Alan looked into the battered and swollen face and finally, after long moments, answered him.

‘You get out of here, that’s what you get. Then you disappear off the face of the earth, mate, because I’m going to put the word all over the streets about you, Brunos. About all this, about your wonderful achievements in Asia with little kids.’

Stephen had the grace to look away, knowing he was caught up in something that was now beyond his control.

‘So how are Jack and JoJo involved?’

Stephen dabbed at a trickle of blood and swallowed heavily before answering.

‘Jack wanted out pretty much from the start, but you know Jack and JoJo. Where JoJo leads, Jack inevitably follows. They sort out the printing of the merchandise over in England. The books are big money, you’d be surprised the number of men who want what we supply. Georgio’s brainchild was the modem. You know what he’s like with computers. It was one step on from what we were doing here, see? We videoed the kids, took photos, and then we marketed them. Georgio thought up the first batch of titles. Now we’re worldwide, thanks to a contact we found in a northern university. He marketed the stuff for us over the Internet, then we just decided to do it for ourselves.’

‘And what about the children, Stephen?’ Donna’s voice was empty.

‘What about them? Like I said earlier, they were bought and paid for, Donna.’

He grinned at her then, knowing it was killing her hearing all the gory details.

‘Some of the kids are quite good at it, you know,’ he went on conversationally. ‘In fact, with these Asian kids, it’s a kind of knack they’ve got. They’re scum, and we have a permanent supply.’

Alan’s fist hit Stephen on the side of the head with such force it split his ear open, nearly tearing it off.

‘I’ll fucking kill you, Brunos, do you hear me?’ he snarled.

Donna watched, expressionlessly.

Joey topped up her glass of lemonade and said in a low voice, ‘I was offered into all this like, but I knocked it back. I’m glad I did and all. Every time I look at my own kids, I’ll think of these poor little fuckers. Some of the kids here don’t even know where they’re from. We’ll have to take them to one of the Catholic missions, I think. Let them sort it out. When the parents finally arrive the locals will explain what’s happened. The trouble is, a lot of the time the parents sell the kids and then forget about them.’ He ran his hands nervously through his thick wiry hair.