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they’ve been having trouble separating it from the paint to get an idea of its origins. They seem to think the chemicals in the paint would destroy most trace evidence anyway.’ Monty replied. ‘They spent hours removing the paint and found nothing. They think he shaved himself too, or else...’ he tapped a tattoo on the tabletop with his pen, flicking his tongue against his lower lip as he re-read the lab notes in front of him.
    Wayne said, ‘C’mon Mont, spill it. The suspense is killing us.’
    ‘Minute traces of neoprene were found under the victim’s fingernails.’ Monty read the pertinent part of the lab report aloud to his team.
    ‘Neoprene?’ Barry queried.
    Monty shifted his gaze to Stevie. She’d have the answer to that.
    ‘Neoprene as in wetsuit material?’ she asked him.
    Monty dashed her a smile.
    ‘So, if he’d covered her in paint while in a wetsuit, he’d be doubly certain not to leave any part of himself behind. He could have been wearing one of those diver’s hoods too,’ she added.
    ‘And I thought we were going to be looking for a hairless man.’ Barry sounded disappointed.
    ‘An old wetty splattered with bronze paint would be a lot more incriminating than a hairless body,’ Angus said.
    Nods all round as this was digested.
    Stevie said, ‘She was supposed to be drugged, but the evidence of neoprene under her fingernails would suggest a struggle.’
    Monty shrugged. ‘Maybe she woke up in the middle of the painting?’
    Something inside her tightened again. Keep your distance from the victim, she said to herself, don’t personalise this.
    ‘There’s something else, and it’s a lot more concrete than the wetsuit possibility,’ Monty continued. ‘A single grey hair was found on her left buttock.’
    Murmurs of excitement rippled through the group gathered around.
    ‘Was there a clean skin tag? Has it been matched?’ Stevie asked.
    ‘Yes, but the lab hasn’t finished running through the DNA comparisons. There’s nothing in the standard database so I’ve asked them to widen the search. I’m expecting a call any minute now.’
    ‘All that painting must have caused one hell of a mess. It must have been done in a very secluded spot, a garage, warehouse...’ Stevie turned to Wayne. ‘What about the photographer’s place?’
    ‘I supervised the search myself. Nothing.’
    ‘Or,’ Angus said, ‘one of those self-lock storage sheds perhaps.’ He sighed and rubbed his thin face. ‘We’d get a lot further ahead with this if we could find the location.’
    Monty gestured to Wayne. ‘Well, maybe Wayne’s hobby shop employee will point us in the right direction.’ He returned to his notes. ‘The lab guy said she was covered in three coats of paint, and around the throat area there were four. Her actual cause of death was strangulation. They reckon the hand pressure on the throat might have smudged the drying paint so he applied another coat to tidy the area up.’
    Barry said, ‘But he must have left something else of himself behind other than that single hair. When he shifted her he wouldn’t have been wearing the wetsuit, surely.’
    Angus shrugged. ‘Maybe he was? It was dark. A dark wetsuit would be good camouflage.’
    Everyone was thinking about this when Angus added, ‘I’ve got something on the slogan, too.’ He was referring to the words ‘Easeful Death’ printed down the victim’s right thigh, a detail they’d been able to keep from the press. It gave them leverage should someone confess, or a comparison should they have a copycat.
    ‘I think it’s an allusion to Keats, part of a line from his poem, “Ode to a Nightingale”. I mean it’s not the kind of phrase that gets tossed around on a regular basis; I reckon it has to be from that poem. The whole line reads, Half in love with easeful Death . I should have twigged it straightaway. Keats is one of my favourite poets.’
    Barry slapped his head with his hand. ‘Damn. I must have slept through