‘Not much privacy and hardly soundproof,’ Val remarked, eyeing the wooden partitions that separated each conjoined stall, only around six feet in height and stopping well short of the stable’s ceiling.

‘So?’ Baz grinned suggestively, ‘some sound effects from next door might add to the eroticism, wouldn’t you say?’

Val gave a mirthless snort. ‘Yes, you might be right. I don’t suppose soldiers after a quick fuck’ll be all that fussy about privacy.’

And yet, she could well remember those shy boys, some of them virgins, whom she’d serviced all those years ago. They wouldn’t have liked this set-up at all, she thought. God, they’d been sweet boys, those young ones. Several had even been brought along by their father, who considered it time they lost their cherry. She smiled at the memory; of course the dads had been clients of hers, too.

Ah well, she told herself, looking about at the stables, beggars can’t be choosers. ‘Yep, this’ll do,’ she said.

‘And there are the bedrooms in the farmhouse,’ Baz suggested, ‘we can …’

‘Nope,’ she cut him short, ‘they’ll be reserved for poker. We’ll get rid of the beds and set up a card table in each room. The brothel remains strictly out here, and we don’t publicise it.’

‘Why not?’ Baz was puzzled. There was big money in brothels, as Val well knew.

‘Because to publicise the place as a brothel would call a lot of attention from the authorities, both military and civic,’ she firmly replied. ‘Like I told you before, Baz, the club is to be legit, the hookers are a sideline. We’ll have girls here for the men to dance with and there’ll be a few of them willing to make themselves available if the blokes want to fork out a bit more for a fuck. Do you get my drift?’

‘Sure, Boss,’ he backed off immediately, ‘sure, whatever you say.’

Under Baz’s instruction, the team of workers he’d organised set about clearing anything and everything unnecessary from the house and the barn and the stables, the whole lot being unceremoniously dumped into the tractor shed.

Johnno, the young, ginger-haired, hired hand, looked on in horror. The whole place was being gutted – what would Ned say? But it wasn’t up to him to interfere, he told himself. Baz had upped his wages, paying cash in advance what’s more, and Baz had told him to employ another worker to help him. A worker who was to be paid the same wages he’d previously received himself as the hired hand. Which now made him the boss. A foreman no less.