One of the other things that had surprised Amber, as a newcomer, was the relatively high proportion of male staff here, more than she would have expected in a women’s prison. Probably just under half of the staff were men. And that included the Governor.

As soon as he entered the room, the conversation subsided into a resentful silence and Dylan’s whistling petered out.

The Governor was a large man in his mid-fifties who, unlike them, was dressed in a suit rather than a uniform. He stood there in front of them and fiddled with his cuffs, confronted with a tone of sullen obedience; he might be their superior, but he wasn’t one of them and never would be.

He cleared his throat, his jowls shaking slightly, and spoke in his well-modulated Home Counties accent, looking at them uneasily, not wanting to meet their eyes. ‘Today you are going to carry out a full prison cell search in relation to the recent… uh… murder.’

A murmur of dissatisfaction rippled through the room. A full prison cell search would take a whole day to complete. It would mean no end of aggro from the inmates. All their contraband would be found.

A full prison search was usually not announced in advance. This was so that the inmates didn’t have time to hide or get rid of anything incriminating. It also ensured that any guards with loose tongues wouldn’t let on about it, for in her short time here Amber had quickly come to realise that gossip formed an intrinsic part of life in the prison, both for the staff and for the inmates.

Normally, the Deputy Governor would have handled the logistics of a prison search, but she’d recently gone on maternity leave and apparently they’d had problems finding an interim replacement. In the meantime, the Governor himself was dealing with everything.

‘This is a full lockdown,’ he added. ‘Only essential services will continue – the kitchen and the like. Any inmates involved in those activities will need a full cell search beforehand. You’ll be looking for anything suspicious, anything out of the ordinary. It’s imperative that you keep an eye out for any weapons. The murder weapon has still to be recovered. All areas of wing accommodation will also need to be searched.’ That meant TV rooms and bathrooms in addition to cells.

‘This should have been done last week,’ whispered Maggie. ‘Probably too late to find anything by now. They’re closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.’

Amber could see Terry puffing up, ready to say something.

‘A murder weapon,’ he began. ‘By all accounts, this murder was particularly savage. Surely it is indicative of the rising levels of violence in the prison, no doubt exacerbated by overcrowding and spending cuts. Can I remind you that protection of staff should be paramount here? We need proper protection where use of force is necessary. Basic control and restraint procedures are just not adequate. As I’ve said many times before, what we need are side-handle batons.’