Our dog man shouted something in Indonesian, and two other uniforms trotted up with spades; as he pulled the animal back, those two spades struck the ground.

The sound was wrong, and the spades bounced. A radio was produced, and thirty seconds later, Rahim arrived at the trot along with several other men, who proceeded to mark out an area of around ten feet by ten feet, tapping at the ground. Another two men dashed up with brooms they had obviously just acquired from the house, and as the rest of the squaddies removed palm fronds and other debris, the fuller brush men went to work.

There was a hatch. Rahim turned to us, almost physically pushing us back while brooms were thrown down and weapons cocked. One of the soldiers threaded a loop of rope through a handle set in the hatch and, standing well clear, hauled it open at Rahim’s command. He followed that with a series of shouts that needed no translation, for they could only have meant ‘Armed Police! Show yourselves!’.

Nothing.

One of the men held a long stick with an angled mirror over the opening, and his eyes went wide. Rahim translated his shout to us.

“We have found his slaves. He will pay. I will make sure”

Another burst of orders, but this time what arrived was a ladder. Rahim was trembling slightly.

“My men say they are bound, blindfolded and gagged. Please stay back as we bring them up”

There was a sudden loud wail from the pit, followed by a child’s scream, which quickly tailed off as a first small figure was brought out fireman style. A little girl, filthy, nothing on her feet, but someone had made sure she had her hair covered, the hypocritical fuckers. The second was a woman; they set her down on the ground, where she hugged the girl before rubbing the child’s wrists and ankles, obviously to ease the pain of her bindings. The woman’s eyes flicked around our party, and I could almost read her mind: what fresh nastiness is this? She looked straight at me, eyes widening slightly, then…

“Bobby? Mike? MIKE! OH GOD!”

I don’t think anyone or anything could have stopped him as he went to his wife, but Rahim simply waved his men back before turning to his radio for a couple of minutes. I actually caught him dabbing his eyes before he turned to his men and giving a little speech, which resulted in cheering.

“Sergeant Sutton, I have explained that this is his wife. I had… when I heard the details of the case, and I put it with the slavery story, I had hopes, and this was what I hoped. I did not expect it to be granted. We have another aircraft coming, with doctors, and I have arranged for one more for our prisoners. My men will stay here, you will please return to the airport. Mr and Mrs Rhodes will be taken to hospital. I will need to establish who the child is before I make a decision there”

“What about the rest of us?”

“My office is arranging accommodation for you. We will need to debrief everyone, once we have secured our prisoners and finished searching the site. We have already found two more concealed storage sites”

My mouth dried instantly.

“More slaves?”

“Three more. Plus a lot of hashish”

“What…”

I already knew the answer to my question, but I had to ask

“What will happen to Husseiyin?”

“Oh, they will all be shot, I think. Do not concern yourself on their score”

Just for once, I had to agree with him. In the excitement, I only remembered the camera crew when the flashes started.

Mike was still holding his wife, as if he couldn’t let her go, or as if he dreaded what might happen if he did. So many years…

The medevac helicopter was a lot quicker than our own cargo beasts, picking up both Maryam and the girl, along with a ferociously clinging Mike, leaving a number of other medics to attend to three more terrified victims, and our own flight back was much roomier. No less quiet, but silent for all the noise around, as none of us seemed very chatty. Captain Rahim gathered us all in yet another anodyne meeting room, this one with quite loud air conditioning, and in a mixture of Indonesian and English talked us through the day’s work. So far, we had five slaves and three [phone call] five underground storage pits. The first three contained bales of cannabis, while the other two held tubs of what was suspected to be opium. Rahim was upbeat in the extreme, now.

“We now have a new tasking, which is to locate the gardens they have grown their goods in. I am looking forward to some cooperation from their former chattels on that score. We will also be following up on the customers, for opium is not something to be shipped as it is too bulky. There is a heroin factory somewhere near that place, and we will find it. Do not spare sympathy for the criminals. They will deserve their end”

As we filed out, Rahim called our contingent to one side.

