He wished he could remember, precisely, when the smell had stopped being noticeable. It was important – basic training – to count days and weeks and to record events within them that mattered. That was the way to survive. To stop being aware of time was the first step towards becoming institutionalised. And that wasn’t going to happen to him. He knew the days and the weeks, even if he couldn’t remember the smell: fourteen months, three weeks and five days. When he got up, it would be six days. Establishing a regime was part of the training, too; he always made the count as soon as he got out of bed. Fourteen months and three weeks and six fucking days! And not a word. No approach, no ‘don’t worry’ messages in the cells below the dock. No nothing. So they’d done it to him again. He’d trusted Sir Alistair Wilson; thought him a good bloke, like the Director who had preceded Cuthbertson.

Charlie stirred, aware of the metallic sound getting nearer. At least he’d lived: perhaps Wilson considered the bargain ended there. He’d only pleaded for that, after all, Charlie conceded; just his life.

Charlie looked away from the window and its neatly divided squares, to the table bare of any personal mementoes and the stiff-backed chair and the pisspot he couldn’t smell any more. This wasn’t life. Or rather it was, the sort of life he’d read about as a sentence and not thought anything about, because when he was free to get up when he liked and go where he liked and do what he liked it wasn’t possible to imagine what imprisonment for life meant. He knew now: Christ, didn’t he know now!

Charlie swung up off the bed, feet against the cold floor, head forward in his hands. Stop it! He had to stop the despair because that was another collapse, like forgetting to count the days or remember what was important in them. Despairing was giving up. And he wouldn’t give up: couldn’t give up. He never had. He was a survivor. Always had been. Always would be. Couldn’t break him. No way.