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pathologist.’
    â€˜So they say.’ Henry turned as a crime-scene van pulled up nearby. ‘A few photos, then back to the mortuary. How soon can you do the PM?’
    â€˜As soon as you get this woman identified, I’ll put knife to flesh.’

THREE
    A fter the crime-scene photographer had recorded the minimum necessary, plus a few shots of the landscape, the woman’s body was bagged and heaved into the back of the ambulance. The paramedics would take her to the mortuary, even though they were not obliged to do so. They could have been awkward and insisted she be removed by an undertaker, but as usual they were helpful.
    Henry and DI Barlow had a short conversation with the result that Henry said he would follow the ambulance and body, to maintain the chain of evidence just in case it became something more than a drowning. Barlow – much to his facial disgust – was told to go to the police station in Lancaster, get the ‘missing from home’ file and bring it to the mortuary. The details in the file, which included a photograph, would be helpful to confirm the identity of the deceased.
    Behind the ambulance was a little convoy: Henry, Barlow, Baines and two marked police cars. One of the police cars stayed with the ambulance as it turned into the hospital grounds just south of the city, whilst the other, and Barlow, carried on.
    The ambulance reversed up to the mortuary doors, which were opened from the inside by the pre-warned creepy mortuary technician, waiting with a trolley that he manoeuvred expertly up to the ambulance doors. The bagged lady was slid onto it and then reversed into the mortuary, the double doors then closed to keep the outside world at bay from this strange, unsettling, but vital world.
    Once inside, the body bag was reclaimed by the paramedics, who washed it with a hose, then took their leave. Henry, the uniformed PC who’d come along to help and the technician looked at the drowned body.
    â€˜You want me to strip her?’ the technician asked, slightly gleefully, Henry thought, snapping on a pair of medical gloves.
    He nodded and Henry watched as the soaked clothing was removed. He supervised the recording and bagging of each item by the constable. The outer jacket, jeans, blouse, underwear and the single polka-dotted cut-off Wellington boot. Henry visualized the missing one to be somewhere out in the Lune estuary, maybe getting washed up further down the coast at some stage. He doubted it would ever be recovered and if it was it would probably be left where it was found. Just another item of flotsam and jetsam, of no significance whatsoever.
    Once naked, all that remained was the woman’s jewellery. The rings on her fingers were carefully screwed off by Henry and handed to the constable, who bagged each one separately. There were four, each distinctive and expensive-looking, including the wedding ring. She also wore a gold necklace with a pendant, and bracelets on each wrist. They were described, as is usual police procedure, as ‘yellow metal’ – just in case they weren’t actually gold.
    Henry inspected each item in the clear plastic bags, held up the wedding ring and peered closely to see if it was inscribed. He saw ‘
To J
’ next to a tiny love heart etched inside the ring.
    â€˜Jennifer,’ he thought.
    Another ring also had an inscription. This looked like an eternity ring with ‘
J
’ and ‘
H
’ inscribed and intertwined by another heart.
    â€˜Jennifer and Harry,’ he thought, a great detective’s mind at work, piecing all the clues together.
    There were no markings on any of the other pieces of jewellery, so he turned his attention to the body, looking but not touching. He peered closely at the crown of her skull and saw a deep cut which formed a parting in her hair, the injury Professor Baines had already noted. Henry raised his eyes and saw her body was not showing any signs of other