She watched him leave, spooked, and then she decided to keep the photos she took and slipped her headphones back on, making her way back to Marsden too.

Time to get back to work.

Chapter Eleven

HMP New Hall was down an unassuming country road with trees along either side. Robin felt like he was coming into some country estate more than a prison. But as he emerged out the end, he saw a large group of buildings surrounded by high imposing fences.

After breakfast, Robin had rented a car from a place in the center of Marsden that seemed to double as a real-estate agent’s. He wasn’t entirely sure the woman there hadn’t just rented him her own personal car. Whoever’s car it was, it got him where he needed to go. New Hall was about half an hour from Marsden, and on the journey he saw more fields than he’d seen in about a decade.

He followed the road up to the prison, watching as the large fence parted to let cars through. There was a small guardhouse positioned next to the road, with a rather bored-looking officer inside. He gave his name and the guard let him through.

He found a space in a mostly full parking lot at the front of the largest building, following signs that led to reception. As he got out of the car, he noticed that there was another fence surrounding the large building and stretching as far as he could see.

This was most definitely a prison. At least on the outside. When he entered the building, he found himself in a large hall that felt more like a museum. Marble floors and a glass ceiling dazzled him. Maybe that was the intention.

He was frisked and his backpack was put through an airport scanner and subsequently rifled through before he could journey across the marble floor to a set of desks with officers enclosed behind glass.

“I’m here to visit a prisoner,” Robin said.

The officer on the other side of the glass looked at him with dull eyes. “Name?”

“Mine or his?” Robin said.

The officer looked at him as if he were taking the piss.

Robin was given a set of forms—the uniformed man slid them to him through an opening in the glass window, and told him to fill them out. When Robin mentioned Matthew’s name he had expected some sort of reaction, but the officer didn’t even seem to recognize it.