And that is how it is for the next eight hours.

By the time I am being shaken out of my cell, I have had an hour’s sleep at most. I rinse my face in a small steel sink and then I am in a van off to court. When I arrive, I am put into another cell from where I can hear other prisoners shouting and banging on the doors. If you believe what they’re saying, we are in a place where all the staff are cunts.

At nine-thirty I’m cuffed to a guard who walks me down the corridor. I see Jan’s face before she sees mine and even though it has been only a few hours, I am so grateful to see her that tears collect in my eyes.

‘Jan,’ I say, and sit while the cuffs are unlocked. She is wearing another tired black suit but the sky-blue shirt underneath it lifts her.

‘Xander,’ she says, waiting till the guard leaves. ‘Okay, we might not have long, so let me say what I need to. We are dealing with your bail position today. Because you have been charged with murder, your bail is not like normal bail. You don’t have a right to bail. It’s kind of the other way around. The burden is on us to show that there is no significant risk that you would cause injury to anyone.’

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’

‘Not really, Xander. They don’t often bail people in murder cases because the fact of the murder is a good basis for saying there is a risk you could cause harm on the logic that if you did it once—’

‘But I didn’t do it once!’ I say, hearing my voice become sharp. ‘I can’t be locked up, Jan. I haven’t got the head for it. I can’t.’

‘I know, Xander. But the fact is that the prosecution are objecting to bail on those grounds. They say you are a risk.’

I feel defeated.

‘Look,’ she continues. ‘I will do my best, but what I wanted to know was whether there was any way you could offer a surety or security?’

Some of the words she is saying filter into my consciousness but others do not. I can’t believe I am going to prison. I won’t be able to do this is all that I can think right now, and that thought preoccupies me, forcing everything else out.

‘Sorry, what?’ I say, sensing that there is some information that she wants from me.

‘Money. Can you offer any money to help with bail, or maybe you know anyone who can?’

I think of Seb, but I can’t ask him for more than he’s already done. I shake my head.