Free Silent Scream by Lynda La Plante Page A

the sheeting to show puncture marks between the toes.
    ‘The blood and urine tests will give more detail but I would say she had been using heroin, not recently though, perhaps a month or so before she was killed. The injection site seems old due to yellowish bruising around it. I’ve recommended testing her hair for a clearer history of drug abuse. She had recently snorted cocaine, as there was a residue of powder still in her right nostril and crustation around both nostrils. Again, I will have confirmation from the toxicology report, but along with the hair sample it’s going to take at least ninety days for the results. Now we get to her arms.’
    De Silva lifted the sheet and held out Amanda’s right arm. She showed numerous self-inflicted small scars running up the inside of her forearm. It was the same picture on her left arm. They had no skin or blood from beneath her fingernails, and all her false nails were intact. One had been removed to show that the nails beneath were bitten down to the quick. The false nails were short and unvarnished, but very good quality.
    De Silva estimated that Amanda had been dead for at least twelve hours because the body had been discovered in the afternoon and rigor mortis had set in.
    Lastly, she lifted the sheet away from Amanda’s face. She was, even in death, beautiful, with high cheekbones, a small pert nose and eyes set wide apart. De Silva directed them to look at a bruise above her right ear. She was preparing brain tests, as Amanda could possibly have been unconscious when the knife wounds were inflicted, which would explain why there were no defence marks.
    De Silva covered the body and gave directions to a lab assistant to wheel out the gurney to the freezer section.
    ‘That’s it,’ she said, as she took off her rubber gloves. ‘It’s a wretched case and astonishing to think that this poor child was the envy of so many teenagers. The reality is, she was a shell of a woman, yet still managed to maintain her ethereal beauty. I doubt if she would have been able to retain her looks for much longer without medical assistance, as she was dehydrated and even her teeth were becoming loose.’
    Anna and Simon thanked her and headed over to the forensic department. Neither said anything, but both had been affected by De Silva’s report. By the time they got to the forensic section, it was almost four-thirty.
    Anna entered behind Simon and paused as she caught sight of Pete Jenkins, the forensic scientist she had met when she had worked on the Fitzpatrick case, seated at a bench with a microscope. He looked up and smiled at Anna.
    ‘Hi there, how are you?’
    ‘I’m fine, thank you. This is DI Simon Dunn who’s working with me on the Delany case.’
    Pete shook Simon’s hand and then eased off his stool. ‘We don’t have much for you, I’m afraid.’
    He headed towards a long trestle table covered in brown paper. There lay a silk nightdress in pale oyster pink. Yellow marker pen circles showed the knife entry wounds; it was heavily stained.
    ‘She was wearing this, nothing else.’
    Pete gestured to the sheets and pillowcases. They had found no other hair samples, only Amanda’s, but from the sheets they had raised different DNA profiles from two semen stains. Neither could be traced on the National Database. Pete had numerous bath towels and face cloths and a section of carpet brought from Amanda’s house, but all the bloodstains belonged to her.
    ‘We can bring in more garments from her wardrobe but I can’t see that it will help. From her laundry bag, we’ve taken two more pillowcases smeared with make-up, but no other DNA or unknown source fibres. We have some of her underwear which is being tested for DNA to match with the sheets.’
    Pete glanced at Anna. She had made notes, interested in the results of the vaginal, anal and mouth swabs checking for semen due to signs of sexual assault on the body.
    ‘Our movie star put it about a bit and we found this