He lobbed it over the table. Tiger Dey caught it one-handed and popped it in his mouth, to a cheer from Carver and an excited squeal and burst of applause from Lara.

As the merriment subsided, Carver reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, took out a tightly stuffed envelope and slipped it across the table. 'Thirty grand in five-hundred-euro notes,' he said as Tiger Dey picked it up. 'I won't even try to beat you down.'

'You would only end up paying even more. In any case, this one is worth the money.'

Within minutes, Khat had been led across to them and given his share. Lara could see him biting back the urge to complain.

So he is scared too, she thought, relishing his fear. Then she heard Tiger Dey telling Carver, 'She is yours, my friend. Do with her as you will.'

'In that case, I'm going to find out exactly what I've just bought.' Carver looked at Lara and, mimicking the patronizing tone of a husband to his wife, said, 'Finish up your drink, darling, I think it's time we left.'

He took her by the hand as he helped her up from the table and then slipped his arm around her waist as they left the club, crossed the lobby and took the lift up to his top-floor suite.

It struck Lara as Carver held the door open and ushered her in that she would never be going back to Khat's apartment, the locked room and the beatings. She did not have to make fifteen hundred dirhams tonight. She just had to persuade this strange, disturbing, handsome man that he had been right to buy her, and that he wanted to keep her. Perhaps, if she were very good, he might want to make her his proper girlfriend, or even his wife. Her eyes welled up, though she did not know if it was from relief, from hope or just because she was a young girl, far from home and weary to her bones.

Carver ran a finger under her eyes, wiping away the tears. 'Don't cry,' he said. Then he took her in her arms.