‘Put that back,’ Karel ordered before he had the chance to pull the tab. ‘And you can all knock the gear on the head tonight,’ he added, his gaze sweeping over the other men. ‘There was probably no one out there, but I’m not taking chances while the gear’s still in the house, so you can pair up and do half-hour walkabouts.’

The men nodded their agreement, and Nick gave a smug smile.

‘Sure you can cope with that, Jacko? There’s all sorts of shit roaming round out there at night, and we all know what a wuss you are. Here . . . maybe it was a fox you heard? I’ve heard they scream like a bitch getting shagged up the arse.’

‘Maybe.’ Jacko shrugged, no longer sure what he’d heard.

‘Don’t give ’em as much tonight,’ Karel cautioned, watching as Nick started drawing the now-liquid heroin into one of the disposable syringes he’d laid out on the ledge. ‘Big Shirl reckons she had complaints about them gouching out last night, and I haven’t fetched them over to get nothing back.’

Nodding, Nick squirted some of the liquid back into the spoon before reaching for the second syringe.

The girls were fast asleep when Nick unlocked their bedroom door a few minutes later, and his dick sprang to life as he gazed at their naked young bodies sprawled on top of the duvet they were sharing. The clothes they’d arrived with had been stashed in the cellar, and their work underwear had been taken off them for washing when he’d brought them back to the farm in the early hours of that morning. But he reckoned they’d have stripped off even if they’d had clothes, because Karel’d had the heating on full-blast since he got here, and the room was as stuffy as hell.

Walking over to the bed, he admired the exposed tits and pussies before letting his gaze drift to Viktorya on the far side of the mattress. Karel had been dosing her up on Ketamine since Nick had battered her, and she’d been dead to the world every time he’d been in here. She was the prettiest of the girls, by far, and she’d shown she had spunk when she’d tried to fight him off – which was always a turn on. It was lucky for her that Karel had walked in when he had, or he’d have given her a damn sight more than a beating. But her time would come – he’d make sure of that.

Conscious that time was drawing on and he needed to get the other girls ready for work, Nick turned his attention back to them and slapped the arse of the one closest to him.

‘Wakey wakey,’ he said in a sing-song voice when her eyes shot open. ‘Time for your medicine.’