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hand. ‘She’s just inside,
commissaire
. The other side of the door.’ And he handed her a pair of latex gloves and a couple of plastic shoe covers.
    The police photographer had erected lights in the hall, and the body was thrown into sharp relief. Forensics officers in white tyvek suits moved aside to let the
commissaire
through. She looked down at the dead woman. Her skin seemed pale and waxy, all animation long gone from a once pretty face. Her head lay at a peculiar angle, her blouse ripped open and bra torn away to reveal her breasts. There was deep purple bruising down one side of her face.
    ‘A sexual attack?’
    Inspecteur Truquet raised an uncertain eyebrow. ‘You might think so at first glance,
commissaire
. But she was still wearing her panties, and the
médecin légiste
says she hasn’t been interfered with…you know, down there.’ He was uncomfortable at having to discuss a woman’s private parts with his female boss. ‘And the place has been turned over. It’s possible he was looking for something.’
    ‘He?’ Commissaire Taillard disliked sexual stereotypes of either variety.
    ‘Whoever hit her took her down with a single blow, then broke her neck. A quick, clean break. A real pro job, the pathologist says. I think it might be fair to assume it was a man.’
    ‘So why did he rip open her blouse?’
    Truquet shrugged and shook his head.
    The
commissaire
looked along the hall towards the mess in the
séjour
. ‘Did he take anything?’
    ‘Impossible to say. She lived alone, so it’s going to be difficult trying to establish if there’s anything missing. He really trashed the place, though. Like maybe he was getting something out of his system.’
    ‘A grudge killing?’
    ‘Possible.’
    ‘How about time of death?’
    ‘Just before eleven-thirty this morning.’
    She turned a look of surprise towards her investigating
inspecteur
. ‘How can you know so precisely?’
    He started towards the kitchen and indicated that she should follow. They picked their way carefully through the debris on the floor, and the stink of ripening goat’s cheese, and he showed her the broken clock on the oven.
    ‘Eleven twenty-nine. Assuming he broke it when he was trashing the kitchen, and that he’d already killed her, that would put time of death sometime shortly before then. Just over three hours ago, and rigor mortis is only just beginning to set in. So it all fits.’
    ‘How convenient.’ She looked around the kitchen. It was in the American style, with wall cupboards and worktops and a central island. ‘Who discovered her?’
    ‘The postman. He had a
colis
for her and needed a signature. The door wasn’t properly shut, and when he pushed it open…’
    ‘So who is she, or rather, who was she?’
    ‘Audeline Pommereau. Forty-six. Divorced. Mother of two. Kids are grown up. She worked afternoons at La Poste in the Rue du Président Wilson.’
    She detected his hesitation. ‘What?’
    He lifted Audeline Pommereau’s purse from the worktop and took out a dog-eared business card from one of its inside pockets. He handed it to his boss. ‘We found this.’ And he watched for her reaction.
    Commissaire Taillard held it carefully between latexed fingers and felt her professional detachment suddenly depart. But her face remained expressionless, concealing the confusion behind it. She was holding the business card of Enzo Macleod, Professor of Biology, Paul Sabatier University, Toulouse. She turned it over and saw, in a familiar scrawl, his home telephone number and the words
Call me
. She heard herself saying, ‘So she knew Enzo Macleod. That doesn’t mean anything.’ But the colour was rising now on her cheeks, betraying a history of failed emotional involvement that seemed somehow to be common knowledge among her junior officers.
    ‘That’s not all,
commissaire
.’
    She followed Truquet through the hall to the
séjour
. The officers of the
police scientifique
had returned to the task of