Her complexion was sallow, her teeth discoloured and her eyes encircled with dark rings. Today Louise’s hair was even tattier than usual; the natural blond highlights lost in a sea of grime and split ends. In contrast, Adele’s dark locks shone with vitality and her face had a healthy glow, which enhanced her attractive features. She was slim, ‘but with curves in all the right places’, as her boyfriend, John, used to tell her.

Louise gave a loud sob, which came out as a snort and drew Adele’s attention back to the situation. Adele took another step forward and sat next to Louise with her back to the door, drawing her into her arms and over-compensating for her intense scrutiny.

‘She didn’t fuckin’ come!’ sobbed Louise, nuzzling her face into Adele’s chest and smearing her top with a mix of tears and mucus. Adele felt another tug of repulsion but tried not to let it show.

‘Who didn’t come?’ she asked.

‘My mam. She’s been promising for weeks,’ Louise sobbed. ‘She said she’d bring Becky, too. I was really looking forward to it.’

Adele sympathised; she didn’t have any visitors either but it was something she was learning to accept. Becky was Louise’s three-year-old daughter, and Adele knew how much she missed her. She couldn’t imagine how difficult it must be, stuck in prison when you had a child on the outside.

For Adele it was bad enough that she never saw her mother or her former boyfriend, John. Adele’s mother, Shirley, refused to visit and Adele held out no hopes of her changing her mind. Those hopes had vanished as soon as she was convicted of the violent killing of her father. And John had split with her once the guilty verdict was given.

The only person who had visited Adele in the few weeks since she had been inside was her brother, Peter, but he couldn’t make it today. He had a bit of business to attend to, apparently. Adele had her own ideas on what that business might be.

Before she became lost in her thoughts, Adele checked herself and tried to concentrate instead on the young woman sitting next to her. ‘Did she contact you to say why she wasn’t coming?’ she asked.

‘Did she fuck! Got better things to do than come and see me.’

‘You don’t know that,’ said Adele. ‘There could be all kinds of reasons why she couldn’t make it. Try not to upset yourself till you find out why.’

But even as Adele tried to console her, it sounded phoney: false platitudes that she felt obliged to utter even though she didn’t believe them. What did she know about Louise’s situation? The most likely reason Louise’s mother hadn’t visited was because, like the parents of many of the women in here, she just didn’t care.