Evan shook his head slowly, unable to imagine his father being that vulnerable, that helpless. But the man who had brought him up would never willingly allow drugs to be brought into his house, so something must have happened to make him change his mind.

Irena.

His lip twisted into a sneer when her name entered his head. She’d caused nothing but trouble since turning up here that night, and he was sure she must have had a hand in whatever was going on in there. She’d claimed she had escaped her abusive husband and was in fear of her life, but what if . . .

Tutting when the hazy thought refused to solidify into something tangible, Evan raised the binoculars again and saw that the men at the kitchen table had finished counting the money, and the gobby Manc and Irena’s brother were both sniffing thick lines of coke while one of the others bagged the neat wads of banknotes.

His mobile phone suddenly started ringing, the raucous strains of Born To Be Wild shattering the silence. Cursing himself for not thinking to put it on silent, Evan ducked his head and scuttled away from the fence when the man who’d gone into the caravan a few minutes earlier appeared at the door and peered in his direction.

His heart was pounding when he let himself into the cottage, and his pulse was thundering in his ears as he fumbled with the lock and the bolt. He stared out through the window when he’d managed it, searching the shadows for signs that he’d been followed.

When nobody appeared, he released the breath he’d been holding and slid his phone out of his pocket to see who had tried to call him. It was Jo, and he contemplated calling her back to tell her what he’d seen, but immediately dismissed the idea. His sister was headstrong, and if he told her what was going on she would get straight on the phone to their dad, and those men would know that he was spying on them. And, given what he’d just seen, if they came after him, he wouldn’t stand a chance.