Just one prison in California held all the women who were sentenced to death. It was out in the middle of the desert. I had seen glimpses from the van as we drove here, hot white sand and blank sky. I’d felt oddly out of my body, despite the extreme heat and my need to pee and the chafing of the cuffs on my wrists. They were so heavy, I could hardly hold up my hands.

Inside, the place was scorching, foetid with the smell of too many women and old boiled food. They had taken my prints and my picture, vaguely mentioned I would be given clean clothes and a towel, though none had yet materialised. I would be here for the rest of my life, either until I died here, in this windowless box, or until they did the job for me with poison in my veins.

No. Hold on to something. I didn’t do it. They would have to see that, wouldn’t they? I’d launch an appeal. I’d be all right.

The guard tugged on my arm, and I was dragged to the right.

‘Home sweet home, Blondie.’

I didn’t know why they’d all started calling me that. I wasn’t even blonde, it was just fading Sun-In streaks, my real mousy-brown colour already showing through.

My new cell was about two metres wide, like the compartment on a sleeper train. A rickety sink and a lidless metal toilet. That was it.

The guard saw my face and laughed. ‘Better get used to it. This isn’t your castle in England now, Princess.’

‘I grew up in a council flat,’ I muttered, even though she wouldn’t know what that was, and it earned me a sharp tug on the handcuffs, breaking the skin even more and making me gasp. All the same, I was glad I’d said it, because it showed me I hadn’t gone under yet. I was still fighting.

The guard uncuffed me and directed me to the bed. I sat on it, because there was nowhere else to go. There were no windows, of course, and no TV or anything like the British papers had led me to believe you got in prison. It’s a disgrace! they would say. Like a holiday camp! Here, there was just the bed, the sink and loo – which stank – and me. I felt a rising panic. What was I going to do in here for the rest of my life, day after day? A hot empty box, with only my own thoughts for company.

‘So – what do I do?’ I ventured. The guard swung back.

‘Do? You stay put. In a few months you might get work detail, but right now there’s more prisoners than jobs.’