There was debris dumped every side: the skeletal hulks of rusted vehicles; heaps of rotted household refuse, the stench of which the cold could not subdue; innumerable dead bonfires. The presence of trespassers had attracted some attention. A dog with more breeds in its blood than hairs on its back foamed and yapped at them from the limit of its rope; the curtains of several trailers were drawn back by shadowy witnesses; two girls in early adolescence, both with hair so long and blond they looked to have been baptized in gold (unlikely beauty, in such a place) rose from beside the fire, one running as if to alert guards, the other watching the newcomers with a smile somewhere between the seraphic and the cretinous.
“Don’t stare,” Chant reminded him as he hurried on, but Estabrook couldn’t help himself.
An albino with white dreadlocks had appeared from one of the trailers with the blond girl in tow. Seeing the strangers he let out a shout and headed towards them.
Two more doors now opened, and others emerged from their trailers, but Estabrook had no chance to either see who they were or whether they were armed because Chant again said, “Just walk, don’t look. We’re heading for the caravan with the sun painted on it. See it?”
“I see it.”
There were twenty yards still to cover. Dreadlocks was delivering a stream of orders now, most of them incoherent but surely intended to stop them in their tracks. Estabrook glanced across at Chant, who had his gaze fixed on their destination and his teeth clenched. The sound of footsteps grew louder behind them. A blow on the head or a knife in the ribs couldn’t be far off.
“We’re not going to make it,” Estabrook said.
Within ten yards of the trailer—the albino at their shoulders—the door ahead opened, and a woman in a dressing gown, with a baby in her arms, peered out. She was small and looked so frail it was a wonder she could hold the child, who began bawling as soon as the cold found it. The ache of its complaint drove their pursuers to action. Dreadlocks took hold of Estabrook’s shoulder and stopped him dead. Chant—wretched coward that he was—didn’t slow his pace by a beat but strode on towards the trailer as Estabrook was swung around to face the albino. This was his perfect nightmare, to be facing scabby, pockmarked men like these, who had nothing to lose if they gutted him on the spot. While Dreadlocks held him hard, another man—gold incisors glinting—stepped in and pulled open Estabrook’s coat, then reached in to empty his pockets with the speed of an illusionist. This was not simply professionalism. They wanted their business done before they were stopped.
As the pickpocket’s hand pulled out his victim’s wallet, a voice came from the trailer behind Estabrook: “Let the Mister go. He’s real.”
Whatever the latter meant, the order was instantly obeyed, but by that time the thief had whipped Estabrook’s wallet into his own pocket and had stepped back, hands raised to show them empty. Nor, despite the fact that the speaker—presumably Pie—was extending his protection to his guest, did it seem circumspect to try and reclaim the wallet. Estabrook retreated from the thieves, lighter in step and cash but glad to be doing so at all.
Turning, he saw Chant at the trailer door, which was open. The woman, the baby, and the speaker had already gone back inside.
‘They didn’t hurt you, did they?” Chant said.
Estabrook glanced back over his shoulder at the thugs, who had gone to the fire, presumably to divide the loot by its light. “No,” he said. “But you’d better go and check the car, or they’ll have it stripped.”
“First I’d like to introduce you—”
“Just check the car,” Estabrook said, taking some satisfaction in the thought of sending Chant back across the no-man’s-land between here and the perimeter. “I can introduce myself.”
“As you like.”
Chant went off, and Estabrook climbed the steps into the trailer. A scent and a sound met him, both sweet. Oranges had been peeled, and their dew was in the air. So was a lullaby, played on a guitar. The player, a black man, sat in the farthest corner, in a shadowy place beside a sleeping child. The babe lay to his other side, gurgling softly in a simple cot, its fat arms raised as if to pluck the music from the air with its tiny hands. The woman was at a table at the other end of the vehicle, tidying away the orange peel. The whole interior was marked by the same fastidiousness she was applying to this task, every surface neat and polished.