She concluded, ‘Unfortunately, the whole affair moved us precisely no closer to understanding the motivation behind our three murders. It could still be drugs, of course, but we have no proof either way.’

‘Ma’am?’ Chris’s voice was muted, obviously a few feet from the mic. ‘Are we still considering the spiritual angle?’

Hawkins drew breath, but Frank got in first. ‘What if the killer’s some kind of ghost, man? Who ya gonna call?’

Chris didn’t seem to get the joke. ‘I just mean it could still be connected to the old church, couldn’t it?’

‘For all we know, it could have been a dispute over who holds the remote.’ Hawkins braked as a large truck pulled out to overtake another large truck. ‘We don’t even know whether the victims went to the church. They weren’t caught on camera like Albone, and even if they did go there, we can’t be sure it had anything to do with supposed spiritual connections. Let’s keep open minds for now.’

No one spoke for a moment, and she was about to tell the others to call it a night when Amala’s voice broke the hissing silence. ‘Chief?’

‘What is it?’ Hawkins sped up.

‘A flag just came up on the system, body found in a derelict cottage on Mays Lane, Barnet, less than a day old.’

‘How exciting.’ Hawkins glanced at the clock on the dashboard. ‘But it’s nearly midnight. Can’t the late shift pick it up?’

‘I think you’ll want to see this one for yourself, ma’am.’

‘Don’t tell me … there’s no damage to the corpse.’

31

Hawkins flinched as the Giulietta’s front wheels spun again, the traction control light flickering as more mud and sharp-sounding stones splattered its flanks. The track they had just joined was the last of three options the sat nav didn’t seem to know, two previous wrong turns already having cost them an extra twenty minutes.

‘This had better be the right one,’ she warned sod’s law under her breath.

They crept forwards, rounding a bend, headlights splitting the blackness ahead between mud and shadow.

Frank waved at the large ruts stretching away from them towards the next corner, inky puddles filling deep channels in the freshly churned earth. ‘Looks like we got Thunderbird One.’

Hawkins grunted acknowledgement, glad that their renewed working relationship had quickly reverted to type. Without them ever having discussed it, Frank obviously concurred that minimal interaction was the best strategy for maintaining peace between two opposing personalities, so most of the forty-minute car journey from Thundridge had been conducted in silence.

With the time now approaching one a.m., her day was already seventeen hours old, with no imminent end in sight, thanks to a body count in her investigation soon likely to climb from three to four.