‘Their case involved international paedophile rings, Mr Lewis. They turned Queen’s evidence against the others in their ring. That’s why they’re in here. No one saw their faces before or after the trial. Now Georgio is frightened they’re going to blow his cover, I don’t know what made him think that, or what they might have said to him. All I know is what I read off his lips, and you have to do something about it. You’re the only person I can trust with this. And now, Mr Lewis, my life is in your hands. My gift is also now at your disposal, I realise that.’

Lewis nodded at the logic of what Sadie said. Her gift, as she put it, would be very handy, very handy indeed.

‘But why are you telling me all this really? Come on, Sadie, I know you. What’s really behind this? You was stuck up Brunos’s arse for ages, I thought you was his best mate.’

Sadie threw back the scotch and coughed heartily, her eyes watering at the unaccustomed alcohol.

‘I was fucked rigid by them when I was twelve. They hurt me and they hurt me bad. I wouldn’t wish what happened to me on anyone, Mr Lewis. Especially not a small child - say a three year old. Even you couldn’t countenance that, surely?’

Donald Lewis, psychopath, sociopath, cruel-minded and evil as he could be, mass of contradictions and twisted in his perceptions of right and wrong, could not, under any circumstances, countenance that. Not in prison anyway. The other men would never allow it, no matter who it was. It was this fact that Sadie was relying on.

‘You did well, Sadie love,’ he told her now. ‘And as you point out, your little gift will be an asset to me. I’ll look after you now, you’re under my protection. I’ll sort this out, don’t you fret your little head any more over any of it.’

Sadie smiled. ‘Thanks, Mr Lewis.’

She went back to the rec room and Georgio winked at her as she sat down to watch Emmerdale. She smiled gently at him and then turned her face to the screen. But she wasn’t seeing the pictures before her, she was seeing two men, a dark smelly room, could smell faeces and blood mixed with sweat, the men’s breath laden with brandy and cigarette smoke, and she was hearing a child’s crying, a child’s terror.

The child was herself.

Davey walked into his house at eleven-thirty. He was half-drunk and tired. He slipped off his leather jacket and placed it on the banister at the bottom of the stairs. Yawning slightly, he walked into the front room.