‘Try not to let it scare you,’ whispered Maggie in her ear, attempting to reassure her. ‘This kind of thing is quite unusual and hopefully it’s just a one-off. Although, I have to say, it is a nasty one. No doubt about that.’

Maggie Cooper had been working in the prison system longer than Amber had been alive. Her face was etched with a multitude of deep worry lines around her mouth and eyes, and Amber had a horrible feeling that if she stayed in this job long enough she’d end up with a face like Maggie’s. But what Maggie lacked in the looks department she more than made up for with an abundance of seasoned experience and wisdom.

Amber had heard about how gory the killing had been. About all the blood everywhere. And apparently it had entailed some kind of horrible mutilation, the exact nature of which hadn’t been made clear yet. She’d done a control and restraint course as part of her prison officer entry level training at the Prison Service College near Rugby, but she was beginning to have doubts that it would be sufficient to cope with this level of violence.

‘So who do you think did it then?’ she asked apprehensively.

Maggie shrugged. ‘Could be gang-related. Could be personal. It’s hard to tell at this stage. I just know that in all my years here I’ve never seen anything like it.’

Terry had now moved onto one of his favourite topics – government cost-cutting. ‘As I keep saying again and again, this prison is horribly overcrowded, yet government cost-cutting means that we’re desperately understaffed, which means we’re expected to work excessive hours, yet when anything goes wrong we’re the ones who have to carry the can. No doubt we’ll end up getting the blame for this murder.’ He made each point with the blade of one meaty hand chopping into the palm of the other.

Amber hadn’t quite worked out if Terry griped because he was a union rep, or if he’d become a union rep in order to legitimise his need to gripe. He exerted a certain amount of influence over the other prison officers and relished any opportunity to whip up discontent whenever he could. But underneath his reactionary facade she suspected that he was basically a malingerer.

It still surprised her just how fractious the prison staff were, let alone the inmates. She was still on her probationary period as a New Entry Prison Officer and wanted to make a good impression by looking smart and professional, and she was determined not to succumb to the kind of cynicism which enveloped some of the more seasoned members of staff like Terry.

‘Don’t let Terry get you down,’ said Maggie. ‘There’s obviously a lot of truth in what he says, but this job is largely what you make it.’

‘I guess I should take a leaf out of Dylan’s book,’ murmured Amber, glancing over at Dylan Prince, who was sitting there with his foot up on his knee, whistling softly to himself, projecting an unconcerned easy-going demeanour. He noticed her looking at him, flicked back his sandy-coloured hair and shot her a wink. She smiled and looked away.