When is it ever any other way? But I want to know more, so I don’t say anything and wait for her to talk. She checks the driver to see he’s not listening. Impossible to tell, but he’s engrossed in some shite pop crap, and anyway, he prefers to pretend we don’t exist so why would he listen?

‘I tell you when we back at room,’ she whispers.

‘Ok,’ I say, even though I feel I’m going to combust. The way he offered his arm to Nico makes me think he’s practised at this. Maybe, in the bedroom, he didn’t touch her, maybe, only then, did he realise how young she is.

We get to the house and walk – like zombies, puppets, ghosts, dolls, half-dead-alive things – to our various rooms. No one goes into the kitchen this morning. Too tired to eat. It’s been a long week.

‘So?’ I say, when we’ve closed the door behind us.

She shrugs.

‘Was he violent? Did he hurt you?’

She shakes her head.

‘Pervy?’ Somehow I know she’ll understand this word, even though it’s probably the first time she’s heard it said, in any language.

‘Are no they all?’ she says, her face tight, hollows below her cheeks and eyes.

I hate to see her look like this. Fuck Doc O’D and the whole ‘I’m a professional man, a man of medicine and a family man’ act. How did I not see him for who he really was? I guess my danger-radar has never been very active. Look at Brian – my first ‘love’. Talk about deluded. I never admitted the half of it, not even to Luce, not even to myself.

‘What did he do to you?’

‘At the beginning he wanted to just look, and then he wanted me to want it …’

‘Jesus wept,’ falls out of my mouth, which almost makes me laugh. It’s like something Dad would say.

This isn’t usual between us; we don’t speak about stuff afterwards, speaking about it only makes it live on. Nico tries to make me talk about what we want to do when we get out of here. I can’t see a future for myself any more – it’s like looking into a vat of black boiling tar – it stinks and burns. Only last night, she told me she wanted to be a teacher. I told her she could be a movie star. ‘And what?’ she said. ‘Be prisoner on screen forever to be look at by any old dirty man?’ Such a clever clogs really, Ms Backwater. She falls silent. I start to change into my PJs, taking the pressure off her.

‘He tried stop, I think,’ she says, after a moment. ‘He asked me questions but I do not think he want answer. He saw this,’ she points to the shiner, ‘and still … he tried his “fun” …’