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road,” Drost said, “we became aware of a very pronounced smell, and on the west side of the pit, we came across the body of a young woman whom Sheriff Carvell thought he recognized as that of Sarah Coile. This was later confirmed. It was lying in some tall grass and weeds in a small hollow between two mounds of earth, and there had been no apparent attempt to conceal it. The body was lying on its back, fully clothed except for the lower undergarment, and it was obvious from the condition of the body that it had been the object of an act of violence and that it had been there for some time.”
    Drost stopped and looked at McKiel.
    â€œMr. Magistrate,” McKiel said, “we have photographs which were taken at the scene by the RCMP photographer.”
    From behind, one of Whidden’s assistants passed McKiel a heavy brown envelope. He extracted a pile of photographs and murmured something inaudible to the assistant, who made his way to the bench and placed one pile in front of Thurcott and another in front of Dorkin.
    Nothing in Dorkin’s experience had prepared him for what he saw. The first photograph had been taken near the feet of the body. The white dress was pushed up almost to the waist and except for a garter belt, stockings, and one shoe, the body below that was naked. One leg was lying straight out, the other slightly bent. The arms were spread a little to the sides. The chest seemed thrust upwards, the head thrown back. The mouth was open, forming an almost circular black hole, around which the lips seemed somehow to be rolling outwards from inside. The eyelids were partly open, but between them there was only an obscure darkness. The face was covered with patches of discolouration so that it would have been impossible for the uninitiated to know whether it was the face of a woman of eighteen or eighty or the face of a woman at all.
    The next photograph was a close-up of the face, making its hideousness more hideous still. The next one was of the extended leg, and Dorkin saw that what he had taken in the first photograph to be dirt of some kind on the stocking below the knee was in fact a place where the stocking had been torn away and the flesh beneath hideously lacerated.
    Dorkin went quickly through the rest of the photographs.There were three taken from further away designed to show the location of the body in the pit. There were photographs from each side showing the peculiar arch in the back, in one of which Dorkin noticed the second shoe lying beside the outstretched leg. There was one taken from the head looking down the body in which the face was thrown backward, pointing straight at the camera, as if blowing towards it its foul breath of decay.
    Dorkin turned the pictures face down on the table and pushed them to one side. He became aware that Drost was concluding his testimony, explaining in his flat policeman’s voice how he had summoned expert assistance from Fredericton.
    Drost descended, and his place was taken by Detective Staff Sergeant Grant, who had sat on many witness stands and did not carry a little notebook. Unlike Drost, he was not in dress uniform but in everyday brown. Even McKiel shifted his tone of voice a little in the direction of deference when talking to him.
    Grant crossed his legs casually, leaned one elbow on the arm of the chair, and continued the account of the investigation: the photographing of the body, the collecting of the nighttime debris around the pit, the failure to locate the missing undergarment, the futile attempt to pick up a trail with the dog, the futile attempts to find footprints or car tracks clear enough to take casts of for later identification.
    â€œIs it your opinion,” McKiel asked, “that Miss Coile met her death at the place where her body was found?”
    â€œWe found no evidence to suggest otherwise. My own opinion is that she did. If someone had been carrying the body away from some other site, I presume that