Police officers rarely felt comfortable doing prison visits, knowing that if they were unlucky enough to be there when a riot happened to kick off, they’d be the first target for the inmates. It didn’t matter how you dressed, you could be as casual as you liked, your job was ingrained in your skin as potently as cheap aftershave. Most cons could smell you a mile away. Copper. Scum. Pigs. Filth.

He had come out of curiosity, after receiving a handwritten letter a while ago from his disgraced former colleague Detective Sergeant Guy Batchelor.

Roy,

Hope this finds you well. Not much to report here, other than waiting for the appeal hearing against the length of my sentence. Other prisoners haven’t been as nasty to me as I feared – so far, anyway.

I’m writing because I may have something of interest about our mutual friend. No names mentioned because all these letters are read, but I know you were interested in doing something with that church bench. I may be able to help you. Perhaps you could come over – I can promise you it won’t be a wasted journey.

All my best to you and all the team – hey, I miss you all.

Guy

The letter contained a cryptic clue which his wife, Cleo, had solved for him. Church bench equalled Pew, she’d suggested, brilliantly.

For almost two years, Assistant Chief Constable Cassian Pewe, his direct boss, had been the bane of his life, to the point where Grace had been seriously considering leaving Sussex Police and taking up a Commander role he’d been offered in London’s Metropolitan Police, just to get away from the vile and odious man.

He opened the driver’s door with some misgivings and stepped out into the vast empty space and silence beneath a mackerel sky which seemed to share these misgivings, and which, from his limited experience of sailing, he knew heralded rain in a few hours. But it was still a warm afternoon. As he walked through the car park and then crossed the road towards the compound of single-storey buildings, he thought that if it wasn’t for the high mesh fencing, the place could have been mistaken for a holiday camp.

Men’s prisons in Britain were categorized from A to D. Cat A were high security, housing violent and dangerous convicts such as serial killers and terrorists who posed the greatest threat to the public, police or national security. Cat B were also high security, but for those who were deemed less of a threat, as well as for prisoners in the local area and those who were being held long-term. Cat C were training and resettlement prisons, enabling prisoners to develop skills to use on their release. Cat D, like this one, were open prisons, for those regarded to be a minimal risk, mostly white-collar criminals, but also for inmates from higher category prisons who were nearing the end of their sentences and were considered safe and suitable to soon re-enter the community.