The Winner Stands Alone. Paulo Coelho

       1.19 p.m.

      Lying on a stainless-steel table between Inspector Savoy and the pathologist is a beautiful young woman of about twenty, completely naked. And dead.

      ‘Are you sure?’

      The pathologist goes over to a stainless-steel sink, removes his rubber gloves, throws them in the bin and turns on the tap.

      ‘Absolutely. There's no trace of drugs.’

      ‘What happened then? Could a young woman like her have had a heart attack?’

      The only noise in the room is that of running water. The pathologist thinks:

      ‘They always come up with the obvious: drugs, a heart attack…’

      He takes longer than necessary to wash his hands - a little suspense never goes amiss. He applies disinfectant to his arms and throws away the disposable material used in the autopsy. Then he turns round and asks the inspector to study the body.

      ‘No, really, take a good look. Don't be embarrassed. Noticing details is part of your job, isn't it?’

      Savoy carefully examines the body. At one point, he reaches out to lift one of the girl's arms, but the pathologist stops him.

      ‘No need to touch.’

      Savoy runs his eyes over the girl's naked body. He knows quite a lot about her now - Olivia Martins, the daughter of Portuguese parents, currently going out with a young man of no fixed profession, who is heavily into Cannes nightlife and is, at that moment, being interrogated at a police station some way away. A judge issued a search warrant for his apartment and they found some small flasks of THC (tetrahydrocannabinol, the main hallucinogenic element in marijuana, and which can be taken dissolved in sesame oil, which leaves no smell and has a far stronger effect than when the substance is absorbed through smoke). They also found six envelopes each containing a gram of cocaine, and some bloodstains on a sheet which is now on its way to a laboratory for tests. He's probably, at most, a minor dealer. He's already known to the police, having spent a couple of spells in prison, but never for physical violence.

      Olivia was lovely, even in death. Her dark eyebrows, that child-like air, her breasts … ‘No,’ he thinks, ‘I mustn't go there. I'm a professional.’

      ‘I can't see anything,’ he says.

      The pathologist smiles, and Savoy finds his smugness slightly irritating. The expert points to a small, purplish, almost imperceptible mark between the girl's right shoulder and her neck. Then he shows him another similar mark on the left-hand side of her torso, between two of her ribs.

      ‘I could begin by giving you the technical details. Death was caused by obstruction of the jugular vein and the carotid artery while, simultaneously, similar pressure was being applied to a particular sheaf of nerves, but so precisely that it caused the complete paralysis of the upper part of the body…’

      Savoy says nothing. The pathologist realises that this is not the moment to show off his knowledge or to make jokes. He feels rather sorry for himself. He works with death on a daily basis and spends each day surrounded by corpses and grave-faced people. His children never tell anyone what their father does, and he has nothing to talk about at supper parties because people hate discussing what they perceive to be macabre topics. He sometimes wonders if he hasn't perhaps chosen the wrong profession.

      ‘…in short, she was strangled.’

      Savoy still says nothing. His brain is working very fast: how could someone possibly be strangled on Boulevard de la Croisette in broad daylight? Her parents had been interviewed, and they said that their daughter had left the house that morning with the usual merchandise - illegal merchandise, it must be said, because street vendors pay no taxes and are, therefore, banned from trading. ‘Although that's hardly relevant now,’ he thinks.

      ‘The intriguing thing about this particular case,’ says the pathologist, ‘is that in a normal case of strangulation, there are marks on both shoulders, that is, in the classic scene in which the attacker grabs the victim round the throat and the victim struggles to get free. In this case, only one hand, or, rather, one finger stopped the blood reaching the brain, while another finger paralysed the body, rendering her incapable of fighting back. This requires a very sophisticated technique and a detailed knowledge of the human body’

      ‘Could she have been killed somewhere else and carried to the bench where we found her?’

      ‘If so, there would be other marks on her body. That was the first thing I looked for, assuming she was killed by just one person. When I found no marks, I looked for any indication that she had been grabbed by the wrists or ankles, if, that is, we were dealing with more than one killer. But there was nothing to indicate this; indeed, without wishing to go into more technical detail, there are certain things that happen at the moment of death which leave traces in the body. Urine for example, and…’

      ‘What are you saying?’

      ‘That she was killed where she was found and that, judging by the fingermarks on her body, only one person was involved; that since no one saw her trying to run away, she clearly knew her killer, who was seated on her left side; and that her killer must be someone highly trained and with an extensive knowledge of the martial arts.’

      Savoy nods his thanks and walks quickly to the exit. On the way, he phones the police station where the boyfriend is being interrogated.

      ‘Forget about drugs,’ he says. ‘We have a murder on our hands. Try and find out what the boyfriend knows about martial arts. I'm coming straight over’

      ‘No,’ says the voice at the other end. ‘Go straight to the hospital. I think we have another problem.’