‘Have we found anything on CCTV?’ she asked, directing her attention to Aidan Chilcott.

‘Nothing yet,’ Aidan replied, his face almost a grimace. ‘It’ll take a while to go through everything. It’s possible the killer could have got onto the water from anywhere on the perimeter and rowed over to the causeway, so there’s a huge amount to check.’

‘Difficult, though,’ Sara said. ‘That’d carry its own risks. The body was laid out pretty neatly on the rocks. That’d be almost impossible to do from a boat, especially without mooring it.’

Caroline snapped her fingers and pointed at Sara. ‘Yes! And anyone who tried mooring their boat on those rocks would’ve scraped the bottom of the boat. There’d be paint transfer of some sort, without a shadow of a doubt. Let’s get that checked out forensically.’

A phone rang, and Sara got up to answer it.

‘Are we checking the boats or the rocks?’ Dexter asked.

Caroline thought for a moment. ‘The rocks. Anyone can hire out a boat, so I imagine ninety percent of them will have all sorts of scratches and scuffs. We’d be there forever. And we can’t discount someone having brought their own boat along for the job. I think it’s safe to say we’ll find fewer scuff marks on the rocks at Normanton than we will on the bottom of hire boats, so let’s go for that.’

‘Won’t the water have washed it all away, though? I can’t imagine many paint flecks sticking around,’ Aidan said.

‘Quite possibly. But if we don’t look, we won’t find. And as things stand, we have no idea how our killer managed to reach the causeway, but if we can either rule a couple of things out or prioritise more likely scenarios, we’ll get much closer. As far as I understand it, there are some “official” entrances to the water, some of which are covered with CCTV and ANPR, but there are a million ways to get there by foot. Of course, the fact our suspect was likely carrying a dead body does reduce the likelihood of that. Early signs are that Roger wasn’t killed where he was found. There’s no blood spatter, no sign of a local scuffle. So he’s been brought to the site already dead. If you had an accomplice you could probably jump a wall, use a wheelbarrow, even carry a lightweight boat to the edge of the water. An accomplice makes things difficult in other areas, though. It means our killer is relying on someone else keeping quiet. That takes a huge amount of trust.’

‘Unless two people wanted him dead,’ Aidan said.

‘Well, indeed.’

Sara Henshaw walked back towards them, looking a little sheepish and awkward after ending the incoming phone call.

‘Okay. That was a message to say we’ve found a potential point of entry for our killer.’