‘When I was doing my research,’ Casey said, ‘before this trip, I was reading an article about a surrogate who presented for a routine examination over in Delhi. She was eight months pregnant. As she was waiting for the doctor, she collapsed. They delivered her child by C-section, on the spot, cutting the foetus out of her just like that. And they rushed the baby to the best hospital they could find, money no object. That meant the baby survived. That precious little baby lived. The mother wasn’t even taken to hospital. And who has the right to do that to another person? Who gets to make that choice?’

‘That choice is made every day in Daulatdia.’

‘Fine, Hessa.’ Casey spun towards her. ‘You know exactly why we are interested in the Greystone girls. Because our readers are interested in Greystone, and Harley Street, and well-groomed wives in Hampstead. Because our readers know someone who knows someone who might have visited Greystone. And they don’t give a shit about the girls in Daulatdia.’

There was a long silence, two women staring out to sea.

‘Yes, I know,’ said Hessa quietly. ‘Greystone is a story.’

Hessa turned, walking back up the beach, trudging past the hawkers.

And Casey sat, for a long time, folded up on the sand.

When Casey looked up, one of the huge supertankers was tracking across the horizon. She knew she should get back to the safety of the hotel, but she watched the ship just the same. It must be heading south, from Chittagong’s huge port. Tonnes of cheap Bangladeshi goods, off to Indonesia or Malaysia or Australia. As the night closed in, Casey watched the ship lumber along, its lights flashing. Red and green, port and starboard, ponderous as a funeral. There was another ship, not far behind, and another, and another, and another. Hypnotic, a chain of lights where the sea met the sky.

She heard a movement behind her, and Ed sat down beside her on the sand.

‘I thought you might be out here. Everything OK?’

‘Not really.’

For a few minutes, they watched the ships together in silence. Little glimmers on the horizon, vast engines dragging the world along.

‘It’s strange, isn’t it?’ Casey said. ‘Almost every element of international trade depends on those huge ships, and we barely ever even see them.’

‘Always just over the horizon.’

‘Yes,’ said Casey. ‘I suppose it is telling, that one of the biggest industries in the world exists invisibly.’

She thought about the vast ships, riding the tides, into every corner of the world.

Ed laughed. ‘Cynic.’