Caroline made her way back to the incident room, Dexter trailing behind.

‘Guv, we’ve had some preliminary post-mortem results on Roger Clifton,’ Aidan Chilcott said, almost as soon as she’d entered the office.

‘I hope it’s good news, Aidan,’ Caroline replied. ‘I’m not in the mood for another spanner in the works right now.’

Aidan looked at her for a moment. ‘Can post-mortem results ever be good news?’ he asked.

‘Depends whose post-mortem it is. What have you got for me?’

‘No water in the lungs. Therefore, Roger Clifton didn’t drown. The ligature marks round the neck are suspected to have been caused by nylon rope. Blunt force trauma to the head, potentially some form of metal or non-fibrous material. They haven’t been able to pick up any wood splinters or rust or anything, so whatever it was, it was likely new. About an inch and a half in diameter, potentially rounded. I pushed for something a bit more specific and she said her best guess would be a crowbar or a lug wrench. Sort of thing most people would have in their car, anyway.’

‘We’re going with the car theory, then?’

‘It’s looking likely. Especially as the entry gate was broken. I can’t see any reason why someone would go to the effort of doing that, then walk the rest of the way.’

‘Okay. Even so, we’re looking for someone with a certain amount of strength. The body will’ve had to have been lifted, even if someone did get the car all the way up to the church. They had to get it from the boot of the car, over the edge and onto the rocks. Let’s face it — we’re probably looking at a man, and a pretty strong one at that. Resourceful, too. Came equipped with bolt cutters for the gate. Had a crowbar or a — what was it?’

‘Lug wrench.’

‘One of those, yeah. He obviously knew what he was doing. Maybe we’re looking for a mechanic of some sort. A builder? We know Roger was heavily connected with the trades. It’s entirely possible he’s pissed off a builder at some time or another.’

‘Would need to be more than pissing them off to result in premeditated murder, surely?’

‘Maybe not a man of God after all,’ Dexter said, unable to help himself.

‘The killer went to a lot of effort to take a dead body there under cover of darkness and lay it out on the rocks in that specific place. I don’t think we can overlook that.’

‘No, but we shouldn’t be using it as our pivot point, either. It’s not the be-all-and-end-all, especially when there’s far more compelling evidence like the tampering with the gate, big clues as to the murder weapon, knowledge that the killer had to actually bring the body to the dump site.’