outward with considerable pressure and telling her that the cuts had been made pre-mortem.
Kate turned to Delaney who was standing beside her and, thankfully, holding his counsel for once. 'Whoever did it, I'd guess, used a large, relatively sharp blade, wielded with great force. He was full of rage, out of control I'd say. There are no defence wounds on her hands or arms so I would surmise the woman may have known her attacker.'
'Was she killed here?'
Kate nodded. 'Going by the arterial spray on the ground and undergrowth around her.'
She looked down at the young woman's body again. Was she right? Had she known the man who had done this to her? Or was it a random attack? Kate's gaze ran across the woman's mutilated body, past the slashes on her neck and down to her lower abdomen where a jagged cut ran across it. As if the man had held the knife down in a grip and had sawed through, like a huntsman gutting a deer. That could have been her, she realised, last night. Drugged, raped, she could have been mutilated too and dumped in the woods. Suddenly, the pinpricks in her eyes started in earnest and she could no longer hold back the tears. She felt her stomach lurch and knew she had to get out of there. She turned, pushed past Delaney, and ran through the opening of the tent. Ducking under the tape cordon she staggered into a wooded area away from the shocked looks of the police, fell to her knees and threw up. She bent her head low, holding her long dark hair away from her face, and threw up again. She put one hand on the wet ground to balance herself, weak with despair, and retched again painfully. She gulped in some ragged breaths of air, her throat cramping, and ran her hand over her forehead, now damp with perspiration. Her voice was a rough whisper as she swore through her panted breath.
It wasn't the Hippocratic oath.
Back in the scene-of-crime tent Delaney turned to Sally Cartwright. She had offered to go after the doctor but had been told her to stay where she was. 'I guess a lot of people ate something dodgy this morning,' Delaney had said.
Sally looked down at the dead goth's mutilated body and felt queasy herself. 'I can't say I blame her.'
But Delaney was puzzled. Kate Walker was a consummate professional, had seen more dead bodies than even he had. Something was clearly up with her and he couldn't help wondering if it had something to do with the confrontation he had witnessed in the car park of the South Hampstead Hospital just a short while ago.
Kate Walker stood up. She took the bottle of Evian water she always kept in her handbag and took a swallow, rinsing the water around her mouth a few times and then spitting it out. She did it once more and then took a long swallow of the cold water. She poured a little more on a handkerchief and wiped her brow and lips and took a couple of deep breaths, willing her heart to slow down. She placed a hand against the damp bark of a tree and forced herself to breathe evenly.
Since an early age ambition had been Kate Walker's middle name. At school she had come top of her year seven years running. Unlike many of her peers she hadn't been distracted by boys or music or become fanatical about sports, she wasn't obsessive about ponies and didn't have a crush on her French teacher, she didn't spend hours shopping for outfits, had no fascination with shoes or handbags or jewellery or make-up, she didn't take an interest in anything, in fact, that wasn't going to further her academic career. As a young girl in prep school she hadn't been like that, she was a bit of a tomboy. She was as interested in climbing trees or playing cricket as any of her boy cousins. Her favourite novel was Arthur Ransome's
