The crowd inside the barn was going crazy, cheering ‘MATTY, MATTY, MATTY!’ over and over again until Shauna Everett felt that her head was going to burst wide open with the noise of it.

Thirty-five-year-old Matty O’Connor, who had been the all-round reigning bare-knuckle boxing champ for five years, the undisputed king of all he surveyed, was – as predicted – hammering the crap out of young Josh Flynn, Claire Milo’s fiancé, in the makeshift ring.

It wasn’t anything fancy, this ring; the corners were marked out with gas bottles and they’d strung lengths of rope between them so that it looked right, even if they were fighting on a dirt floor. Spectators were standing on hay bales, and lights had been slung up on extension leads that trailed out from the farmer’s house to this big oak barn.

The heat inside the barn tonight was nearly unbearable. This summer the sun – ‘Phoebe’, Claire’s mum called it – had burned down on the country without end, wilting plants and trees, drying streams to nothing, yellowing the grass. There seemed to be no relief anywhere from the heat.

‘MATTY!’ everyone around Shauna was bellowing.

Fuck Matty, she thought.

Shauna Everett’s eyes were glued to Josh. She still couldn’t believe a man who looked like him could be intending to chuck his life away on Claire Milo. She, Shauna, was the woman he deserved, not that gutless little blonde cow. Shauna could see Claire standing across the ring with her sister, Trace. Claire was white-faced and cowering as Matty and Josh fought. Shauna could see how sick Claire was feeling. Whereas Shauna herself felt quite turned on by it all, quite excited. Who wouldn’t be, watching Josh? He was gorgeous – a real hunk of a man.

Win, Josh! Come on then, win! she thought, willing him to do it.

She’d passed word along to the Cleavers of Josh and Claire’s little chat. The boys were pissed off, but forewarned was forearmed so they wouldn’t make a loss on it. They thought it was unlikely that anyone could stand against Matty, anyway.

But Shauna wondered. If Josh did win – by some miracle – then things would change for him. Wild men and suicide fighters would seek him out, because he would be king of the gypsies, the strongest, the toughest man going. Pro boxers would fight him, too, and that was where the money was; if he was clever, he could be made for life.