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name and mobile number of her work partner – Sergeant Hunter Kerr. She knew that Hunter was somewhere up in the Whitby area in a rented cottage with his family.
    I bet someone back in the office has rung him and told him about this and now he’s phoning to check up that I can cope.
    And even though she knew he would be enquiring in that nice, caring and unobtrusive way of his nevertheless it was still checking on her. She needed to do this without someone holding her hand – to prove to herself more than anything that she was capable.
    “Well Sergeant Kerr I am coping very well thank you,” she muttered beneath her breath. “And I don’t need you checking up on me.”
    As she made to disconnect the call she heard a shout from the centre of the lake. She spun around in time to see the police frogman break the surface raising a hand in the air. It looked as though they were about to bring the body up.
    Her phone stopped in mid-tone; Hunter would be transferred across to her voicemail. She switched off her mobile and plunged it back into her jacket pocket telling herself she’d ring him later in the evening - once she had got everything up and running.
     
    * * * * *
     
    Screeching to a halt in the rear car park of the Medico Legal Centre Grace again checked her watch for the umpteenth time that hour. She inwardly cursed; she was running late and she was regretting not having followed the body carrier from the Country Park when she knew she should have done. Instead she’d sat in her car, on her mobile, updating her Detective Inspector – Gerald Scaife, who was setting up the incident room back in the MIT department. She had given him as much information as she could from her scribbled notes, but because the post mortem had yet to be done she found herself unable to answer the majority of the questions he had bombarded her with. It only reinforced her thought that she should have followed the body. To cap it all and cause further delay the DI had then passed her across to DC Isobel Stevens, the HOLMES supervisor, who had begun logging in the information onto the National (Home Office Large Major Enquiry System) network, and she had found herself listening to another round of questions which she had been unable to answer. Fortunately she was of the same rank as Isobel and was able to politely fend her off, promising to get back to her the minute the post mortem had concluded.
    Grace pushed through the rear entrance doors of the Medico Legal Centre, pulling off her elastic scrunchy and running her hands through her thick mane of hair, shaking out her corkscrew curls, whilst hurrying along the corridor to the post mortem suite. Quickly she slipped into her protective body suit and in her haste, as she slotted the white shoe coverings over her flat ballet pumps she stumbled forward shouldering the wall. Beneath her breath she cursed again, rubbing the top of her arm as she barged through the double set of doors, which gave access into the Medico Legal Centre mortuary. Her actions caused the occupants in the cutting room to all snap their heads in her direction.
    “Quite a dramatic entrance – Miss?” Professor Lizzie McCormack, the forensic pathologist said glancing over the thin gold rims of her spectacles.
    Grace felt that the way the pathologist had paused and then added ‘Miss’ was as if she was being chided as a schoolgirl.
    She smiled apologetically. “DC Marshall,” she responded, feeling herself blush. “Grace,” she finished and quickly scanned the faces of Detective Superintendent Michael Robshaw and Scenes of Crime Manager Duncan Wroe who had not surprisingly beaten her there. She could see the disconcerting scowl on the Superintendent’s face.
    That’s it make an arse of yourself Acting Sergeant Marshall.
     “Ah yes, of course – Grace. You have to forgive me I’m terrible with names these days. We met several weeks ago at the old farm near Harlington, a fourteen year old girl badly mutilated,