‘I know. I’m sorry. It’s all that coffee I drank for breakfast. I should cut down on it really. Can I use the toilet here?’

‘Technically I should call a prison officer to accompany you.’

She sighed. ‘To use the toilet? It’s just a few doors down the corridor, isn’t it? It’s hardly like I’m going to be able to escape.’

It was true. The administration block was situated well within the prison security perimeter.

He sighed. ‘Okay, better make it quick though.’

‘Thanks!’

She got up and left his office, closing the door behind her. But instead of turning left and going to the toilet, she turned to her right and went directly to the room next door, which was marked ‘Filing Office’ on the frosted glass.

On previous visits, she had noticed that there was a staff toilet situated at the end of the corridor, but that had just provided a convenient excuse for her to get out of Doctor Bodie’s office for the few minutes that she needed in order to do what she wanted to do.

The real reason for her visit today was to access the inmates’ files. As Doctor Bodie had mentioned in passing during her very first appointment with him, they were stored in the office right next door to his.

To get inside the administration block, a magnetic key swipe was required and that meant that inmates couldn’t just walk in. The only way for her to get in, to get to the filing office, had been to make an appointment with Doctor Bodie.

She looked both ways, up and down the corridor. There was no one around. But she had to act fast. She tried the door handle of the filing office. It was unlocked, as she expected it would be during office hours while people needed access to the files.

She took a deep breath and hoped that no one else was already in there.

She pushed the door open. The filing office was unoccupied.

It was a barren room with drab grey walls lined with row upon row of large green filing cabinets containing the prison records of all the inmates incarcerated at HMP Foxbrook. By the considerable size and number of cabinets, it looked like the records probably went back a while. Or at least that was what she was hoping.

She gently closed the door behind her.

She looked at her watch. She had no more than two or three minutes at most to try and find what she was looking for.

She prayed that no one would come in and catch her. It would result in serious disciplining, a long stretch in segregation for sure. And that would mess up things in a big way, especially in regard to the forthcoming murder.

She went to the first cabinet and gently eased the top drawer open. The files were arranged in alphabetical order. She was at the ‘A’s.

She closed the drawer and moved to the top drawer of the third cabinet along. The ‘H’s. She moved to two drawers below it. The ‘M’s. She moved up a drawer. The ‘L’s. Bingo! Kneeling down by the drawer she began to leaf through the files, going slower now.