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stabbed more than twenty times it’s something personal. She knew the guy who did it.’
    â€˜So you’re telling me that if you come across a corpse who’s been stabbed nineteen times you’ll automatically rule out the wife or the husband?’ Megan stared at him. ‘Come on, Steve, you know that’s complete crap.’
    â€˜Oh, so you’re saying the entire Behavioural Science division at Quantico are talking through their arses, are you?’ His face had gone very pink.
    â€˜No, Steve, that’s not what I’m saying at all,’ Megan sighed. ‘What I’m saying is that it’s not very helpful to tout some finite number of stab wounds when you’re trying to work out who’s responsible for a murder. I agree with you about the overkill thing, actually.’
    He looked at her, a confused expression on his face.
    â€˜I think this attack was personal. But the level of forensic awareness makes me doubt that it was a straightforward crime of passion. To leave no trace of himself after such a frenzied attack would have required a lot of planning, which suggests Tessa didn’t know him but he knew her.
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    â€˜I think there’s a good chance that the killer knew the victim without her even realising it.’ She turned to the photographs again, selecting one of the establishing shots of Tessa Ledbury’s house. ‘You said there was no sign of a break-in,’ she said, ‘and it happened sometime after she’d dropped her kids off at school. In the morning. In broad daylight. I presume no one was seen calling at the house?’
    He shook his head. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘on what you’ve given me so far, I’d say this could be the work of an experienced burglar and sex attacker who’s progressed to murder. Someone who chooses a victim, maybe stalks her for a while, and gets into the house when he’s sure she’s alone. Like I said, he knows her but she doesn’t necessarily know him.’
    â€˜Right,’ Foy said, nodding slowly. ‘She represents someone he wants to kill but can’t for some reason. And he hates this woman so much he stabs her again and again; completely loses control…’ He looked at her. ‘I want you to come and brief the team.’
    Megan smiled, glad to see his face had returned to its normal colour. ‘Okay, but first I need to know more about Tessa Ledbury. What was she like?’
    Foy opened his briefcase. He unzipped a pocket in the lid and pulled out another photograph, handing it to Megan. It showed a smiling woman in a garden, standing with her arm around the shoulder of a girl who looked about seven years old. The child had the same blonde curly hair as her mother.
    â€˜She was thirty-six,’ Foy began, ‘Five foot five, weighed nine and a half stone…’
    â€˜No, Steve,’ Megan cut in, ‘I mean what was she really like? As a person?’
    â€˜Well, she was a housewife with three kids,’ he faltered. ‘Not a lot else really. Oh yeah, she was a Sunday School teacher at St. Paul’s church in Pendleton.’
    â€˜And that’s all you know?’
    â€˜Well, that’s basically it, yes,’ Foy said defensively. ‘We’ve spoken to neighbours, friends at the church, other mothers from the school her kids went to. It was the same story from all of them. Devoted wife, mother, church member…’
    â€˜You said on the phone there was no hint of any affair, but are you sure there’s no one who might have had a grudge against her? I mean, we’ve both been making the assumption that the killer’s a man, but it could just have easily have been a woman.
    Foy took the photograph from her outstretched hand and stared at it. ‘A jealous wife, you mean?’
    â€˜Possibly.’ Megan’s eyes narrowed. ‘For all we know, she could’ve been a closet