My mother stared at me as if I’d just asked the last time she’d picked her nose and eaten it. ‘For the girls,’ she said, ‘I’ve used him for the girls. He’s discreet and he treats them well.’

‘And he’s gorgeous,’ said Dina, one of Kailash’s favourites, a tiny little redhead from Dublin.

‘How does that help?’ I asked. ‘I think I’d prefer it was some ugly bloke cutting me up rather than one who I was going to embarrass myself about. I’d want to know he knew what he was doing rather than just been making himself look good.’

‘He does,’ said Dina, ‘he knows exactly what he’s doing. But where’s the harm in having someone who you wouldn’t kick out of bed?’

‘Who wouldn’t you kick out of bed?’ asked Rochelle, an Amazonian New Yorker who was one of Kailash’s newest acquisitions. Kailash had been on a bit of a spree lately, bringing in quite a lot of new workers, and I liked this girl a lot–she still seemed as if she was in control, as if she could walk away from this life any minute. ‘If they pay enough, they get to stay even if they look like…’ She paused. ‘A shitey arse. Right?’ Kailash had an international operation. Listening to this United Nations of whores always made me laugh: it was like foreign footballers on the telly suddenly coming out with Glaswegian accents just because they’d been at Celtic for a month. ‘This guy? Your mom put me in touch with him when I first got here,’ she told me. ‘I knew a few surgeons back home who were okay with working girls, but this one–he’s actually a nice guy. Doesn’t want to turn us all into porno lookalikes–looks at what you’ve got and makes it even better.’

‘What’s he like off duty?’ asked Dina.

‘Arrogant,’ I said.

‘The best surgeons are…Why has he retained you?’ Kailash asked. ‘You don’t do commercial work.’

‘I don’t think it’s commercial.’

‘Well, you don’t do medical negligence cases either,’ she said.

‘For the sort of money he’s offering, I could learn. Anyway, I don’t know what his exact problem is and if I did I wouldn’t tell you…client confidentiality,’ I said. All I knew was that Marshall had seemed to hint that it would be a criminal charge. ‘I’m sorry I wrecked the dinner. Was Connie disappointed?’

‘Yes, she was, but she’ll get over it. She’s all drama and hormones just now anyway.’ I looked closely at my mother when she said this, but there was no sign of resentment. I was born when Kailash was only thirteen–she hadn’t had the luxury of being a stroppy teenager like my half-sister Connie.

‘What about you? Do you forgive me?’ I asked.