No Going Back by Matt Hilton Page A

reported that their daughter had taken the road trip with the Corbins.
    Perhaps I was jumping to conclusions, but there was only one thing I could come up with. The robbers had taken the girl.
    That meant they could also have taken Jay and Nicole, particularly Nicole, because Ellie Mansfield too was petite with dark eyes and dark bobbed hair.
    The earlier fluke of Helena Blackstock and Nicole Challinor being similar-looking may have been just that, but with Ellie added to the mix it went way beyond coincidence.
    Someone out there was taking females of a particular physical type. That was bad enough, but it also begged another question. Jay Walker didn’t look like any of them, so what had happened to her? Had she been discarded like a worthless piece of trash?

8
    At first light I was on my way, skirting Indian Wells and heading for the trailer park where Scott Blackstock lived. Up this far into Navajo County Scott would be in the minority, because approaching ninety-five per cent of the population were of Native American descent. I was assuming a lot: I hadn’t seen the man, had only talked with him on the phone, but during our short discourse he had come across as poor white trash and an arsehole to boot. Then again, what gave me the right to judge him? He was simply a man whose wife had gone missing, presumed dead, so how should he be expected to greet a stranger stirring things up again?
    The trailer park was on a low plateau, static caravans set around a circular compound formed of a shoulder-high breeze-block wall. Within the compound was a collection of squat buildings with tin roofs, which I guessed housed washing machines and dryers and suchlike. The caravans were huge compared to those I was familiar with back home in the UK, some of them silver bullet-shaped affairs, others square and ugly with lean-tos and porches tacked on. There was little in the way of grass or flowers or anything that would offer any beauty, and dust devils whirled across the dirt roads. Cars and trucks with a coating of trail dust were parked outside each trailer.
    As I drove in, I looked at the mailboxes on poles jammed in the grit to determine which Scott’s trailer was. There was no one up and about yet, other than a couple of skinny dogs rooting in the spillage from a trash can. They stopped and watched my approach, but soon went back to tussling over a choice morsel. I continued towards the far end of the park and finally found the caravan I was seeking.
    Parked outside was a battered pick-up truck, alongside a newer jeep. A small lot at the front had once held a flower garden of sorts, but it appeared that Scott wasn’t into watering and weeding. Maybe the garden had been Helena’s way of making the place look more appealing, and now she was no longer around it had been left to return to its natural state.
    I parked the GMC alongside the jeep, but didn’t immediately get out. Scott’s trailer was one of the older square type, with a porch and decking, and an annex had been tacked on at the far left corner making it an L-shaped structure. There were no tyres on the hubs, and it didn’t look like the caravan had moved in many a year, nor would it for many more to come. The windows were covered by Venetian blinds, one of them hanging askew. Through the gap, I could see a face peering back at me. Then it was gone, and I got out the GMC and kept my hands by my sides.
    The door of the trailer slammed open and Scott Blackstock stamped on to the porch, his face twisted with rage. I had been correct in my assumption: he was no Native American. He was tall, with blond hair and green eyes, a spray of freckles across the bridge of his crooked nose. He had a shotgun broken over his left elbow and was in the process of feeding cartridges into both barrels.
    ‘You’re the fuck-shit that called me last night,’ he said, snapping shut the gun and lifting it my way. ‘What do they call you again? Hunter? Well, I’m telling you, get off my