That’s why he wished the murders would just go away. At least they hadn’t been plastered all over the media. Not yet. His strategy of containment appeared to be working so far. No one outside the prison seemed to be paying too much attention to what was going on inside. He just hoped that it would stay that way. Otherwise it could really damage his credibility with the Home Secretary.

He turned away from the window and stopped for a moment to admire a framed photograph that hung on the wall of his office. It had been taken at an official function and it depicted the Governor smiling broadly whilst shaking hands with the Home Secretary. The Governor had been working hard to make a good impression on him and he felt that he was getting close to the point where he could almost call him a friend.

With the Home Secretary behind his nomination for a knighthood, he knew that it would be a shoo-in, so he’d been progressively grooming him, slipping him hints here and there whenever they met at official functions and the like, with the hope that he would submit a nomination on the Governor’s behalf. The important thing was to appear humble and selfless and committed, which he was quite good at doing.

He looked at his watch. It was eleven o’clock. He felt a little buzz of pleasure. The Governor had a ritual which he meticulously stuck to every day. At eleven o’clock, he would sit down at his desk with his Danish pastry and coffee, with strict instructions not to be disturbed, and read through the latest issue of Yachting World. He often advised the inmates that having some form of daily routine would help them to deal with doing their time. Well, they had their routines and he had his.

He sat down at his desk, opened up the magazine, took a sip of his coffee and chewed on a mouthful of Danish pastry. He leafed through the reviews section, eagerly absorbing the technical specifications of the newest models, thinking again about the Beneteau cruiser he was planning to buy – a sleek white forty-footer with that tasteful wooden decking at the aft that you could turn into a bathing platform once you were anchored somewhere.

Maybe once he’d got his yacht, he’d invite the Home Secretary on board. After he’d got his knighthood of course. It wouldn’t look very humble to be swanning around on an expensive yacht before then. They would sit on the deck and drink fine brandy, maybe smoke a cigar, and chat like the patrician men that they were, about things like the state of the nation and the damn difficulty in finding a decent tailor these days.

He smiled to himself, lost in his fantasy, when the phone on his desk rang, jerking him out of his reverie. It was the prison switchboard.

He sighed in irritation. Didn’t they know better than to disturb him between eleven and eleven thirty? He could choose to not answer it. But then again… it might just be the Home Secretary returning one of his calls.