The guardhouse sergeant snapped from his chair, stood to attention, but he was sure the damn man had smirked. On the table was a plastic bag holding a tie, a belt and a pair of shoelaces.

‘Where is she?’

‘Cell block, number four, sir.’

He went to the steel-barred door, and the dull-lit corridor stretched into shadows in front of him.

‘Well, hurry up, Sergeant.’

‘Yes, sir. Captain Christie’s with her, sir, but I’ve kept an eye out just in case she thumps him.’ The sergeant’s face was impassive.

He smeared his eyes with his coat sleeve. Should have done it before entering the guardhouse. The wet would have been noted. He was admitted to the corridor of the cell block. Good material for the mill of gossip and more bloody tittering.

He went into the cell. Christie was standing inside the open door, white in the face. A central light shone down, protected by a close-mesh wire. The walls, tiled to waist height and whitewashed above, were covered in graffiti scrawls and line drawings of genitalia that were quite disgusting. He had only ever been in the cells once before, to escort a civilian solicitor when one of his corporals, Russian-language translator, had confessed to selling off hire-purchase video-recorders. A foul smell, urine and vomit. There was a window above her, reinforced opaque glass set into concrete.

‘What’s she said?’

‘She hasn’t said anything. I haven’t asked her anything.’

‘Asked her anything, “Major”…’

‘I haven’t asked her anything, Major.’

A thin mattress was on the bed. The bed was a slab block of concrete. A blanket of serge grey was folded on the mattress. He felt raw anger towards her. She had destroyed him.