“Yes,” says the girl, “Irina lives here. Irina Blazhko. But she went out somewhere. And Lena, too. Maybe twenty minutes ago.”

“Lena went out for cigarettes,” says another girl. “I don’t know where Irina went.”

They lead Andriy and Emanuel to the common room in the barn, where the cigarette machine and telephone box are installed, but neither Lena nor Irina is there. A crowd of strawberry-pickers has gathered, and now they’re all milling around looking for the missing girls in the caravan field, the packing shed, the barn, the yard. There is an air of excitement and chaos. Everyone wants to know what’s going on. Then he notices something that makes his heart stop-the black four-by-four has disappeared from the yard.

Is he too late? Where have they gone? Maybe they’re already on their way back to Dover. Or maybe, yes-the same place they stopped for lunch. Good place for make possibility. That’s where Vulk will have taken them. He tries not to think about what might be happening to the girls. Focus on what’s possible. Just get there quick. He’s glad he left the caravan behind.

“Let’s go! Let’s go, Emanuel! Dog! Dog!”

The useless animal has disappeared. He’ll have to come back for it later.

Without the caravan to slow them down, it takes less than twenty minutes to get back to the grassy picnic place. He stops a few metres short of the turning, then inches forward, as slowly and quietly as he can. Yes, as he guessed, the black four-by-four is there, parked a little way up the track, beyond the ruined picnic table, pulled well in under the overhanging branches of a tree. He brings the Land Rover in, so they are blocking the exit. Wait-are you crazy, Andriy Palenko? This type’s a killer. But the comforting weight of the gun on his thigh gives him courage. He jumps down silently. Emanuel jumps down too. Together, keeping close to the bushes, they sneak down the track.

As they get near the four-by-four, he notices that it’s moving-it seems to be bouncing up and down rhythmically on its springs. He hears some muffled moaning and grunting from inside. The monster! The devil’s bum-wipe!

They creep closer. The light has started to fade. The windows of the vehicle are of darkened glass and steamed up from inside, so at first it’s impossible to see what’s going on in there. Then he notices a centimetre gap at the top of the driver’s side window. He presses up close, cupping his hands round his eyes. Inside, the seats have been pulled down into a bed and he sees a woman’s figure lying there, naked, her pale breasts casually exposed, her head thrown back, her white knees spreadeagled. And between those fragile girlish knees Vulk’s solid rump is hammering away, up and down, up and down. “Stop!”

Rockets explode inside his skull. All his plans and tactics are blown away. All he can do is bang on the window with his fists, howling “Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!”

The couple inside the vehicle stop dead. Andriy glimpses a gleam of purple as Vulk, still massively engorged, withdraws from the girl. Raising himself on his forearms, he flings back his head and bellows, “Yrrhaaa!” Then he flops forward onto the girl with a groan.

The girl lifts her head and turns her face towards the window, her eyes like empty wells, her mouth sagging open. But what has she done to her hair? He realizes in that instant that it is not Irina.

As she catches his eye watching her at the window, the girl’s mouth opens wider. She screams. She cannot move; she is pinioned under Vulk’s vast belly. She tries to raise herself, struggling frantically. Suddenly Andriy is aware of a tremor from Emanuel, who is standing beside him, craning to see through the chink with apparent enthusiasm.

“Emanuel! Go back to Land Rover! This is not good for you to see.”

Emanuel turns to him with a cryptic smile.

“Canal knowledge!”

What has got into him?

Now the couple in the vehicle have started to scramble into their clothes, the girl is covering herself with her arms, her thin childish body trembling, and Vulk is trying to get a grip on his trousers, which are stuck on his boots around his ankles. But he can’t do it-he just can’t do it in the cramped space in the back of the four-by-four, so he opens the door, thrusts his thick legs out, and struggles into his trousers with a pained grimace. Andriy is waiting for him.

“What type of devil are you?” he shouts. His rage gives him courage-and the weight of the gun in his pocket. “Why for you take this young girl?”

“You bleddy idiot! I kill you!” Vulk’s jaw is twitching, his fists clenching and unclenching as he wrestles to ease the zip over his monstrosity.

“Where is Irina?”

“Not here. It is not here. You bleddy fool. You can see. This is another.”

“Where is Irina? I know you been after her.”

“Irina is running. Running from Vulk. All time running.”

He half expects Vulk to draw a gun on him, but either he has not replaced it yet or he has decided that he needs nicotine more than an armed showdown, for he now gives up the struggle with his zip, lights a cigar with shaking hands, and starts puffing away as though his life depends on it, sucking the smoke in through his teeth.

“Listen,” he mutters, “if you find this Irina, I vill pay you for it. Good money.”

Andriy feels a mixture of relief and disgust.

“Why for you want her? You have this girl now.”

Vulk puffs, enveloping Andriy in a cloud of smoke, his stained teeth chomping on the cigar. His lips are pink and moist. He licks them with his tongue, a quick movement, like a snake.

“Irina is better. Better class girl. No boyfriend. Hrr. I like it.”

“You degenerate pensioneer. Why you not find nice babushka to fuck?”

“Young girl is good for old man.” Vulk’s snake-tongue flicks across his lips. “Mek him nice stifFy. Good business.”

Wreathed in smoke, he resumes the tussle with his zip, and breathes a grunt of relief as it slides up at last. Andriy stares, despite himself fascinated by the physicality of the man, those greedy eyes, that smile of possession, that gross bulk stretched tight as a drum above his trouser belt, the little flecks of dandruff like droppings of mortality on his collar. So this is how evil is embodied.

“Is it for love you want? Or business?”

“Loff? Business?” He grins. “Is same thing, no?”

This corrupted old devil-he doesn’t understand the difference.

“Maybe you little puppy boy, you like it older?” Vulk sneers, lowering his voice to a coarse whisper. “If you vant I can find for you. Good voman. Matoor. Plenty titty. Better than this one. She mek you nice little stiffy.”

Then he reaches into the back of the vehicle, where the girl is pulling on a pair of too-tight jeans, and gives her a slap on the rump.

“This my new girlfriend. Eh, Lena? You like Vulk?”

She shrieks playfully.

“Where is Irina?” Andriy leans forward and asks the girl quietly in Ukrainian. “Have you seen her?”

The girl looks no older than fifteen. Her eyes are completely blank, unfathomable. She shrugs. “You know, this Irina, she doesn’t talk to nobody. She thinks she is better class of person than other Ukrainians.” Her voice is girlish and breathy, with a strong Kharkiv accent. Her eyes shift sideways and downwards, avoiding his gaze.

“Little sister, you come with me.” He reaches out his hand to the girl. “This is no good for you. I take you back to strawberry place.”

The dark eyes flicker upwards briefly in a look halfway between fear and contempt.

“Who you are, Mister Clever-clever, sticking poky-nose in everybody’s business?” For the first time he catches the faint whiff of vodka. “Who asked you to come here?”

“Sister, you too young for this type of game. You should be in school.”

“I am seventeen. Older than you think.” She has climbed out of the four-by-four and is buttoning up her jumper. She is scarcely more than a metre and a half tall. Her breathy voice has taken on a defiant edge. “And I know this game since age of twelve.” In the dusky light, the dead pools of her eyes gleam darkly. “First with uncle. Then with others. You think you so clever. You think you know everything. What you know about life for woman in Yasnygor?”