‘Yeah, they’re really coming on.’ I followed her gaze to the purple and orange explosions along the far edge of the lawn. ‘They made you some things.’ I pointed to the assortment of pressed flower pictures and miniature bouquets in tin foil vases the kids had made her on the opposite sun-lounger.

She smiled, gazing happily at her kids as they played happily in the pool. David was the first to spot her as the other two chased each other on their pool noodles.

‘We going home, Mama?’

‘When you are ready,’ she said, settling the pictures and bouquets on her lap and sitting on the sun-lounger. ‘You play for now.’

David beamed up at her and showed off his latest trick – a handstand with pointed feet. She applauded when he bobbed back up.

‘Where is their dad?’ I asked.

‘Dead,’ she replied. ‘He used to work for Tenoch as a taxi driver – his car was ambushed one night outside the town. He was taking some American tourists to a club. They bombed his car.’

‘When was this?’

‘Just over a year ago. Emilio knew what he was getting into, but we needed the money. Tenoch has been very good to us, though. He always sees us right. He liked Emilio. And because of Mátilda—’

She stopped short. Paco was sauntering across the terrace with his jacket over his shoulder and a filthy cigar dangling from his lip. He smiled broadly at us and walked into the house. Celestina couldn’t look at him.

‘She’s his,’ she told me, quieter than she had been speaking so I could barely hear her.

‘Huh?’

‘Mátilda. I will never tell her that. Tenoch knows – I told him, thinking he would help me out – he hates rapists like you do – but he needs Paco to do his dirty business for him so he tries to keep us both happy.’

‘You and Paco—’

She shook her head. ‘Not by choice. He makes me feel sick.’

I leaned in and lowered my voice. ‘You work in the same house as the guy who raped you? And you’ve done that for… years?’

‘Yes. We don’t all have family inheritances and kindly drug runners to bail us out, señorita. That’s why I come by so early, so I can avoid el hombre cerdo. The Pig Man.’ She oinked with gusto and Saúl heard her from the pool and chuckled.

I glanced at the happy little girl on her pool noodle and couldn’t quite believe something so beautiful could have come from someone so vile. ‘Does he know?’