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‘Come on, Viyan, please …’

Helen crouched over the injured woman, desperately searching for signs of life.

But her appeal fell on deaf ears, the young mother remaining lifeless and still.

Leaning down, Helen parted Viyan’s lips, cupping her ash-smeared face as she blew blasts of oxygen into her damaged lungs.

But her kiss of life had no effect at all.

She had got to her too late. The time wasted besting Leyla’s thugs, then the gangmaster herself, had cost both Helen and Viyan dear.

Having been blown off her feet by the eruption of heat, Helen had scrambled back up, racing round to smash the prominent red button on the control panel, killing all power to the machine.

Limping back to the open doorway, Helen had bravely stepped inside, shielding her eyes, her face, holding up her arm to deflect the savage blasts of heat that ripped over her.

It was impossibly hot inside, Helen’s skin prickling in agony, every instinct in her body urging her to turn and flee the inferno, but pressing on, she collided with Viyan, lying face down in the dirt.

Grasping her arm, she felt the skin shift beneath her fingers as if it might slide clean off, but forcing down her unease, she dragged the unconscious mother to the door, lifting her over the treacherous lip and out into the fresh air.

The temperature change rocked Helen once more.

Dizzy, she sank to her knees, turning her attention to the badly burnt worker.

To her dismay, the change in temperature had not stirred Viyan, who remained motionless, her blank face turned up to the sky.

Most of the exposed parts of the poor young woman were cracked and blistered, but fortunately her face had not been so badly damaged, perhaps because it had been pressed down into a thick layer of ash.

Seizing on this, Helen had set to work once more, desperately trying to revive her, but to no effect, all her efforts falling short.

How she cursed herself now for not getting here sooner.

If she had, then things might have been different.

But her tardiness had proved fatal, the incinerator putting paid to another life.

Agonized, Helen laid Viyan’s body gently onto the ground, before turning to advance on her killer, determined to vent her burning rage on the floored trafficker.

To her surprise, however, Helen realized that she was too late.

The yard was now a writhing sea of violence, a pitched battle taking place between the oppressed workers and their minders.

For months the threat of a bullet between the eyes had kept the masses in check, but having realized they had been duped, that the guns were not loaded on site, they had thrown themselves at their captors, sensing that liberation was finally at hand.

Leyla’s arrogance, her cocksureness, had come back to haunt her, her own words releasing the workers from her thrall.

Some of the guards were trying to hold their own, others had already fled, realizing the game was up.

Which meant that Leyla no longer had anyone to protect her.

The gangmaster lay on the ground, ten yards away from Helen, clutching her face and groaning loudly, but already the vultures were circling, a couple of the desperate workers standing directly over her.

Having suffered under her pitiless yoke for so long, they now had the upper hand and planned to exact their revenge.

‘No, no, no …’

Helen was already on the move, urging the pair not to give into their growing bloodlust. But one of the assailants now struck Leyla, stamping violently on her floored adversary.

‘Please don’t …’ Helen cried out. ‘Let me handle this.’

Others had now realized what was happening, joining the attack in growing numbers. And though some also called for caution, mercy even, trying to pull the aggressors away, they were in the minority. There was a murderous fire in the eyes of the growing mob. They wanted justice. They wanted revenge.

Still Helen pushed through the crowd, grasping desperately at the trailing arm of a young woman, who’d just picked up a rock.

She wanted to still her violence, make her see reason, but Helen now felt herself being dragged back, before being thrown roughly to the ground, her way to Leyla blocked off by the encircling group of workers.

Terrified, Leyla made a desperate attempt to free herself from the clutches of her attackers, but catching hold of her, they threw her to the ground with a roar of anger.

Lying on her back in the dust, breathless and immobile, Helen caught sight of the gangmaster as a trio of irate workers descended upon her.

Leyla tried to cry out, to raise an arm to defend herself, but it was hopeless, the women falling on her, hammering her with fist and foot.

Their violence was immediate and extreme, Leyla shrieking out in terror and pain, before suddenly falling silent.

Was she already dead? Helen hoped so, because the frenzied group now fell upon her, tugging at her hair, tearing at her ears, determined to rip her limb from limb.

Sickened, Helen turned away, unwilling to witness this brutal end.

Perhaps Leyla deserved an agonizing death, but this wasn’t justice, this was vengeance, and she wanted no part of it.

Turning away, Helen crawled back to Viyan’s body, her sense of defeat total.

Even as she did so, she heard one last blood-curdling scream that seemed to echo around the farmstead, as if the unfortunate Leyla was dying a dozen gruesome deaths.

And it was as this piercing noise was slowly dying away that Helen noticed something.

Viyan’s right hand had started to twitch.

Stunned, Helen scrabbled over to her, cupping the young woman’s head in her hands.

‘Viyan, Viyan. It’s me, Helen. Can you hear me?’

Helen scanned her face, hoping against hope that this beautiful woman might live, might somehow survive this awful nightmare. There was no response. Helen couldn’t believe it. Had her mind tricked her? Then slowly, almost reluctantly, opened her eyes.