Once, at the group home Thistle and I grew up in, someone knocked over a plate of food and it landed upside down. I would have picked it up and eaten it, but it was asparagus with ranch dressing. Not my thing. For whatever reason, no one else picked the plate up either—it was in a corner, out of the way and half hidden. Weeks later, when it was my turn to vacuum, I noticed that the plate was still there. I unstuck it from the floor and flipped it over. Beneath it was a seething mess of maggots and congealed dressing.

This whole place smells like that plate did.

The security guard—a broad-shouldered man with aviator sunglasses—sees us grimacing. He grins, showing a mouth of crooked teeth. ‘You get used to it,’ he says, and waves us through.

‘He’s right,’ Thistle says, as she drives through into a small parking lot. ‘After a day searching for Biggs’s phone, I barely noticed the stink.’

I grunt, and get out of the car.

Up close, I can see the content of some of the garbage piles. Dressers, TVs, blenders, toy trucks, a walking stick. A lot of it still looks workable. Unwanted, not broken.

There are huge hills of magazines and DVDs. As Thistle and I walk closer, I realise that almost all of them are porn. An endless mosaic of cupped breasts and spread ass cheeks. After they’ve been used, most DVDs and magazines end up collecting dust on shelves, but I guess porn isn’t like that. Once people use it, they’re ashamed of it, and they just want it gone. Straight in the trash.

A row of shipping containers have been concreted into place, with windows cut in the sides. They’re being used as site offices, I guess. As I watch, a moustachioed man with no neck emerges from one of the containers. He’s wearing a checked shirt under a hi-vis vest. Thin, greying hair peeks out from under his hard hat. He’s fortyish, with skin like leather.

‘Agent Thistle,’ he says, as he approaches. ‘Back so soon?’

‘Different case this time,’ Thistle says. ‘Bevan Edwards, this is my associate, Timothy Blake.’

Edwards shakes my hand, and does a double take at my missing thumb.

‘We’re here looking for a man named Daniel Ruthven,’ Thistle says.

Edwards makes a big show of trying to remember, raising his eyes to look at the sky. ‘Doesn’t ring a bell,’ he says finally.

‘We have a picture of him,’ Thistle says. She clicks her fingers. I hand her the file, and she shows the guy the photo.

He peers at it, but also keeps glancing at us. Like he wants to gauge our reaction to his words.

‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘I haven’t seen anyone like that around here.’