‘Take half now, and half later if you need to … You can take the morning-after tomorrow morning. You may need one after tonight, anyway.’

I think back to Hatchet telling me that this was a safe place where the clients would be vetted.

‘There is no way of making them wear one,’ Irina says. ‘The doctor will come in two days and fit you with a diaphragm.’

I thought those things were only for baggy women who’ve had kids.

‘He can also check you for disease.’

Imagine if it was Doc O’D? His office of good works? I start to chuckle, low and deep in the back of the throat. Irina looks concerned. This particular grade of noise has that effect on people. They think I’m choking.

‘When do I get paid?’

She is rifling through her bag of tricks and doesn’t look at me as she says, ‘At the end of the week.’

‘But yesterday you said it would be today.’

‘Change of plan.’ Her face is all harsh angles, her cheekbones pointed, jutting like they could cut through skin – her own, and someone else’s, if you got too close.

I decide now is not the best time to push this particular line of inquiry, so I choose to believe her, kind of, although Fisticuffs is knocking her weight about in there. ‘Hey,’ she’s saying, ‘wake up, Dummie.’ I’ve been known to ignore her warnings before, and usually by then it’s too late.

I take half the pill (although I have every intention of swallowing the other half just as soon as yer woman is gone), then I succumb to her makeover, her fingers sliding over my face. The warpaint acts as a barrier of sorts. Look at me: I’m so pretty, and I’m caked. I snort.

‘How is your new roommate?’ she asks.

‘Keeps herself to herself. She looks way too young to be doing this kind of thing.’

The woman is silent.

‘I doubt she’s done this before.’ Again, a picture of her in bed beneath Mark grabs me by the throat and rattles me around a bit. ‘Her English is really good, like yours. I can only speak about three sentences of French. Shitty school system we have here. You lot must be doing something right.’

The woman gets out of the chair, gripping onto the side of the table, stands, steadies herself, then leaves, treading heavily this time. She passes Nico, who’s coming out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped tightly around her, skin glistening, and says something to her in their own language. Nico nods.