A field of strawberries in Kent...

And sitting in it two caravans – one for the men and one for the women. The residents are from all over: miner’s son Andriy is from the old Ukraine, while sexy young Irina is from the new: they eye each other warily. There are the Poles Tomasz and Yola, two Chinese girls and Emanuel from Malawi. They’re all here to pick strawberries in England’s green and pleasant land.

But these days England’s not so pleasant for immigrants. Not with Russian gangster-wannabes like Vulk, who’s taken a shine to Irina and thinks kidnapping is a wooing strategy. And so Andriy – who really doesn’t fancy Irina, honest – must set off in search of that girl he’s not in love with.

Download and read the opening pages of Two Caravans here

"Irina, my baby, you can still change your mind! You don’t have to go!"

Mother was wailing and dabbing at her pinky eyes with a tissue, causing an embarrassing scene at Kiev bus station.

"Mother, please! I'm not a baby!”

You expect your mother to cry at a moment like this. But when my craggy old Pappa turned up too, his shirt all crumpled and his silver hair sticking up like an old-age porcupine, OK I admit, it rattled me. I hadn’t expected him to come to see me off.

"Irina, little one, take care,"

"Shcho ti, Pappa. What’s all this about? Do you think I’m not coming back?”

"Just take care, my little one.” Sniffle. Sigh.

"I'm not little, Pappa. I’m nineteen. Do you think I can’t look after myself?"

"Ah, my little pigeon." Sigh. Sniffle. Then Mother started up again. Then - I couldn’t help myself - I started up too, sighing and sniffling and dabbing my eyes, until the coach driver told us to get a move on, and Mother shoved a bag of bread and salami and a poppy seed cake into my hands, and we were off. From Kiev to Kent in forty-two hours.

OK. I admit, forty-two hours on a coach is not amusing. By the time we reached Lviv, the bread and salami were all gone. In Poland, I noticed that my ankles were starting to swell. When we stopped for fuel somewhere in Germany, I stuffed the last crumbs of the poppy-seed cake into my mouth and washed it down with nasty metallic-tasting water from a tap that was marked not for drinking. In Belgium, my period started, but I didn’t notice until the dark stain of blood seeped through my jeans into the seat. In France I lost all sensation in my feet. On the ferry to Dover, I found a toilet and cleaned myself up. Looking into the cloudy mirror above the washbasin I hardly recognised the wan dark-eyed face that stared back at me - was that me, that scruffy straggle-haired girl with bags under her eyes? I walked about to restore the circulation in my legs, and standing on the deck at dawn I watched the white cliffs of England materialize in the pale watery light, beautiful, mysterious, the land of my dreams.

At Dover, I was met off the boat by Vulk, waving a bit of card with my name on it - Irina Blazkho. Typical - he’d got the spelling wrong. He was the type Mother would describe as a person of minimum culture, wearing a horrible black fake-leather jacket, like a comic-strip gangster - what a koshmar! - it creaked as he walked. All he needed was a gun.

He greeted me with a grunt. "Hrr. You heff passport? Peppers?”

His voice was deep and sludgy, with a nasty whiff of cigarette smoke and tooth decay. This gangster-type should brush his teeth. I fumbled in my bag, and before I could say anything he grabbed my passport and Seasonal Agricultural Worker papers, and stowed them in the breast pocket of his koshmar jacket.

"I keep for you. Is many bed people in England. Can stealing from you."

He patted the pocket, and winked. I could see straightaway that there was no point in arguing with a person of this type, so l hoisted my bag onto my shoulder and followed him across the car park to a huge shiny black vehicle that looked like a cross between a tank and a Zill, with darkened windows and gleaming chrome bars at the front - a typical mafia-machine. These high-status cars are popular with primitive types and social undesirables. In fact he looked quite like his car: overweight, built like a tank, with a gleaming silver front tooth, a shiny black jacket, and a straggle of hair tied in a ponytail hanging down his back like an exhaust pipe. Ha ha.

He gripped my elbow, which was quite unnecessary - stupid man; did he think I might try to escape? - and pushed me onto the back seat with a shove, which was also unnecessary. Inside, the mafia-machine stank even more of tobacco. I sat in silence looking nonchalantly out of the window while he scrutinised me rudely through the rear view mirror. What did he think he was staring at? Then he lit up one of those thick vile-smelling cigars - mother calls them New Russian cigarettes - what a stink! - and started puffing away. Puff. Stink.

I didn’t take in the scenery that flashed past through the black-tinted glass - I was too tired - but my body registered every twist in the lane, and the sudden jerks and jolts when he braked and turned. This gangster-type needs some driving lessons.

He had some potato-chips wrapped in a paper bundle on the passenger seat beside him, and every now and then he would plunge his left fist in, grab a handful of chips, and cram them into his mouth. Grab. Cram. Chomp. Grab. Cram. Chomp. Not very refined. The chips smelt fantastic, though. The smell of the cigar, the lurching motion as he steered with one hand and stuffed his mouth with the other, the low dragging pain from my period - it was all making me feel queasy and hungry at the same time. In the end, hunger won out. I wondered what language this gangster-type would talk. Belarusian? He looked too dark for a Belarus. Ukrainian? He didn’t look Ukrainian. Maybe from somewhere out east? Chechnya? Georgia? What do Georgians look like? The Balkans? Taking a guess, I asked in Russian.

"Please Mister Vulk may I have something to eat?”

He looked up. Our eyes met in the rear view mirror. He had real gangster-type eyes - poisonous black berries in eyebrows as straggly as an overgrown hedge. He studied me in that offensive way, sliding his eyes all over me.

"Little flovver vants eating?” He spoke in English, though he must have understood my Russian. Probably he came from one of those newly-independent nations of the former Soviet Union, where everyone can speak Russian, but nobody does. OK, so he wanted to talk English? I'd show him.

"Yes indeed, Mister Vulk. If you could oblige me, if it does not inconvenience you, I would appreciate something to eat.”

"No problema little flovver!"

He helped himself to one more mouthful of chips - grab, cram, chomp - then scrunched up the remnants in the oily paper and passed them over the back of the seat. As I reached forward to take them, I saw something else nestled down on the seat beneath where the chips had been. Something small, black and scary. Shcho to! Was that a real gun?

My heart started hammering. What did he need a gun for?