The guy drops the milk crate and bolts.

‘Blake!’ Thistle yells, but I’m already running, sloshing into the river of trash as the man with the dust mask disappears between the two rotting mountains. The other workers watch me wide-eyed as I approach. One of them, an apple-cheeked white guy I’ve seen somewhere before, steps into my path.

‘Hold on there, fella,’ he says. ‘Where you headed?’

I remember him now. He pulled over to offer unwanted roadside assistance once. Nearly caught me eating a Tanzanian triple murderer. Hopefully he doesn’t remember me.

‘Move,’ I say. ‘Police.’

‘You don’t look like police,’ he says, which is true. But Thistle is behind me now, waving her ID. He reluctantly steps aside.

‘Sorry for the delay,’ he says, but we’re already past him. We race through the trash, looking for signs of the man with the dust mask.

We’re looking down a long vista between two walls of trash. Plastic slurry, bullet casings, mouldy cow bones, coffee pods, more porn. Can’t see the guy—he must have turned off somewhere. We keep running, looking for his trail.

There’s a narrow side alley between hills of shredded polyester clothes and shattered iPhones. Too much of this trash is probably mine. I reuse a lot, but I don’t recycle. One of my many bad habits. After you’ve eaten a few people, none of your other flaws seem important enough to fix.

‘I’ll check that way,’ I say, puffing. ‘You keep going.’

‘No,’ Thistle says. ‘This whole place is fenced off. We should go back. Guard the exit.’

‘The guy looked like he could climb a fence. Especially if someone threw away a ladder.’

Thistle hesitates. She doesn’t trust me. Usually a good choice.

I don’t give her time to decide. I run down the side alley. She doesn’t follow.

The path is narrow and dark. Probably only gets sunlight at noon. Mushrooms grow from deep gashes in the trash. A crust of moss is swallowing an old fridge. There are footprints in the damp cardboard, but it’s impossible to tell how recent they are.

A diesel engine rumbles somewhere up ahead. Seconds later there’s a screech and a metallic crash. Maybe a mountain of broken toasters collapsed. I hope our suspect wasn’t under it. This deep in the maze of garbage, like the ruins of a freshly dead civilisation, it’s impossible not to think about being buried alive.

The smell makes it hard to run. It feels like each breath I take is one-third air, one-third fungus, one-third plastic confetti.