I.

On the evening of July 29 2011, in the Quebrada de San Lorenzo, a subtropical nature reserve in northern Argentina, a tourist was admiring the view. The man was standing with his family where he could see across the muggy, green valley with its broadleaved Tipuana and Cebil trees, all the way down to the sprawl that made up Salta city. He excused himself and trudged into the undergrowth to urinate. He was vaguely aware that pumas and bears were known to lurk nearby and didn’t want to be long. Then he noticed something a few metres away. Clothes. Hair. A hand.

“There’s a dead person in there! There’s a woman’s body in there!” he shouted as he leapt out of the bushes. His face was ashen, his voice tremulous. He’d seen a woman with long, dark hair sprawled facedown in the underbrush. She wore a pullover and black trousers. Another visitor heard the man’s cries and bolted up the slope, through the jagged bushes and squeaky, damp leaves. It didn’t take him long to confirm the discovery. The woman looked like she hadn’t been dead long.

The two men stumbled down the valley to inform authorities. By 7.45pm, a search team composed of police officers and park attendants began searching the area. They couldn’t immediately find the body because of the encroaching darkness, so they called for back-up. Firefighters and a K9 unit arrived and, just over an hour later, they found a body lying facedown just 25 metres from the viewpoint. At 11.15pm, a second woman’s body was discovered. She was lying on her left side, wearing torn trousers similar to the first victim and black trainers. An entry ticket to the nature reserve was found among the victims’ belongings. Checking park records, the police noted that visitors from France had entered on July 15 at 4.23pm.