Her hoarse Spanish was hard for me to follow, but before I could ask her to repeat anything she flinched and tried to duck back into the workroom. CO Hartigan grabbed her arm and then one of her breasts, which he twisted until she gasped in pain.

“You’re not talking out of turn, are you?” he asked the woman. “Remember: we know where your little boys are. Sabemos donde son tuos niños.“

Her eyes were streaming and she spoke pantingly. “Only tell woman, she no have money, no get my cigarette. She lazy, not working, why I think she pay back someday?”

I knew her quick wits were protecting herself, not me, and the look she gave me was one of loathing. Hartigan let her go and slapped me for good measure: I was a lazy cunt, he said, and they weren’t going to give me a free ride forever.

Once again I controlled myself in the nick of time. Rage and helplessness were so bottled and boiling inside me, I knew I had to leave Coolis soon; even if the guards didn’t harm me I was destroying myself. If I didn’t learn something soon that I could use against Baladine, I would forfeit my only chance to understand what was going on in the clothes operation. I had a pretty clear picture at least of why Nicola had gone to the hospital, even if I didn’t know how she’d died in Chicago, but it wasn’t anything I could use to get her killers arrested.

I didn’t want to think about what might have lain behind the woman’s phrase that the guards “made sport” with Nicola. I only knew I had to move fast before either my language fraud or my ineptitude with the sewing machine landed me in trouble. How fast I’d have to move was made clear to me on my return to the jail wing that afternoon, when I got a summons to see a visitor.

Morrell stood up on my entrance, an old–fashioned courtesy so remote from the mores of Coolis that I blinked back tears. It was a Thursday; as always midweek, the visitors’ room was almost empty.

Morrell squeezed my fingers, a fleeting pressure that the CO in the room overlooked. “You need to leave as soon as possible, Vic.”

I agreed, thinking of the abuse I was enduring, and started to detail some of the language and actions of the CO’s and the work shift managers.