Porter stared through his windscreen, the sick feeling in his stomach telling him the answer even before he got out of his car.
It had been nine days since Ruby had gone missing, and now he was staring at a crime scene. A white tent and scenes of crime officers in forensic suits, in stark contrast to the dark shadows of the woodlands. He prayed that it wasn’t Ruby, just so he could cling on to the hope that she could still be found, but he knew that hope dwindled with every passing day.
They’d got the call from a shopkeeper, panicked by what she was being told by some travellers who’d lived along a narrow country lane ever since the New-Age thing had been popular ten years before. The travellers didn’t have access to a phone, so they’d sent one of them on a horse, no saddle, part of their dream of Olde England, and stopped outside the first shop he’d come to. He was shaking, and as soon as he’d told the shopkeeper why he was there, the police had been called.
The call resulted in a police turnout around six miles from Brampton, along a lane that disappeared into woodland, so that the tarmac eventually became a rutted track and then nothing. The travellers had been tolerated by the nearest village, with some regarding them as a local oddity, taking them food and sometimes staying to enjoy wine around the fire. They were on public land, living in old wooden caravans in a copse by the lane, and got by on growing their own food and keeping chickens, sometimes venturing into town to load up on sacks of stale bread, donated by the local bakers, and cans of food, always smelling of woodsmoke.
They were left alone. They’d opted out and bothered no one.
Above all else, Porter couldn’t remember them at either the Easter festival on the clifftop or the May Day fair at the rugby club. They weren’t suspects. If his fears turned out to be correct, he guessed that it was the remote location that had been the attraction. Not far from the town, so the killer avoided the risk of an accident or being away for too long, but quiet enough so they wouldn’t be disturbed. Most people avoided the area because of the travellers, which meant that whatever people did here, they could do it without being seen.
Porter got out of his car and wandered towards the scene. Police cars clogged the lane until fluttering yellow crime scene tape stopped them progressing any further. Another police car nearer to Brampton was blocking the road, to keep away the ghoulish and curious, but the travellers had refused to move. The police could have insisted, but Porter thought it was worth losing the argument because he wanted to keep their co-operation, and anyway, anything of forensic value from their camp would have been trampled into the ground a long time before.
The travellers were sitting on the steps of their caravans, the women in leggings and long jumpers, the men with dreadlocks and beads twirled into their beards.
As Porter walked over to them, the children were shooed into one of the caravans. The man closest to him stood up as he got near.
‘Don’t mind them,’ he said, although there was some hostility in his tone. ‘Before we settled here, it was the men in uniforms who smashed our windows and beat us, and we’ve told them the stories.’
Porter held up his hand. ‘Not around here. Don’t judge us all by the actions of the few.’
The man thought about that for a few seconds and then his tone softened. ‘No, I’ll give you that. This town has been good to us.’ He held out his hand. ‘I’m Astral.’
Porter doubted it was his real name, but he shook anyway. He tried not to think of the dirt and whatever else was embedded in Astral’s palm. ‘What do you know?’
‘About a week ago, we heard a car. Nothing strange about that, but usually they keep on going. Some people come here to abuse us, they slow down and shout, sometimes throw stuff, but they never stop. There’s a turning just down there that takes you back to the main road. The ones who go straight past and don’t bother us are heading for where the lane gets really dark, down by those trees. There’s nothing down there, so it’s good for people who want to, you know, have some fun in cars.’
‘Does that happen much?’
‘At weekends, sometimes. Provided they don’t bother us, we don’t bother them. Free living, that’s what we’re into.’
‘You told the shopkeeper about a car that stood out. Why do you remember it?’
‘Because someone got out. Normally, they stay in the car and just get it rocking, if you know what I mean. This guy was different, but it didn’t mean that much at the time, not enough to report it, but it stuck in my mind. This person was on his own. That’s why it was different.’
‘A man?’
‘Definitely. He was doing something suspicious, but we thought, what’s it got to do with us? People don’t bother us and we won’t bother them, but then, well, what we found…’ He paused to compose himself, before letting out a long breath. ‘We were building a new latrine. We alternate. Dig ditches and use them and move on, so it all gets made natural again. We moved into the field over there and, as we were about to dig, we saw where someone else had been digging. I remembered the man from before, so we dug there, curious.’ He stopped again, and tears jumped into his eyes. His voice cracked when he said, ‘We came across a leg first. A small one. A child. That’s when we stopped and I rode into town.’
Porter put his hand on the man’s shoulder. ‘Thank you.’
The man swallowed and looked down. He made small circles in the mud with a gnarled old branch that had been hand-carved into a large cane. ‘Is it the girl? The one who went missing? We hear things on the radio.’
Porter looked towards the forensic tent. ‘I don’t know. I hope not, because I want to find her alive, but if it’s not her…’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know if it makes it better or worse, because it’s still a dead child.’
‘It’s got to you, this, I can hear it in your voice.’
‘It’s kids, Astral. Brampton should be safe for them. It isn’t any longer.’
They both watched the forensic activity for a while, Porter clean-shaven and in a suit, navy and double-breasted, with a white shirt; Astral next to him, grubby and in clothes that were faded and ragged, his hair matted.
Porter turned to him. ‘What kind of car was it?’
Astral thought back as he rested his chin on his cane. ‘Bright white, that’s what I remember. I don’t know what kind, I don’t keep up on car models, but it looked new.’
‘What size though? Big, small? Hatchback or estate? A jeep?’
‘Medium size, but not a hatchback. Just like a normal-sized car with a boot. And the badge on the back was oval and blue. I remember that much.’
‘A Ford?’
Astral considered that and said, ‘Yeah, a Ford.’
Porter looked along the line of police cars, some unmarked, and set off walking. ‘Follow me.’
Astral’s footsteps were heavy, his boots large and with a thick tread.
As Porter got halfway along the line, he said, ‘Like this, but in white?’
Astral stared at the car for a few seconds before he said, ‘Yeah, that’s it, man. The logo is right, and it was that kind of shape. All modern and sloped.’
Porter made a mental note. A white Ford Mondeo. ‘And where did it stop?’
Astral pointed ahead. ‘See where there’s a gap in the trees? Just there.’
‘Time?’
‘We don’t go by time. We go by the sun and the stars. The children were in bed, I remember that, and it was a good night, a clear sky. I was having a drink and a smoke when it came along.’
Porter smiled. ‘Thank you.’
He went as if to walk towards the crime scene tape for an update when Astral grabbed his sleeve. ‘If it’s her, the little girl, tell her parents I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry? Why?’
‘I could have stopped him. She might have still been alive. Even if she was dead then, their torture would have been over.’
‘It’s not over. Just a different kind of torture.’
Astral nodded. ‘Yeah, I get that. Thanks, man.’
As Astral went back to his family, one of the officers by the tape came towards Porter.
He knew what he was about to be told by the urgency in his eyes. ‘Go on, say it.’
‘It’s a little girl, sir, about the right age.’
‘Is she wearing clothes?’
‘A pink Spice Girls T-shirt.’
Porter closed his eyes and let out a long breath. It was her. Ruby.