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a matter-of-fact way.
    ‘You don’t need to state the bloody obvious,’ Dylan snapped. Seeing the youngster on the slab had turned his stomach, but watching Dawn’s eyes fill with tears he was sorry for his outburst.
    Jasmine busily took photographs, Vicky collated exhibits that were handed to her by Judith, and John assisted.
    The officers watched and listened intently. The body was unwrapped and the plastic sheeting used to cover her was carefully peeled away. She’d been placed on the table face down, just as she had been found. Her fragile, tiny frame hardly filled a third of the slab. For some reason it felt chilly in the mortuary. Dylan shivered; it was cold and eerie. He recalled how Wendy had described Daisy’s excitement and joy as she’d left home to visit her grandma.
    The only voice was Judith’s calm expressionless commentary. ‘Not sexually assaulted,’ she stated into her Dictaphone. ‘No signs of any penetration,’ she said as she took vaginal and rectal swabs. ‘Two circular burn marks, one to each buttock, which look to me like a cigarette burn. Let’s remove this awful carrier bag before we do anything else,’she said pulling the bag off the head and handing it to Vicky. As she did so a mass of red haircascaded onto the slab. Dylan heard an intake of breath, but from whom he couldn’t tell. At the rear of the head near the top there was a large indentation filled with blood. A closer look made possible by Judith moving the hair showed that her skull had been smashed.
    ‘She’s taken a fierce blow,’ she remarked. Jasmine photographed as Judith measured the wound.
    ‘Two inches in diameter.’ She held her breath as she stretched to hold the ruler to the wound. Dylan considered what weapons could have caused the trauma while the little girl was turned over by Les and Judith. Daisy was easily recognisable now from her picture. Her eyes were wide open, staring, piercing, her red hair spread across her upper torso.
    ‘What beautiful hair,’ Judith remarked as she gathered it in gloved hands to cut samples. She looked closely at red marks visible where Daisy’s eyebrows had once been.
    ‘Fucking hell,’ whispered Dawn.
    ‘Someone has attempted to shave them off,’ remarked Judith, looking up from the body to Dylan. There were no other obvious injuries to the body, but the usual samples of blood; nail clippings and scrapings were taken, tenderly. Her internal organs were checked and weighed. Dylan noticed that the mortuary had lost the smell that it had had when they entered and he wondered why. The emotion in the room was tangible as Judith closed Daisy’s eyes. Her hair and body was washed and she looked peaceful. The little cherub was at rest, as if asleep. But this child would never wake. Dylan’s emotion changed to anger. He badly wanted the bastard that could do this.
    ‘Right, let’s have a hot drink. I think we all need it,’ said Judith.
    Dylan knew her well enough to know that the sight of this little girl on the mortuary table had touched her.
     
    Out of their protective clothing and back in the office, Professor Judith Cockroft completed her notes. As she sipped steaming black coffee, she remarked how unusual the case was. ‘The blow to the head was a massive one and in my professional opinion would have caused death instantly.’
    Thank god for small mercies , Dylan thought.
    ‘A round, heavy object with a diameter of two inches was used. Daisy’s left little fingertip has been severed cleanly and her eyebrows have been roughly shaved with a razor or perhaps a craft knife,’ she continued. ‘Two marks to her buttocks are indeed burn marks, probably caused by a cigarette after she died,’ she concluded. Although Judith spoke to everyone in the room, her comments were addressed to Dylan. As Senior Investigating Officer, he would have assistance from a number of experts throughout the enquiry, but it was his personal responsibility to find the killer.
    ‘I must go.