As The Crow Flies (The DI Nick Dixon Crime Series) by Damien Boyd Page B

or persons unknown. Tell them to check his Facebook account and anything like that.’
    ‘Right, Sir.’
    ‘Email will be too obvious, I think. It’ll be Facebook messaging or something like that. Skype perhaps. Tell them to check the Facetime on his iPhone too.’
    ‘Will do, Sir.’
    ‘Right, that leaves you and me, Jane. We need to get a formal statement from Jake’s girlfriend, Sarah Heath.’
    He turned to the whiteboard and stuck a photograph of Sarah Heath next to Jake’s. He drew an arrow between the two.
    ‘Who is that, Sir?’ asked Pearce.
    ‘Sarah Heath. Jake’s girlfriend.’
    ‘No, it’s not.’
    ‘What?’ Dixon’s voice was an octave higher.
    ‘Well, she may be Jake’s girlfriend and she may be called Sarah Heath but she’s also Jenna Williams’ sister.’
    Dixon looked at Mark Pearce then at the photograph of Sarah on the whiteboard. He looked back to Pearce. He saw Lewis sit up sharply at the back of the room.
    ‘Explain.’
    ‘She was with Jenna’s mother when she came to identify the body.’
    ‘Steve?’
    ‘I wasn’t there, Sir.’
    ‘There’s no mention of this in the file.’
    ‘We never made the connection,’ said Gorman. ‘We were watching Fayter, of course, but never saw them together.’
    ‘Were you involved in that, Mark?’
    ‘Yes, but I never saw him with his girlfriend.’
    ‘Maybe she didn’t know,’ said Jane.
    ‘Maybe she killed him,’ said Gorman.
    ‘Well, we’ll soon find out. Let’s get cracking. Meet back here at 5.00pm. Jane, we’ll leave in twenty minutes.’
     
    Dixon went back to his office. He sat down and started to count to ten. He had reached six when the door opened and DCI Lewis came in.
    ‘The girlfriend it is then?’
    ‘I doubt it, Sir. I don’t think she knew.’
    ‘The mother then?’
    ‘How would she have known Jake was dealing drugs?’
    ‘Sarah could have told her?’
    ‘Unlikely. It’s not the sort of thing you’d admit to your mother is it?’
    ‘No, I suppose not.’
    ‘Sarah certainly knew Jake was selling ecstacy round the clubs but that’s it, I think. She may have put two and two together, of course, but she’d want firm evidence before killing him over it, surely?’
    ‘He may have admitted it to her?’
    ‘True.’
    ‘Just don’t rule it out, Nick. We may be looking at a simple revenge killing and unrelated wildlife offences.’
    ‘That’d be too easy, Sir.’
    Dixon tried to sound confident but there was a nagging doubt in his mind. Something was telling him that Sarah had known. Possibly. He hoped it would come to him before they brought her in for interview.
     
    Steve Gorman could just about make out the figure of Mark Pearce huddled on the doorstep of number 12 Wells Close, Burnham-on-Sea. His windscreen wipers were working at full speed but that still only afforded him brief glimpses of Pearce through the torrential rain. He had been listening to the phone in on Radio 5 Live. It was coming to end and he reached down to switch it off when there was a loud tapping at the car window. He pressed the button just long enough to wind the window down an inch.
    ‘There’s no one in.’
    ‘Try the neighbours.’
    Gorman wound the window back up as quickly as he could and watched Pearce run across the lawn to the property immediately adjacent to 12 Wells Close. It was one of the advantages of his rank. He had done plenty of running about in the rain as a junior constable and now it was someone else’s turn.
    He looked along the line of six modern red brick semi-detached properties, built in three pairs in the middle of Wells Close. Number 12 was Dan Hunter’s house. Each property had a built-in garage and Gorman thought probably three bedrooms. The lawn was neat and tidy and there were rows of flowerpots outside the front door and along the path at the side. Dan Hunter definitely needed to get out more.
    Mark Pearce turned to the car and gave an exaggerated shrug of the shoulders. Gorman pointed to the