Conversation between her and Chris on the forty-minute drive from Hendon had been somewhat stilted due to his apparent nervousness, and her preoccupation with the case. But she had learned a little of his past, from formative years spent in and around St Albans, to his exceptional scores in the Trainee Investigator Programme. It seemed aptitude wasn’t the issue. What concerned her was his apparent inability to focus.

Several times on their journey, the young man had gone quiet mid-conversation, only for Hawkins to glance over and find him staring out of the window, or fiddling with an air vent on the dashboard. He would snap back to attention when verbally poked, but a propensity to drift arbitrarily into daydream wasn’t a founding principle of good detective work.

Now Chris was humming quietly to himself, clearly unaware they’d just passed a few industrial units optimistically signposted as Thundridge Business Park.

‘Chris.’ Hawkins made him jump. ‘Are you looking for the main street?’

‘Oh.’ Chris came to, shaking his head as the sat nav announced they had reached their destination: the geographical centre of Thundridge. Oddly, neither of the victims’ searches had included a specific address, although it wasn’t obvious why at this stage. Perhaps the most likely explanation was that, if their simultaneous arrival had been their first time here, the pair hadn’t known exactly where they were going. So Hawkins’ own destination input had been similarly vague. Neither was it clear from the map itself exactly which part of the village offered the greatest density of people, but she wanted to start wherever virgin visitors might go.

Hawkins glanced right as they neared the base of the hill, noting a solid run of buildings behind the trees, and took the next turn, on to Old Church Lane.

The entrance’s narrow neck opened on to wider tarmac, and Hawkins brought them to a halt, appraising their surroundings. Beside them a large, gated house marked the entrance to a dirt track that disappeared straight ahead into the foliage. To the right, the main thoroughfare stretched away up a gentle incline, where well-maintained, centuries-old buildings lined either side of the street.

Unfortunately, being here in the flesh did nothing to improve Hawkins’ optimism about their chances of finding out why at least two of the three victims had come to this backwater. There was certainly no obvious attraction for reporters, mechanics or entrepreneurs.

A quick internet search on the village and civil parish before they left Hendon had produced nothing of any immediate interest, either. This appeared to be just a regular hamlet on a once busy route through the Hertfordshire countryside.

Little more than a single street, Thundridge offered a picturesque, pre-war village hall, a parish church with hearing induction loop technology, and a primary school with a small but locally acclaimed breakfast service.

But not much besides.

So what the hell had they been doing here?