She wondered how the local postmen managed. Although, it was entirely possible they avoided this end of town completely. Nicky wasn’t afraid of physical confrontation. Given her sex and her size, she’d become accustomed to having to put large, mouthy blokes in their place – felons and fellow police officers, both. She’d also been taking kickboxing lessons twice a week for the past six years. But even she felt slightly uneasy walking around Blackhawk on her own, in spite of the fact it was the middle of the afternoon. It was one of the most deprived neighbourhoods in the city, and a focal point for pimps and pushers – as far away from Beaconsfield as it was possible to get and still be within a twenty-mile radius.

89 Blackhawk Rise, read the destination she’d entered on Google Maps, and as far as Nicky could tell, she was standing right at the sharp end of the little red pin. But just ahead of her, the row of dilapidated bungalows came to an end, making way for a larger building set back from the road that had clearly at one point been a church. It was nothing like the chapel at Beaconsfield, however. This building looked more like a block of Lego that had been fished out from amid the cobwebs under the sofa. It was squat, with a flat roof and an inelegantly tapered bell tower that appeared to be missing its bell.

Nicky checked the map again, wondering whether the address would turn out to be yet another dead end. So far today, her search for Melissa Haynes had taken her to three different corners of the city – the only remaining clues to her whereabouts that Nicky had been able to uncover being the places of residence Melissa had given on past benefits application forms. The first two addresses had turned out to be squats, and no one Nicky had spoken to had ever heard of Melissa – at least as far as they were willing to admit to a representative of the local constabulary. The third address had taken Nicky to a detached mock-Tudor mansion on a leafy street in one of the city’s poshest suburbs, on the route out to Beaconsfield itself. Again, nobody there had professed to ever having heard of Melissa Haynes, and this time Nicky had believed it. The house was so far removed – literally, metaphorically – from the life Melissa clearly inhabited, that Nicky figured Melissa must have either plucked the address at random, or been making a joke at the expense of whichever poor sap had processed her income support claim at the local Jobcentre.