“They didn’t know. I certainly never told any of them and I’m pretty sure Mimsy didn’t. They might have guessed, but I doubt it. We kept a low profile. And we didn’t really hang out with lads like Albert and Paul. They were older and they didn’t want anything to do with us. I mean, Albert’s Mimsy’s big brother and Paul’s even older than him, so we did see them sometimes in the mall or wherever. They never came down to the Strip. Not their sort of people. They don’t like foreigners. Maybe they were too thick to figure out what was happening. I certainly was.”

“In what way?”

“Do I have to spell it out?”

“Try, Jade. For me.”

Jade turned silent for a moment, then began hesitantly. “Well, it was all right at first, like, being Faisal’s girlfriend and all that. I thought he really liked me. He’d tell me I was pretty and stuff. Me! I mean, Mimsy was really sexy and all, but me?”

Gerry realized she had no idea what Jade looked like. All she knew was a husky whisper on the telephone and a silhouette in the dark sitting beside her now. She said nothing.

“Sometimes I’d stay at his flat all night,” Jade went on. “He had a smaller place, like, next door to Sunny’s. It was a bit cramped and the wallpaper was peeling, but it was OK. It didn’t smell too bad. He even got me a mobile just so he could text me when I was at school and stuff. It was cool. Ismail owned the minicab office next door and we’d go everywhere in taxis, like real ladies. We even went as far as Newcastle once, for a party with some of their mates. Like they’d do anything for us.”

“When did things start to change?”

“Not long. Maybe a month or two since we’d known them. One night I went down and there was just Faisal. It was late, like, after the takeaway had closed. We went up to the flat and there were two other guys there. Faisal said they were cousins of his visiting from Dewsbury. They seemed nice enough. We had a few drinks, like, and I was getting pretty wasted, then Faisal sort of leaned over and said that Namal, that was one of his cousins, liked me. And I could see Namal looking at me and smiling and stuff. And Faisal said it would be nice if I could show him a good time.”

“How did you react to that?”

“I nearly fell off my fucking chair laughing, didn’t I?”

“And what did Faisal say?”

“He said it was OK, it was like a family thing. It was the way families did things where he was from and there was nothing wrong with it. They shared. It was a mark of respect. Everyone did it.”