‘Something like that,’ said Charlie. He was ready for the push when it came, not just from Prudell but from someone passing behind so he was able to avoid most of the urine from his pot and that of Prudell’s. Some still splashed on his trousers.

‘Told you to move along, stop causing a jam,’ said Butterworth.

Charlie put his pot under the rinse, scouring it out.

‘Sorry about that,’ said Prudell.

‘Why not lend me some perfume?’ said Charlie.

‘Any time, if you’re interested.’

Charlie picked up the line, going out past Hickley and back along the corridor. Inside his cell he looked down, disgustedly, at his stained trousers. Maybe it wouldn’t last long, he thought hopefully. Then again, it might. Hickley had lost face and in a place as miniscule and insular as a prison that was something that grew out of all proportion.

Knowing he would have to avoid any infraction of the regulations, Charlie was ready at the first sound of the washroom bell but inside the ablutions he hung back, waiting for the shaving area he wanted, abutting the wall so that he only had to worry about one side and that in constant reflection. He maintained the caution in the food line, because there were urns with scalding water. The porridge was slopped half in and half out of his bowl. Charlie didn’t protest.

He was as lucky with the seat in the mess hall as he had been in the washing area, with his back against the wall. He saw Prudell smirking two tables away: the companion was new, someone Charlie hadn’t seen before. Dark and very pretty: Greek or Italian, maybe.

Charlie had started eating by the time Eddie Hargrave eased in beside him.

‘Saw what happened at slop-out,’ said Hargrave, his voice hardly above a whisper, talking prison fashion, lips practically unmoving. He was a greying, wisp-haired man who had been a schoolteacher outside. Charlie still found it difficult to believe that after murdering his wife Hargrave had tried to dissolve her body in a mixture of lime and acid, even though Hargrave had talked at length about it and why he’d done it, because he found her in bed with his brother.