Back around 2004, Heather said, the whole industry got started in India. Well, we outsource everything else, don’t we? Who do you speak to when you call up your bank to scream about a lost credit card? You might as well do the same with kids, I suppose. Maybe. Anyway. So surrogacy in India became a massive business: 25,000 children a year was a low-end estimate, which made it an industry worth billions. Well, you can’t put a price on hope, can you? But gradually, the Indian government went off the idea. A few big stories about problems. Kids not being handed over by the surrogates. Dodgy parents, all that. Cold feet about the whole thing. Gradually, India brought in more rules, more regulations. They banned gay couples, who are a big part of the market. So the industry moved over to Thailand, and Nepal too. Then those countries changed the law. The industry moved to Cambodia, which was especially popular with the Chinese. That got shut down too. Then on to Laos. Ukraine’s a big market too. It’s meant to be more regulated, these days. But is it? Fuck knows.

You should talk to Alicia Dalgleish, Heather went on. You know, the chair of the Foreign Affairs select committee. She’s very hot on it all. Believes in a woman’s right to do whatever she wants with her body. And that sort of makes sense too, if you think about it. But who knows really?

‘Thanks so much, Heather.’ Casey had rung off, before digging back into her research again.

Now Casey spun her laptop round towards Hessa and Miranda. A website smiled back, swirly pink writing over a pretty couple on a beach, strolling hand in hand with a toddler.

No problems: your journey. No hassles: your dream. Come as a couple, leave as a family.

Hessa and Miranda studied the computer.

‘This was an old website I found in Thailand.’ Casey clicked around the photographs.

‘What’s an IP?’ asked Miranda.

‘An intended parent,’ said Casey. ‘At that place, they threw in bonus sex selection too.’

‘Some of these families use surrogates because of serious health problems, you know,’ said Hessa. ‘Ovarian cancer, uterine cancer, hysterectomies. I read about it at home last night.’

Miranda looked at Hessa thoughtfully. ‘And now the industry has migrated to Bangladesh?’ She turned back to Casey.

‘Maybe. Who knows? Thailand cracked down after baby Gammy,’ Casey explained. ‘That was when an Australian couple hired a Thai woman to carry a child. Then they found out she was having twins, and one of them had Down’s. The surrogate claimed she was told to abort the Down’s baby, but wouldn’t, and she ended up keeping the Down’s baby and handing over the other one. Then the Thai surrogate found out that the Australian father had been done for child abuse, and things really went downhill. The IPs kept their child though.’