‘Will you be long?’ Irena asked, but he walked out without replying.

Following him with her eyes, Viktorya looked up at Irena when he and Nick had left the house.

‘He is your husband?’

Irena shook her head and walked over to the bin to dispose of the bloodied cotton wool.

‘He treat you like wife,’ Viktorya said, her voice sounding a little slurred.

‘This is because he love me, and we will be marry,’ Irena said, asserting her authority to let the girl know that there was no point flirting with him again. ‘Now come . . .’ She held out her hand. ‘You need rest.’

‘I do not feel good,’ Viktorya said, swaying when Irena helped her to her feet.

Aware that the drugs Karel had given her were taking hold and she could fall unconscious at any moment, Irena opened the back door and called for one of the men who were outside cleaning the caravan to come inside.

‘What’s up?’ Gaz Ahmed asked, wiping his hands on a dirty rag as he strolled in.

‘I need help to take girl to bed,’ Irena told him, nodding at Viktorya who was slumped in the chair, mouth open, eyes rolling in their sockets.

Gaz looked at the girl, and Irena saw anger flare in his dark eyes.

‘Nick?’ he said, more statement than question.

Irena nodded but didn’t elaborate. All the men on Karel’s payroll were capable of extreme violence, and that was why he kept them close and paid them so well. Nick aside, Irena had never seen any of them mistreat a woman, and Gaz, in particular, had always been polite and courteous. But, still, she would never make the mistake of badmouthing one of his friends to him, because she’d long ago learned that the men’s loyalties lay firmly with each other.

‘I will stay here to make drinks,’ she said when Gaz scooped Viktorya gently up off the chair. ‘Leave her with other girls, and please do not forget to lock door.’

Nodding, Gaz carried Viktorya out as if she weighed little more than a feather. When he’d gone, Irena filled the kettle and placed bread under the grill while she waited for it to boil.

Gaz trotted back down the stairs a few minutes later.

‘The farmer needed the loo, so I took him,’ he told her. ‘Now he reckons he needs his medication. He says you know where it is?’

‘I will take to him once I have serve men,’ Irena said, placing the plate of toast she’d just buttered onto a tray alongside the cups of tea she’d poured from the big pot.

‘You’re all right, I’ll take it,’ Gaz said, picking the tray up. ‘You go see to him.’