Greg shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe Sammy was skimming, though I’d have thought he’d know better than that after being trained by Lenny G.”

“Did Samir take drugs?”

“He did a little coke. I think it was mostly a matter of being like one of the big boys, you know, to fit in, be one of the lads. I mean, I don’t think he had a serious habit or anything.”

“Might he have stolen from the new boss?”

“Samir? I don’t think so. Maybe he threatened to tell or something? Or they did it as a warning, or to teach someone else a lesson? I don’t know. I’ve got to go now.”

They watched him walk across the Asda lot and go back into the garage. “I’ll talk to him later,” Blackstone said. “I don’t think he’s going anywhere.” Then he glanced at his watch and looked at Banks. “How convenient. Time for an early dinner.”

ZELDA HADN’T slept very well the previous night, either, but it had nothing to do with Banks’s proximity. She liked Alan well enough, but not in that way. If truth be told, she never thought of men in that way at all. Even Raymond, though she had gone to his bed of her own free will. She had been living alone in a caravan at the artists’ colony he had invited her to join for three months before she went to him for the first time. She didn’t know why. He was old, but he wasn’t fat, and he didn’t smell of fried chicken, sweat and cheap cigars. He smelled of paint and turpentine. That first night, she slid between the sheets beside him, and he put his arm around her and held her to him. She fell asleep with her head resting on his shoulder and, for the first time in weeks, she had no nightmares. She would have been happy just to lie down with him and talk and cuddle forever, but, later, things took their natural course. Now she felt lucky that even though they were together in that way, Raymond was gentle and undemanding in his lovemaking, and it was far from the be-all and end-all of what kept them together. With Raymond, that was probably down to age; with Zelda it was experience.

The memories, the associations, were simply too disturbing. When your body becomes a plaything for monsters, you come to hate it. A lot of the girls she had met self-harmed. The masters didn’t like that. Their punishments were severe but never left marks. Some girls even succeeded in committing suicide, and there was nothing the masters could do about that except take it out on the ones still left alive.