‘A few of us are going for a couple of drinks after work if you want to join us,’ he said.

‘What, again?’

‘Yeah. No harm in it. Nice chance to wind down after a long day.’

‘Not tonight,’ Caroline said, keeping her eyes on the road. ‘Thanks for the offer, though,’ she added a little while later, as if the thought had only just occurred to her.

Dexter smiled to himself. He could see he had work to do.

8

They arrived back at the station to find Sara Henshaw waiting for them with news.

‘I’ve been doing the family liaison bit with Roger Clifton’s wife,’ she said. ‘She’s not keen to come in for an interview, so I said we’d look to send a couple of officers round. She specifically asked for non-uniformed officers and an unmarked car.’ Caroline raised an eyebrow. Sara smiled. ‘I know. I said we’d see what we could do. I tried to get her to talk, and she mentioned something interesting. Apparently Roger has a brother living in Spain. Arthur, his name is — after the grandfather. Just to confuse things. I’ve put a request in with the Spanish authorities to locate him and get hold of him.’

Caroline looked at Dexter and smiled. They could have come back to the office with the killer’s name and photographic evidence of them doing it, and the ever-efficient Sara would’ve already had them arrested, charged and wallowing in HMP Whitemoor.

‘Good work, Sara,’ Caroline said, choosing not to burst her bubble. ‘What about links with religion or the church? Anything on that front?’

‘Not that she mentioned, no. But I can do a bit more digging on that front if you think it’d be useful.’

‘I think it’d be handy to know, considering the circumstances. Sonya Smith, the office manager at Arthur Clifton Construction is going to send over a list of their recent jobs. There’s a half-decent chance Roger could’ve pissed someone off that way, but Sonya said nothing sprang to mind. At least if we’ve got a list, we can look into it and cross-reference any names that crop up elsewhere.’

‘I don’t suppose we can discount the possibility that he wasn’t specifically targeted, can we?’ Sara asked.

Caroline swallowed before answering. ‘Well, we can’t discount anything at this stage. But everything points to a targeted attack, so it’s probably best we channel most of our resources in that direction. It wouldn’t be helpful to make other assumptions, I don’t think.’

And there it was again: the ruthless efficiency of Sara Henshaw. It had, of course, been at the back of Caroline’s mind that Roger Clifton’s murder might not have been targeted at all, and that it might not be the last, but that wasn’t a thought she wanted to entertain.