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with a sudden stoppage of the blood supply.'
    He paused again.
    'There were other injuries, of course. Four broken ribs, all left side, ruptured left eardrum, left zygotic bone fractured - all indicative of a severe beating by a right-handed attacker, pounding on her face and body repeatedly with his fist. However, none of these would have contributed to death. They were either gratuitous, or they were an attempt to subdue the victim, prior to the sexual assaults.
    'I'd say they were simply sadistic, actually, because the first thing the man did was to tie up the victim. There's a big bruise to the smal 27
    of her back, consistent with the attacker having thrown her to the ground, knelt on her, real y hard, as he bound her wrists securely with the electrical cord your people say was used.'
    'How about the blood on her fingernails, Joe?' Skinner asked. 'Will we get any joy there?'
    'Hah,' said the Professor. 'My first piece of bad news, I'm afraid.
    The lab wil have to confirm this, but I surmise that those samples were from the victim herself. There are marks on her back, near those made by the electrical plug, which conform to her nails having been crushed into her own tissue.'
    'Damn it!' said the policeman. 'Still, there'll be other traces.'
    There was a long silence. 'That is the real y bad news, my friend.
    There aren't.'
    'Eh? But what about the sexual injuries? Surely to Christ he . . .'
    The little pathologist shrugged his shoulders. 'It's frustrating, I know.
    'The woman was sexually attacked, by a fairly large man, and repeated penetration took place. She was sodomised first, I'd say, very painful y. Much, but not al of the blood came from the rupturing of vessels around the anus, the rest from tearing around the vagina.
    The muscles in these areas were all cramped and constricted, indicating that the victim resisted throughout every attack, even at the cost of added suffering, and even if ultimately unsuccessful y.
    'Yet there are no traces of semen,' The little pathologist looked up and across at Skinner. 'That's the trouble with the information superhighway, I'm afraid. Bob. There's far too much information about. Even the stupidest criminals know about DNA tracing, and can work out some fairly obvious ways of avoiding it.
    'This one probably used a condom.'
    Skinner slapped the wal behind him, in sudden fury, causing both Pam Masters and Sammy Pye to start in surprise. 'Bastard,' he shouted, ripping off his mask. 'The cold-blooded bastard. You sure, Joe? Not a single smear?'
    Hutchison shook his head. 'Sorry chum. I understand your anger, but there it is. When you catch the guy, you may find that he has sexual injuries. This was a sadistic attack, extremely vicious, and the perpetrator is likely to show the effects upon his, er, person, for some time.
    'Even then, of course, it would be virtually impossible to link such injuries to this attack.'
    'Sshitt 'hissed the DCC.

    'Is there nothing at all you can do?' Detective Constable Pye asked the Professor, breaking, if not clearing, the tension in the room.
    It was Skinner who answered him, suddenly and forceful y. 'Yes,'
    he said, 'there is. And you're going to do it, Joe, aren't you?'
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    The pathologist sighed. 'Yes. You know we are. We will search the victim's body minutely, Constable, looking for just one hair that doesn't belong to her. We wil go though the areas in which it could be lodged with, literally, a fine-tooth comb, and we wil examine everything that isn't actually rooted.
    'That will be a lot, but there is the real possibility that we will not find a single hair out of place, to be literal about it.' He paused, to look up at Skinner.
    'Mind you, this is knock for knock, Bob. You'l have to send Dorward's team back to the murder scene to do exactly the same thing, to collect every loose hair for testing. Then you'll have to eliminate her son, her housekeeper, her late husband, of whom traces wil undoubtedly remain in the room, and any casual callers