Page 11 of First Blood

She made to step forward when the man blocked her path.

‘Not without these you don’t,’ he said, holding out shoe coverings. He looked behind her and reached for more.

All three of them donned the footwear to avoid contamination.

‘Happy now?’ she asked, offering the pathologist a stern look.

‘Satisfied would be more appropriate,’ he said, leading the way.

The sea of white tech suits parted.

‘Bloody hell,’ she said.

‘Oh my God,’ Bryant offered.

And Stacey Wood simply gasped out loud.

‘Yes, quite,’ Keats added. ‘Although not the worst attempt I’ve seen in recent years.’

Kim looked down at the naked body of a man in his late-twenties. His skinny frame was milky white from head to toe. His legs were open wide and staked to the ground at the ankles by oversize nails. His arms were stretched wide from his hairless chest and staked into the ground at the wrists.

She counted fifteen stab wounds around the body, not deep enough to cause severe blood loss but enough to inflict pain.

She suspected those wounds had been a warm up for the main event; a bloody mess of flesh and skin at his centre where his genitals had once been.

She stared at the wound for just a minute, feeling the rage that must have been present to inflict such a vicious attack not only on the genitals but all over the body.

What did you do to deserve this, matey? she thought to herself.

‘Mugging gone wrong?’ Bryant asked, drily.

‘Well, there’s no wallet,’ Keats retorted, with a half-smile.

She hadn’t received a half-smile. What did Bryant have that she did not? The question didn’t stay in her mind for long because she didn’t much care.

‘In fact, there’s nothing left except the body,’ Keats continued. ‘No phone, no money, no clothes. Nothing.’

Kim paused for a moment, working through the possibilities of the pathologist’s words.

She knew that some killers would take an item from a crime scene as a keepsake. Something onto which they imprinted the memory of the event to relive it over and over. That was more common with sexually motivated killings and the killer normally took one item, not the whole lot.

The killer might also have been concerned that they’d left DNA or trace evidence on the clothing or items, but she’d never seen a victim stripped of every single item.

The word stripped stayed in her mind. Stripped of everything: clothing, belongings, possessions, pride, life.

She continued her walk around the body taking in every limb position, every detail to keep the scene fresh in her mind until the photographs came through.

She noted the swallow tattoo on his left arm. She noted the dirt caking his fingernails telling her that death had not come quickly, despite the fact his throat had been cut.

And not very tidily either. She frowned at the marks on the flesh from the tip of the blade. And then peered down at the wound more closely.

Keats was watching her intently: Bryant was following her around the body and Stacey still had one hand covering her mouth. She was learning more about her new team with every passing minute.

‘Stacey, go back to the car and point Dawson in the right direction when he finally gets here.’

The detective constable nodded gratefully and left the area.

Even Kim had to admit that this was one hell of a gruesome scene to view on your first day in the job.