A human form appeared in the red glow, stepping into her cell as if on tiptoes.

There was a click and she was astonished as a wall-mounted light flooded the space with steady and continuous white light.

She blinked and blinked until the blinding light settled and the walls around her came into focus. She heard footsteps coming towards her and wished with all that she had left that they’d go away.

The sound of a tuneless melody came towards her and she shut her eyes, wondering if she’d tripped over the edge of sanity and was on a rapidly shifting downward spiral.

‘Open your eyes, look at me!’

She opened her eyes, made out a dark human form that could have been carved from stone.

‘Listen to this, Francesca!’

She heard the recorded sound of a door opening and a woman’s voice announcing, ‘The Judge wants to see you in his chambers.’ Her voice became softer, quieter. ‘I think you’re going to be pleased.’

‘Thank you, Rhonda.’

She heard the sound of a door closing and recalled the telephone conversation she’d had with a man she had thought was a barrister called James Griffiths.

‘Want to hear it again, Francesca?’

‘No.’

‘Fooled you. Look at me…’

She blinked and the figure standing over her came more into focus. Making out the head, she noticed that it had long hair that hung over its shoulders. The face between the hair was pink but she couldn’t make out the features.

‘Look at me.’

‘I am looking at you but I can’t see you properly because I’ve been plagued with all kinds of broken light and pitch darkness and now this blinding white light.’

Francesca felt as if her soul was rising from her body, lifting through each pore of her skin and floating to the ceiling above her head, forming a cloud in the shape of her being.

She felt a hand against her face, the fingers flowing over her cheek. The smell triggered a sharpening of her senses and she was able to make out a vividly painted mouth and two dark circles either side of the nose.

The person sitting on the mattress next to her was lit from behind and Francesca could make out that the hair was blonde.

‘Help me!’ said Francesca, battling to get a much better impression of the thing before her.

Moment by moment, breath by breath, the facial features became clearer to see, and it was her first impression that the person beside her was young and pretty.

Another smell hit her, expensive and applied subtly.

Under the fragrance came the edge of another smell, a sour chemical aroma that drifted from the face and the hair of the person sitting on the bed.

Francesca looked into its eyes and, as they came alive, there was something very wrong about them and the way they sat within the skin around them.

‘Look at me…’