Alan smiled at Donna grimly. They both looked towards Stephen who lay slumped in a chair staring ahead as if in a trance. His face was blue and swollen, and he was covered in his own blood. Donna felt nothing as she looked at him.

‘He must have been off his head, Donna, to think he could get away with murder. Did Georgio know you were going to top his wife if needs be?’ Alan dragged Stephen’s face around to look at him.

The wounded man smiled, wincing as the move made his lips crack open once more.

‘He was going to leave her high and dry, mate. Even the money from the house, he planned to take that. He was going to leave you with nothing, darlin’. All this was his baby, he loved it out here.’

‘Shut the fuck up, Stephen!’ Alan’s voice was harsh and Donna, leaning forward in her seat, said, ‘No, let him finish, I want to know.’

Stephen shook his head as if she was a recalcitrant child. ‘You’re a stupid cunt, Donna, you always was. Even now you want to know the truth, don’t you? You’re like my mum; tell the truth and shame the devil.’ He laughed hysterically. ‘She didn’t know the devil was living in her house, the devil and his cohorts.

‘Lewis was unaware that his money was being used for all this. That’s where I was going to sort it all out, see - once Georgio was on the trot. Lewis really believed that I was investing his money, and he was getting a good return on it. I was shitting meself for a while, in case he and Georgio ever got to nattering. That line Georgio spun you about Lewis losing money on the hotels was shite - just a lucky guess. I involved Lewis, and then I was going to row Georgio out, see. Because I set all this up. All I needed was his money, but Georgio being Georgio wanted to run the whole fucking shebang. He even wanted the palatial hotel as well. It was me who fucked all that up. I know my market, see, something Georgio never gave me credit for.’

‘You’re a piece of fucking shite!’

This from Joey, the leader of Alan’s posse. It was delivered in a thick Geordie accent.

Stephen sniggered. ‘So what does that make you lot then, eh? It was the people on this island that made all this possible. They fought hammer and tongs for us to take their kids, buy them off them. Rent them for a year, and then renegotiate. Supply and demand, mate, the British way of doing business.’

Alan shook his head and said half to himself, ‘I still can’t believe what we stumbled on here. Are there any other operations going on? What about in the Smoke?’

Stephen shrugged. ‘What do I get for my information?’