‘So you want me to drive to Manchester and back, twice?’ Nick asked.

‘You got a problem with that?’ Karel snarled.

Nick thought about it for a second, his eyes fixed on Karel’s. Then, tutting, he said, ‘Nah, I ain’t got no problem.’

‘Good,’ Karel said coolly. ‘And make sure that one’s arms and legs are straight while you’re up there, ’cos you don’t want it stuck in some weird position that’ll make it hard to get rid of when you get back.’

Nick barged past Irena without answering, and marched up the stairs. When he’d gone, Karel dumped a pile of coke on the tabletop and roughly chopped it into two lines before snorting them both. Throwing his head back as the powder burned a path from his nose to his brain and rushed through his veins, he gritted his teeth and slammed his hands down on the table.

The noise startled Frank, and he turned his head in time to see Karel pummel his chest with his fists before leaping to his feet.

‘Right, go and get tooled up and start the beemer,’ Karel ordered Jacko. ‘We’re going to pay a little visit to the cunt who sold me that shit.’

Jacko nodded, and made his way out to the caravan. Seconds later, Nick came down the stairs, shoving the girls, who had now had their injections and didn’t seem to know or care where they were, ahead of him.

‘Let’s go,’ he said, jerking his head at Gaz.

Gaz got up and reached for his jacket, and Frank noticed him give an unimpressed shake of his head before following Nick out to the van.

Only one of Karel’s men remained in the room. Frank didn’t know this one’s name, because the others only ever seemed to address him as ‘Yo!’ He raised an eyebrow when Karel said, ‘You stay here and keep guard, Scotty. Anything happens, shoot the fuckin’ lot of them.’

‘Wait for me,’ Viktorya squawked, hurrying after Karel when he strode out into the hall.

‘You ain’t coming,’ he said, yanking his coat off a hook behind the front door.

‘I am not stay with her,’ she protested, glancing nervously back at Irena. ‘She hate me.’

‘Grow up,’ Karel said dismissively, pushing her aside and marching out, slamming the door behind him and locking it with the mortice key.

Scotty had gone outside, and Frank saw the flare of a lighter in the darkness outside the kitchen window as the man paused to light a cigarette before heading over to the caravan, no doubt to get his gun. Alone with Irena when Viktorya scuttled up the stairs, Frank sank down onto a chair.

‘She’s dead, then?’ he said. ‘The girl upstairs?’

‘Yes,’ Irena said quietly. ‘I try, but it was too late.’