deduce cause of death myself,’ Kim admitted. ‘But a time would be—’

‘No more than two hours,’ Keats answered.

Somewhere around six o clock, she noted.

She narrowed her gaze.

‘What is it, guv?’ Bryant asked, reading her expression.

‘How did they do it?’ she asked.

‘With a pretty sharp knife,’ he answered.

She ignored him as she looked around.

‘I don’t see any cars around, so how did our killer get him to this spot without a fight?’ She pointed to the ground. ‘No drag marks in the grass. He’s a big man, I’d guess around twenty stone. He would have taken some forcing.’

‘There’s that wound to the back of the head,’ Bryant observed. ‘He could have been knocked out or even semi-conscious.’

She shook her head. ‘He’d have been just as difficult to move as a dead weight.’

‘More than one killer?’ he asked.

‘Maybe,’ she answered. But he would have still taken some moving.

‘Told to meet someone here. Knew his killer?’

‘And just got into the position on his knees and calmly waited to be murdered?’ she asked.

Bryant shrugged. ‘You think this means something?’

‘Dunno, Bryant,’ she admitted and then turned to Keats. ‘Can you look more closely for any defensive wounds when you get him back?’ she asked.

He raised one eyebrow. ‘Of course I needed you to ask me to do that, Inspector, as I haven’t already been doing this for twenty-three years. One has to wonder how I’ve managed in your absence.’

Her brief smile accepted his rebuke while she quietly enjoyed his annoying consistency despite recent events.

‘I think your time off has addled your brain,’ he observed, turning away.

She didn’t disagree.

‘But I do have something interesting to show you,’ he said, pointing to a spot on Cordell’s jacket.

‘Is that a boot mark?’ she asked.

‘It is, and we already have a dozen photos of it but look more closely.’

She did and saw what he was referring to.

‘Stab wounds?’

Keats nodded. ‘And so far, I’ve counted twenty-seven. All inflicted after death.’

Why so many times once the man was already dead?

‘Well, Inspector, I’m guessing your killer knew his victim and really didn’t like him.’

Kim agreed and knowing what she did about Gordon Cordell, she had the feeling that information was not going to help her narrow it down one little bit.