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Browne pointed a crooked finger to a card table and folding chair set up alongside one of the car park’s concrete pillars. A kettle sat on the table with an industrial length extension cord trailing into the shadows.
    Monty scuffed his way over the concrete slab to the makeshift tearoom and gazed between the pillars to the clear view of the floodlit skip. It was hard to ascertain quite what the old man might have seen earlier in the grainy darkness and the dazzle of car headlights.
    ‘Go on then, what did you see?’ he asked when he returned.
    ‘I heard it first, the squeal of brakes, then I saw a four-wheel drive crash through the fence and fishtail across the building site.’
    He peered in the direction the man was pointing. One section of the cyclone fence had been knocked down and the supporting poles bent out of shape. A police officer was taping up the gap. Traffic on the highway beyond the fence-line had slowed to a crawl as motorists sought to take in the drama. Bloody ghouls, he thought.
    ‘Then a bloke come out, opened up the back door and grabbed hold of this heavy thing,’ the old man said. ‘At first I thought he was just some mug dumping rubbish illegally. He threw the thing onto the skip and climbed onto it, scrabbling around for a bit like he was trying to bury something. I radioed it in from here while I watched him.’
    ‘He drove through the mesh fence, and you just stood and watched?’ Monty said.
    ‘What the hell else was I supposed to do at my age and with my back? Besides there was another fella sitting in the front seat, I wouldn’t have stood a chance if they got aggro. The fella on the skip must have seen me, I reckon, cos he jumped down real quick and scarpered back to his truck and took off.’
    Wayne frowned and said to the man, ‘You didn’t mention this second person before, Mr Browne, did you get a look at him?’
    ‘Yeah, well, I only just remembered him didn’t I? Nah, I didn’t hardly see him.’
    Monty wondered how he could have forgotten this, wondered just how drunk the old man really was.
    ‘And this second man didn’t get out and help the first man at all, he just sat there, watching?’ Wayne said, meeting Monty’s eyes.
    Browne must have sensed their doubt. ‘I’m telling you what I saw, mate, no more, no less.’
    ‘But surely you weren’t alone here?’ Monty spun on his heels and waved his arms around. ‘This place is huge.’
    ‘George was over the other side with the dog. Every half an hour or so we take it in turns to do a circuit.’
    ‘And where’s George now?’
    ‘I sent him home, boss,’ Wayne said. ‘He saw nothing. But Mr Browne here got a good look at the bloke who took the body from the car and he’s given us a detailed description and the rego.’
    Fair enough, Monty thought, calming himself; old Mr Browne had probably done them the greater service. If he had tried to apprehend the men they might very well have had two victims on their hands.
    Wayne read from his notebook, ‘Khaki coloured Toyota Troop Mover licence number MDG 76X. Scene of crime officers also found skid marks and tyre prints matching that kind of vehicle. The guy is described as short and stocky with darkish curly hair, late forties to early fifties.’
    ‘Anything else you can add, sir?’ Monty asked the old man.
    ‘Nah, can I go home now, mate?’
    Monty said he could. The detectives stood in a group and watched him hobble off until he was out of earshot.
    ‘Jesus,’ Barry smoothed his bald head. ‘Iron Bar Security must’ve scratched the bottom of the barrel for that one.’
    ‘He had a half bottle of bourbon sticking up from his holdall,’ Wayne added. ‘Not exactly a reliable witness, he never even mentioned a second man the first time around.’
    ‘He’s all we’ve got at the moment,’ Monty said.
    ‘I hope to God he’s wrong. One child killer is bad enough, a team of them’s a bloody nightmare.’
    ‘At least we’ve got the rego—have you run