‘The gangs grab girls from wherever they can’ – Hessa squatted down next to Casey – ‘and sell them into bonded labour for, what, two hundred and fifty dollars? Chukri, it’s called. I read somewhere that the Daulatdia girls are forced to take Oradexon. That’s a steroid normally used to fatten up cows for market, for God’s sake. The girls in Daulatdia are forced to take it so they look right for the men. Plump and healthy. Three thousand men visit that place, every single day.’

‘And the younger the girl,’ said Casey, ‘the more the men will pay.’

‘Of course,’ said Hessa. ‘And, of course, that’s where the Rohingya girls ended up, too. Where the Jamuna river meets the holy, dirty mother Padma. It’s so convenient for the customers, that location. There’s the boat terminal, and the train station. And the roads, for the truckers. It’s so advantageous,’ she pronounced the word deliberately, ‘that port position.’

‘Hessa . . .’

‘The pimps were waiting on the beaches.’ Hessa was speaking faster, the words sharp in the dusk. ‘As the refugee boats arrived from Myanmar, the men were waiting for the orphaned girls.’

Hessa jumped to her feet, took a few steps down the beach. The fishermen, home for the day, were fixing their nets, and calling to each other.

‘Why are they so different, Greystone’s girls?’ Hessa turned to Casey. ‘Why are you so determined to help them especially? What’s different about them?’

Casey gazed at the setting sun.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, a lie.

‘What about the girls of Daulatdia?’ Hessa’s voice rose. ‘What about the thousands of women forced into prostitution all over this bloody country? Why don’t we care about them?’

Casey’s hands were digging into the sand. ‘I know, Hessa.’

‘There are lots of girls’ – Hessa eyes were on the horizon – ‘who might even prefer the Greystone life. A medicinal rape,’ she spat the words out, ‘rather than a thousand different men, night after night, for ever. A neat little human incubator, kept comfortable for a few months.’

Casey scrambled to her feet.

‘What do you want me to say, Hessa? You know why we are chasing Greystone. And you know why we are trying to find Romida, wherever the hell she might be.’

‘Because Romida is interesting,’ Hessa said carefully. ‘Because she’s got a strange little connection to Britain. A connection that our readers can understand, all the way back in London. That makes her interesting to us. The little girl, born in a town-sized brothel, we know all about her already. That little girl, trafficked out of the camps and forced to start fucking men when she’s just ten years old, we’ve all known about her, all the way through. She’s a bit dull, that little girl in Daulatdia. She’s an old story.’