“Mr Rhodes is staying at the hospital with his wife tonight, but she has asked to meet you all tomorrow. Please do not leave your hotel. Guards will be in place at your rooms”

Candice, for once, looked honestly puzzled, and Rahim noticed.

“These are not the only men involved, nor are they likely to be the most powerful. We will fly you back to Singapore after we have taken your depositions. I do not want the bad people to have an opportunity to harm you. Now, my men here have your paperwork…”

So it went, and I had to get used to having two armed men outside my hotel room door. The food was local, it was of necessity room service, and there was nothing stronger than Coke to drink, but, shit, what a result. I surprised myself by sleeping part of the night, but kept jerking awake from a repeating nightmare where the sound if the spades was radically and terrifyingly different, more like a butcher’s cleaver hitting home.

We were driven to the airport the next day in military vehicles, as if they were in urgent need of washing us off their hands, and it was one of their aircraft that took us to a different airfield in Singapore, somewhere military. The flight gave us enough time to ourselves to start the process of normalisation that follows a heavy case, which meant meeting Maz, who was still accompanied by the child, now fast asleep across a row of seats.

Rape as well as slavery, then. Police, professional: smile for the victim, Sutton.

Maz was clamped to her man, both of them still wide-eyed in surprise, Maryam horribly thin beneath what had been rags and dirt and was now a loose shift dress. Far too much of her was bruised, far, far too much. Bobby had been chatting with her, all smiles and tenderness, and as I sat down near them, he grinned at me.

“My lot have extracted their bloody digit! Ish is already in the air heading for Changi, and Audrey’s bringing him, apparently on the instructions of the fabled Mrs Chao. Seems you weren’t as sneaky as you thought, Gary”

That man laughed, and as he did, Maryam pointed at me.

“Which one are you, my love?”

“Detective Sergeant Sutton, Serious Crime review Unit. South Wales Police Heddlu De Cymru”

I grinned, then added ‘Di’, before naming Lexie and Candice.

“Lexie’s a friend of Alys and Enfys”

“Oh! I had almost forgotten! What happened to the girls, darling?”

Mike kissed her cheek.

“They got married, love. To each other”

“Oh again! I must sound like a stuck record. And Lexie? My lover here says you did great things for Neil”

Our girl actually blushed.

“Not really; I just pushed him onto our team. Di and Candice did the actual work”

Bobby interrupted.

“Ish is on his way to our landing site now, folks—oh, shit, Maz!”

She was in tears again, which was hardly a bloody surprise, but I could feel the plane starting down.

“Please sit near me, Di. Andy tells me it was your insight that found us”

“Teamwork, Maz. It was another of the team that gave me a clue, anyway”

“I can still say thank you, though”

“Granted. Anyway… I don’t want to put my foot in it, but the girl?”

“My daughter? What about her? Oh! No. I wasn’t raped, because Suleiman said I was unclean. It was… No. I will go through that when we are all home, all safe. Not now. Diane, are you married?”

“Yes. We have a son, Rhodri”

“I also have a son, Ishmael. He arrived almost by accident, but we have never regretted that. I… The last time I… My husband… The last time we made love was before I flew to KL, and I said, no, no protection. That was when our daughter was conceived, and the only thing I regret is that her early years were how you saw. Could someone please make sure she is awake and fastened in?”

Bobby shot back to secure her, and returned just as the seatbelt light came on. We rocked a little until we hit the tarmac, and then we were taxiing up to a very drab building.

They brought a wheelchair for Maz, which meant some faff with a scissors lift, but we were eventually all off and rolling, and then a young man was showing no emotional restraint at all. Eventually, the tears eased, her two men kneeling on either side of the chair as a confused little girl’s eyes flicked from one to another, until Maz brought her son to her with a one-armed hug.

“Darling?”

“Yes, Mum?”

“This is your little sister. Her name is Carolyn”