Personally, Patrick wished people would leave them alone. This was partly because moral panics and witch-hunts always made him bristle – he had a natural fear of mobs, whoever the target – and partly because he witnessed every day the very worst of what went on in the so-called respectable world, the city outside the camp’s walls. But he knew that if the Crane Park encampment and the Child Catcher case collided, it would be the local equivalent of the president of South Korea going on TV and accusing Kim Jong-un of using his nuclear missiles as a tiny penis substitute.

A young man was waiting for them at the gates – deeply tanned, with thick black hair and a checked shirt gaping open to reveal a hairy chest. He wore a solemn expression and, without speaking, tipped his head to indicate that Patrick and Carmella should follow him.

They walked through the camp: mobile homes set up in a jumbled formation; cars in varying degrees of nick; men and women sitting around in the sunshine, kids running about in shorts, dogs sniffing at wheel rims. To look at, it reminded Patrick of a music festival – but the atmosphere was very different. The air was charged, rippling with barely suppressed hostility as they walked past.

The young man walked with his hands in his pockets, not talking, until they reached a large, gleaming mobile home at the centre of the camp.

‘Mickey’s waiting inside,’ he said, knocking on the door.

They stepped up into the vehicle where a man with wiry grey hair, a flat nose and forearms like Popeye’s stood waiting for them. They shook hands and the man introduced himself.

‘I’m Mickey Flanagan,’ he said, gesturing for them to sit down. The man had testosterone coming off him in great musky waves. He was around fifty but looked fit, like a retired boxer. They sat opposite him around a small table. Mickey picked up a can of Dr Pepper and took a swig, but didn’t offer one to his guests.

‘It was you who reported finding a body?’ Patrick asked.

Mickey nodded. ‘It was.’

‘And where is she now?’

The other man paused. ‘I want you to know straight up that it was no one in this community. I can promise you that.’

‘Just tell us the facts, Mr Flanagan.’

Mickey thumped the table. ‘This is a decent community. You think we don’t know what they say about us out there? What they’re going to say when they discover a babby was found here?’

Patrick waited, keeping eye contact with the other man.

Eventually, Mickey sighed. ‘Alright, so. It was that bloody little idiot Wesley. He found her.’

‘What’s Wesley’s full name?’ Carmella asked. Patrick noticed how she accentuated her Irish accent when talking to the traveller’s leader.

‘His last name’s Hewson.’

‘And where is he now? It’s better if we hear it from him.’