I’m exhausted by the time I turn a corner and find a clearing. The first thing I see is a car crusher—not switched on, not the source of the noise. The next thing I see is a chain-link fence, topped with cruel coils of razor wire. The fence has been knocked down and flattened against the patchwork mud. Huge tyre tracks tell me that our suspect has stolen a tractor, or maybe a bulldozer. Those things have a top speed of maybe twenty-five miles per hour, but I won’t catch him on foot.

I’m about to yell out to Thistle when I see something else. The crusher looks like a giant sandwich press. A car is clamped between its mighty jaws, the roof caved in and the doors prolapsed out.

The plates have been removed, but I’m sure it’s the blue Toyota Prius that once belonged to Kenneth Biggs.

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 11

Lovers circle each other where guilt is found, freedom lost and rackets heard. Where am I?

‘It could be a coincidence,’ Thistle says.

‘You think it is?’

‘No.’ Thistle takes another sip from her banana milkshake. She glared at me after ordering it, as though daring me to criticise her for ordering like a kid.

‘It’s the same make, model and year as Biggs’s car,’ she continues. ‘And it was found at the same dump where his phone was last switched on. We just need to remember that, legally, it’s not proof. Not until the VIN number is confirmed, anyway.’

We’re at a diner around the corner from the courthouse. Sun’s setting out the window. It’s the kind of place with harsh fluorescent lights, cloudy water bottles, and cherry pie congealing in an unrefrigerated glass cabinet. Thistle didn’t have time to take me back to the FBI—she’s supposed to be on the witness stand in an hour, and she still has to change. Her blouse is stained with sweat, and we both smell like trash. The other customers keep glancing at us, and I can tell the staff want us to leave.

‘You said you pulled the dump apart looking for the phone yesterday,’ I say. ‘How come you didn’t see the car then?’

‘Because it wasn’t there. I may not be a “genius” like you, but when a trail goes cold at the dump and the vic’s car is missing, I’m smart enough to check the crusher.’

Unlike me, Thistle is smart enough to hold down a proper job, to lead an ethical life, and to avoid getting involved with organised crime. But she’s not fishing for a compliment, and I don’t give her one.

‘So the perp has been to the dump since yesterday,’ I say. ‘I saw cameras—are they real?’