He raised his eyes. He saw the care of the afternoon shave, the eruption of worming veins on the cheeks, the nervousness flickering at Mr Jones's mouth.

'Don't you worry, Demyonov, Medic's on the way. Can't have you going under, can we? Not when you're going home. Well, that's the talk, isn't it?' The Medical Orderly was puffed by the time that he reached the cell door. The warder stayed outside, and the Orderly took Demyonov's fingers from Mr Jones. It was a cursory check, the wiping of the damp sheen from the prisoner's forehead, an open hand laid across his chest, two fingers on the wrist for the pulse.

'I'm going to get the Doctor in.'

'Drag him in from home?' queried Mr Jones.

'I'm not taking the rap for shifting this one… '

The Orderly turned from his patient to the warder in the doorway.

'… Get yourself down to the telephone, tell Admin that I want the Doctor. Make sure he knows who he'll be seeing, that'll bring him fast enough. Better get the Deputy Governor up too, but the Doctor first.'

And then there was nothing to do but wait and watch.

The Orderly crouched over the bed, wincing at the man's pain, and Mr Jones paced on tip-toe the short length of the solitary cell, and both wondered how long he would last. If he moved the man and killed him, he'd be subject to inquiry and inquest; if he let him be and allowed him to slip, the brickbats would fall as hard. This man above all others.

Everyone knew him in the Scrubs. Oleg Demyonov… described in chorus by the Attorney General and the Lord Chief Justice as the most dangerous individual threat to the security of the state of the last decade. A pudgy little bugger, overweight and balding, ready with a riposte to anyone.

Hold out, you little creep, hold out until the Doctor gets here. It was cold in the cell. Had to be, because for the last two years they'd shut the central heating down earlier. Not that Demyonov was shivering, he'd enough on his plate without feeling the chill of a January evening. The Orderly was cold, only the short white coat over his shirt, and his ears strained for sounds on the iron staircases.