Page 36 of Slack Tide Kill

Eszter spoke, and the app translated, though all the pain was cut from the intonation. "It will not be OK. We will be sent back now." Her eyes flared. "And I cannot go back!"

Brampton stepped forward. "I think that's enough," she said gently. "She'll have to go through all this again for the formal statement."

Sally squeezed Eszter's hand. "Will she be sent back?"

Brampton sighed. "Not tonight. Maybe never, if she successfully applies for asylum. But that's a complex process. Honestly, I don't know."

Sally turned back, looking into this young woman's desperate eyes. The fear was still there, but deeper now, and it stung Sally. Slowly, carefully, she extricated her fingers. "Thank you for helping us, Eszter. You're safe now. Just one last question."

Eszter looked at her numbly.

"We found a Labubu doll in the shack. Silver, with rainbow hair." She held out her phone, showing the photograph. "Was it yours?"

Tears glimmered in Eszter's eyes, then she answered in halting English. "Yes. From my… uh. Little sister. Before…"

She stopped talking. Sally's heart chilled. A doorway to greater misery.

"We'll get it back to you as soon as we can. And we'll do whatever we can for you, Eszter. I promise."

Sally stood. The girl at the table seemed very small and forlorn, and it broke her heart to walk away.

"You don't want to talk to the others?" Brampton asked quietly, falling in beside her.

"I don't think it's necessary. Like you said, it's traumatizing enough to say it once."

"For everyone," Brampton said. She paused near the lobby. "It was bad at that farm, Officers. I'm seeing injuries consistent with rape."

Liam sucked in a sharp breath. "What about rape kits?"

"We raised it with the girls. They didn't answer, but that's not uncommon." She took a moment. "We'll know more when the translator comes. Have you arrested the men responsible?"

Sally's jaw clamped tightly. "We've got one. We'll get the others."

"Good. They're clearly very dangerous."

Brampton started to pull away, back to where she was needed, but Sally called after her. "What do I have to do, to get their claims moved up the pile?"

Brampton eyed her. Like she was passing judgment. "It's not easy. A statement of investigative interest, possibly? Your signature, on Agency letterhead, saying these girls are witnesses of value in a live murder inquiry and that removal would prejudice it. But that doesn't seem to be true."

"Are you investigating this case?" Sally countered.

The woman frowned. Then nodded. "No. You are. I'll send the paperwork."

Sally glanced back across the hall. Eszter was still at the folding table, very small under the sepia photographs. "I'll get it signed. Thank you."

Liam said nothing as they returned through the crowd of press to the Mustang, though Sally didn't start the engine straight away.

They sat in silence for a moment. Thinking about the look in Eszter's eyes. She'd expected to see relief, maybe even hope, but only despair burned through.

"That was a nice thing to do," Liam said at last. "You're doing everything possible for those girls."

Sally looked at him. Maybe that was true. Maybe not. Either way, she wasn't going to forget.

She turned the key and pulled away from the old fire station.

17 SWAMP BEASTS

Liam directed her out of Lydd and southwest on Jury's Gap Road. The Romney marshes lay to their right, the Dungeness shingle on their left, while the road ahead was empty.