Harmony had wondered if this would come up. Technically it was true, but as much as he had spent on her, she had felt compelled to spend in excess of what she had, pulled into a lifestyle that she couldn’t afford, and wasn’t even sure, looking back, she had enjoyed. Perhaps she had. Perhaps wanting to find it magical had made it so.

“I can . . . I can pay you back,” she stammered, and it was a lie, but it was the only thing left. The only way to take control. “I can . . . ”

“I don’t need money.” Not even looking at her, a dismissal, powerful again, made powerful by her offer.

“Towards the rent, or something, like . . . two hundred pounds?”

“Babe, that’s less than a week.”

“Five hundred?”

“You can’t buy me back.”

“I just want us to be . . . for things to be fair between us. Settled. I want to . . . close things off.”

In the end, she promised him £700. He didn’t need the money; that wasn’t the point.

Most of her credit cards were maxed out, but there was one which extended her overdraft without her even needing to talk to the bank. She just needed to click on a box on her online banking, and that was that.

Jazzy exploded. “YOU GAVE HIM MONEY? Now he thinks he can fucking control you! He can control you! You think the photos are going to go away? You think this makes it better? HE OWNS YOU NOW!”

At first, she thought Jazzy was wrong.

The photos vanished from Facebook, and stayed vanished for three weeks, and she didn’t pursue her complaint with the company.

Then they began to return, along with missed calls from an unknown number.

She texted him:

Take down the photos and stop calling me.

He replied:

I don’t know what you mean.

She got a lawyer to send him a letter. That cost £240.

A moderator finally saw the images of her naked flesh paraded online and removed them. Didn’t shut down the account – that would have been a bit much – but sent Jiannis a warning over inappropriate content.

Jazzy said, “You just have to ignore him. That’s all that’s left. I’ve got a friend in the police; she says that if they haven’t broken the law, that’s all you can do. It’s all you can do.”

And in the end, it was.

By then it was too late.

Chapter 28

The pimple on her chin was the first sign that the debt was out of control.

“Are my nanos malfunctioning? Do I need to go to hospital? Is there a programming error? Are they . . . doing things?”

“ . . . so there are a few boosts that will be shutting down in the next twenty-four hours, including Rise and Shine, Fresh and Perky, Powerful Poise . . . ”

“So, Harmony. This office, it’s . . . well, it’s a very specific clientele we deal with, and our people, they’re the brand. The boys in Enfield are great; they’re really . . . ”