She’d pointed to various mini-screens as she spoke.

‘The gatehouse and the reception area – so we can see who’s coming in and out of the prison; the landings and the common areas, such as the atrium, the canteen and the yard – to cut down on general misbehaviour and to increase safety for the inmates and for us as well; the main corridors, walkways and stairwells, as well as all the major entrances and exits – to monitor inmates’ movements; the visit hall – to deter visitors from passing over contraband; the segregation block – to monitor dangerous or vulnerable inmates; the perimeter wall – to prevent people from escaping; and the medical unit – as those who are at risk of self-harm or suicide are often kept there.

‘Of course, there are plenty of blind spots. There always will be. I’m sure the more wily inmates are aware of those. But, generally speaking, we’ve got most of the important locations pretty well covered.

‘The bits of the prison which don’t have any surveillance, or which have very limited surveillance, are those areas where we think incidents are less likely to occur, either because they’re normally quite well-staffed or because the inmates are engaged in structured activities which keep them occupied and out of trouble.’

Since the murder of Sarah Prebble, a.k.a. Poodle, the Governor had specified that all of the prison officers, especially those working in the control room, maintain an increased vigilance for anything appearing remotely suspicious.

Amber dutifully scanned the multiple mini-screens – up, down, left, right – skimming back and forth across the entire prison complex. How would she know ‘suspicious’ when she saw it? Everything looked normal. Monotonously so.

Her attention paused on one of the mini-screens at the bottom left of the central multiplexer monitor. It was displaying several inmates standing around on one of the upper landings at the central point where the four wings of the prison converged. She squinted at it more closely. She recognised one of them as Bailey Pike, the inmate who’d been victimised in the canteen, the one who she’d intervened to help.

She was leaning on a balcony and appeared to be doing very little else apart from that. She was probably as bored as Amber was. She seemed like a decent sort, relatively speaking, and Amber didn’t like to see nice people getting picked on. If it had happened once, it could happen again. The bullies were like that. If you weren’t part of a group, then you were fair game. She made a mental note to keep an extra eye out for Bailey’s well-being.

Amber reached forward to the keyboard and switched that particular camera to the spot monitor. She tilted the camera towards Bailey and zoomed in, studying her face, observing her with mild interest, realising that she had no idea why Bailey was even in here…

Chapter 24

Bailey stood on the landing doing what most of the inmates did best – lounging. It ranked as one of their top activities. There was an art to it, she’d discovered, to be able to stand around and be casually engaged in nothing in particular.