‘She deserves to be trampled into the dust. We were slaves! We were owned! She is beaten, but she is not humiliated like we were. Make her cower. Make her flinch when we raise our hand to her. That is all she understands, that the strong do what they want, and the weak have to suffer what they will.’ Stanislav sat up, back to the table. ‘She will try to kill us if we do not do these things. Break her will, and we will be safe.’

‘I can’t go along with that.’

‘Then you are one of the weak, and you will always be a slave.’

Dalip stared at the man, who’d he’d spent hours with. He knew Stanislav was hard, driven, and unsympathetic, but as long as he’d worked hard and not spared his effort, his teacher had seemed not just satisfied, but actually pleased. Yes, he’d had moments where he’d disliked the man, but they were fleeting, because he could see the point to his training – staying alive long enough to escape.

It had turned out that Stanislav wasn’t putting on an act, and that he was actually like that.

‘Mary had it all under control, and look, I’m not the only one who thinks you went too far.’

‘Not far enough, I say.’

‘You were trying to rape her in front of everyone! What the hell did you expect us to do? Watch?’

‘That is how humiliation works.’

Now Dalip slipped into despair. ‘Where did you learn this stuff, Stanislav? Normal people don’t think like this. They don’t. They just don’t.’

‘This is war, you stupid boy. This is anarchy. This is all the places you read about in the newspapers and see on the television and are glad that you do not live there. Do you think normal, civilised, nice people live in such places? No, only two sorts of creatures: wolves and sheep. No shepherds. The wolves eat the sheep whenever and wherever they like.’ He snorted. ‘And now the sheep have the chance to kill one of the wolves and still they bleat.’

‘So which are you?’

‘I had to become a wolf because I did not want to be a sheep. You, you were becoming a wolf too, but no. The sheep have dragged you back into their fold.’ Stanislav screwed his face up in disgust. ‘Baaaaa.’

Dalip slid down the door, still barring the man opposite from leaving.

‘Where were you?’

Stanislav equivocated for a moment, pressing at the various lumps on his head.

‘Bosnia.’