“Others?”

“It was like some kind of network. I think some of them might have been illegal.”

“Were they all Pakistani, the men?”

“Most of them, but there were one or two white blokes.”

“Here?”

“No. Just all over the northeast and down in West Yorkshire. Mostly Dewsbury. Some in Bradford. Like I said, they were linked up with other blokes and other girls like us.”

“Every night?”

“Most nights.”

“OK. What happened after that time with the two men?”

“After that it got easier. More often. Sometimes Sunny or Faisal needed to pay back a debt or keep someone happy. They’d drive us all over the place. Stockton, Gateshead, Sunderland, Carlisle. Sometimes we had to stay for days and there were lots of blokes, one after the other.”

“How many men?”

“I dunno. Some nights, you know, like . . . you’d stop counting.”

“That must have been unbearable, Jade.”

“I dunno. Maybe it hurts a bit at first, but usually you’re so off your face with vodka and weed, or whatever, you don’t feel anything.”

“All the girls did this?”

“Eventually. Had to. Yeah.”

“To be with lots of men for sex?”

“Yeah.”

“Always older men?”

“Yeah. Like businessmen and whatever, but some of them were like, you know, more rough, like they worked in factories or garages and stuff.”

“Did Faisal take money from the men you went with?”

“I didn’t ever see him do it, but I’m sure he did.”

“So they were pimping you, renting you out as prostitutes?”

“It didn’t seem like that.” Jade’s voice was a plaintive wail for acceptance. “It really didn’t. They always said how we were welcome to everything they’d given us, and kept on giving us—drinks, food, free taxi rides, jewelry sometimes, mobiles, top-ups, and later some coke and phets and weed. Even money. None of us had, like, jobs, or parents that had any money to give us. Maybe we felt what we did, you know, was like a way of paying for it, doing a favor for a friend. I mean, men wanting sex with me was no big deal. They’ve been doing it since I was twelve, including my first foster father and my stepbrother. I didn’t get a chance to say no to them, either, and they didn’t even pay me for it. Didn’t even offer me a fucking drink. It was the same with Becca and Kath. And Mimsy always had older blokes around her wanting a feel or a quick wank. Even her psychological counselor from the social fucked her and he was supposed to take care of her.”

“Was that your present foster father who raped you?”

“No. This was in Sunderland. It’s better here. They don’t touch me at all, not even a pat on the shoulder or a hug.” She snorted. “They hardly even talk to me.”

“So you were just returning a favor for Faisal?” Gerry said.

“That’s right. Favors.”

“Is that why you didn’t go to the authorities? The social services or the police?”