‘Today, tomorrow. Depends really. I hate them going on the hunts, it sickens me to be honest. I hated it when I was out in Thailand. But the men like it. They’re up in the mountains looking for girls, and the tea plantations have plenty of dirts waiting to be bought for a few quid. We’ll keep them a year then their fathers come and renegotiate or else take the girls home. They’re weird these Asians, you know. They’d sell their fucking grannies for a few rupees. I thought I’d seen it all in Thailand, and the Philippines took some beating, but it’s been going on there for years. Here it’s quite new, and the people are falling over themselves to give us their kids. Ugly little fuckers, a lot of them. At least in Thailand the little girls are cute, and cuteness makes money. Here they all look half-starved and their eyes are pused over. I spend more money on fucking Golden Eye ointment than I do on their food!’ Candy laughed raucously.

Donna felt an urge to slap the woman before her. She watched as a fit of coughing overcame Candy, and saw her spit into a yellow-tinged hanky.

‘How’s this place doing?’

Candy’s coughing fit abated and she took a long swallow of her water.

‘All right. We had a few visits from the local Old Bill, but we soon sweetened them up. A couple of the older girls and a thousand rupees a week saw them off lovely. But you must understand, love. Here, a lot of things are ignored. The caste system is similar to the setup in Thailand. The poor are to be used and abused. That’s the bottom line. They all believe in reincarnation anyway, and are all convinced they’ll come back as the rich cunt next time, so they accept their fate without a second thought. Ignorant as shit, most of them.’

‘Quite.’ The one word conveyed to Candy that Donna put her on a similar level and her face hardened.

‘Listen here, Mrs High and Mighty Brunos. Your old man couldn’t wait to come in with us, and he’s had a good bit of bunce off us since. I assume you shared in it, so don’t you dare sit there and fucking look down your hooter at me, lady. I do what I do because it’s all I know. But I ain’t justifying myself to you or anyone else. You’re here now because it all fell out of bed for a while and your money is drying up. So don’t you dare put yourself above me and mine, I won’t have it. You should have let fucking Stephen or Paddy sort this out, love, if you couldn’t handle it.’