S Bolton: Sacrifice

'I'm pretty certain they're strawberry seeds. I couldn't find any actual berries, they're very quickly digested, but I'm pretty sure about the seeds. Which would suggest to me a death in early summer.'

'Strawberries are available all year round,' I said.

'Exactly,' snapped Renney, looking delighted. 'But these seeds are unusually small. Less than a quarter the size of normal strawberry seeds. Which suggests

He was looking at me. I looked back, stupidly, with no idea what he was driving at.

'Wild strawberries,' said Gifford quietly.

'Exactly,' said Renney again. 'Tiny wild strawberries. They can be found all over the islands but have a very short season. Less than four weeks.'

'Late June, early July,' said Gifford.

'Early summer 2005,' I said, thinking I'd misjudged Stephen Renney. He was self-important and irritating but a very clever man nonetheless.

'Or early summer 2006,' said DS Tulloch. 'She could have been in there just a year.'

'Yes, possibly. The key will lie in the tanning process. Matter doesn't tan instantly when it's put in peat; the whole process will take some time. But our subject was completely coloured, meaning the acids had time to seep through the linen and stain the corpse. The time all that takes will be pretty crucial. I intend to get on to it this evening.'

'Thank you,' said Tulloch, sounding as though she meant it.

Wild strawberries. As a last meal I could think of worse. She had eaten wild strawberries and then, a few hours later, someone had cut out her heart. I started to feel sick. Ghoulish curiosity had been satisfied and I wanted to go. Unfortunately, I'd yet to play my part.

'What do you need me for, Dr Renney?' I asked.

'Stephen,' he corrected. 'I need to check something with you. Something in your area.'

'Was she pregnant?' asked Tulloch quickly.

Stephen shook his head. 'No; that I could have spotted for myself. A foetus in the uterus, even a tiny one, is pretty much unmistakable.' He seemed to be waiting for me to speak.

'How big is it?' I said.

'About fifteen centimetres across the diameter.'

I nodded. 'Probably,' I said. 'I'd need to see it to be sure, but maybe…' I turned to Inspector Dunn.

'What?' he said, eyes flicking from me to Stephen Renney.

'Our victim had given birth,' said Renney. 'What I can't tell you, and I'm hoping Miss Hamilton can, is how shortly before death it occurred.'

'The uterus swells during pregnancy,' I explained, 'and then starts to contract again immediately after delivery. It usually takes between one week and three. Generally, the younger and healthier the woman, the quicker it happens. If the swelling is still in evidence, it means she gave birth within a couple of weeks of her death.'

'Are you happy for Miss Hamilton to examine the body?' asked Stephen.

DS Tulloch's eyes shot to her boss. He raised his wrist, checked the time and then glanced at Gifford.

'Is Superintendent Harris coming over to take charge?' asked Gifford.

Andy Dunn frowned and nodded. 'For the next couple of days,' he said.

Of course, I had no idea who Superintendent Harris was, but I assumed some bigwig from the mainland. I guessed, from the speed at which they'd arrived at my house earlier, that DI Dunn and DS Tulloch were local and were shortly to find themselves sidelined. Given the rarity of serious crime on Shetland, that had to be incredibly frustrating for them and one look at Tulloch's face told me I was right. Dunn, I was less sure about. He looked troubled.

'Can't hurt to know,' said Gifford. 'Are you OK to do this, Tora?'

I had never felt less OK in my life.

I nodded. 'Of course. Let's get on with it.'

We gowned and scrubbed up, the five of us, each witnessing that the others had totally followed procedure. We put on gloves, masks and hats and followed Stephen Renney into the examination room. It took about fifteen minutes and I had an absurd sense of urgency; of time running out; of needing to make haste, get it done before the grown-ups arrived and put an end to our games.

She lay on a steel trolley in the centre of a white-tiled room. Her linen shroud had been cut clean away, leaving her naked. She looked like a statue, a beautiful brown statue; almost like a bronze carving that had lost some of its lustre. I found myself wandering up towards her head.

She'd been pretty, I thought, but it was hard to be sure. Her features were small and dainty, close to perfect in their regularity. But beauty is so much more than perfection of feature; the particular mix of colour, light and warmth that gives a face beauty are totally lacking in a corpse.

She had very long hair; so long it trailed over the sides of the trolley. It twisted in long spirals; it was the sort of hair I'd dreamed of having as a child. I started to find it hard to look at her face and moved down the body.

Although I'd attended post-mortems in the past – an essential part of training – I'd never seen a murder victim before. Even if I had, I don't think anything could have prepared me for the damage I was looking at.

On her abdomen Dr Renney had made a Y-shaped incision to enable examination of her internal organs. It had been crudely sewn up; an ugly, disfiguring wound. The damage to her chest area was even more extensive but, in this case, Dr Renney carried no responsibility. There was a deep wound between her breasts, roughly oval in shape and about two inches long, where I guessed the blunt instrument had been inserted. I tried to imagine the force needed to inflict such a blow and was glad Dr Renney had told us what he had about Propofol. A jagged tear stretched vertically from the wound in both directions, reaching close to her neck and down almost to her waist, where the forcing open of the ribcage had torn her skin. I had a sudden vision of hands, red with blood, plunging themselves into her and of large, scarred knuckles tensing white with strain as the rib bones started to crack under the force. I swallowed hard.

When I'd found her, the ribcage hadn't been properly closed. I'd seen something of the damage inflicted inside and the missing organ had been conspicuous by its absence. I was inclined to agree with Renney. A heart removed in such a fashion couldn't have been used again.

The room had fallen silent. I realized everyone was waiting for me.

'It's here,' said Renney, from behind me. He was holding a steel dish. He carried it over to the worktop that ran along three walls of the room and I followed. Tulloch stood to my left, Gifford slightly behind. I could hear his breathing above my right ear. Dunn kept his distance.

Bracing myself, I lifted the uterus. It was heavier and larger than you would expect in a woman of her size. I put it on the scales. Fifty-three grams. Dr Renney offered me a ruler. I measured the length and the breadth at its widest, superior level. An incision had already been made and I opened it. The cavity was large and the muscular layers thicker and more defined than you would find in a woman who had never gone to full-term pregnancy. The whole process took about three minutes. When I was satisfied I turned to Stephen Renney.

'Yes,' I said. 'She gave birth between a week and ten days before death. Difficult to be more precise.'

'Will you have a look at her breasts for me?' he asked, smiling, delighted to have been proved right. I swallowed my irritation. This was his job; naturally he wanted to do it thoroughly.

I walked back to the trolley. Our victim was slim, but now I knew what I was looking for, I could see a few rolls of pregnancy fat around her midriff. The flesh around her abdomen looked slack and her breasts seemed large on a small frame. I went closer and ran my hands around the right one; the left was too badly damaged. The lactiferous ducts were swollen and her nipples were large and had cracked in places.