I had known he liked me, but I didn’t let myself think about it, how much it might hurt him when I flirted with other boys, danced to Britney Spears, in my peasant tops and low-slung jeans, my thongs on display. When my reprobate boyfriend Ryan and I broke up – which we did once a week, then reunited with passionate snogging – had we done it in front of Jeremy? Of course we had. He was always just there, and now I had lost everyone, including my own mother, and here he still was. He’d had to go back and forward to the UK over the past year, since he didn’t have a visa, but he always returned to me.

When I came into the visitors’ room, even stripped of my make-up and hair straighteners and tight clothes, in the unflattering orange jumpsuit, he always looked thrilled to see me, leaping to his feet, a big smile breaking over his sweaty red face.

‘Casey! Are you all right? Can I get you anything?’

We weren’t allowed to accept items from visitors, of course, but they could put money in our accounts to buy little things, a comb or some noodles to supplement our bland, mushy food. They could also buy us things from the vending machines in here. I craved chocolate, stuffing the sweetness into my mouth, a moment’s relief, but I was worried I’d get fat, and that this would mean I’d truly given up, that no one would ever find me attractive again. That there was no life outside of this place, no hope. I sat down opposite him.

‘Any news?’

‘Have you heard of something called the Innocence Project?’ He was almost bursting with excitement.

‘No, what’s that?’

‘They help people who’ve been wrongfully convicted. Honestly, Case, there’s literally thousands of people in this country in prison on dodgy evidence. They have alibis, even, or the DNA evidence clears them, but the court never heard it. They all do deals, the cops and the defence lawyers. It’s so crooked.’

‘You spoke to them?’

‘They knew about you already! They think you have a good case – those lawyers for the Little Helpers, they told you to plead guilty?’

‘Yeah. They said that way I’d do twenty years, maybe, get out while I was still young.’

At nineteen, the prospect of twenty years had seemed horrific, not the merciful kindness they presented it as. So I’d pleaded not guilty, and now I was on Death Row.

‘So you weren’t properly represented, you’ve got a case there, and also there were key witnesses they never called, like the housekeeper.’

‘Marietta? They never found her.’

‘They didn’t even look, Case! I’ve almost tracked her down, I think. She moved to her daughter’s in San Diego. Also, the gardener, José, he was a hostile witness, so he shouldn’t have been allowed on the stand.’