Unluckily for Mansour, his arrival had coincided with a punishment schedule. Twenty-three-hour lock-up. Prison at its very worst.

With the cell doors opened at 7 p.m. for a single hour, the rush to secure the wing’s limited facilities was almost animalistic. Two payphones. Two showers. Far too few of each for Wing Three’s twelve prisoners. It was a nightly battle to reach them first. A battle which could – and usually did – lead to more violence, perpetuating the cycle that had led to the regime being imposed in the first place.

A failed approach to punishment and rehabilitation, sustained by a system too stubborn to try another way and by a public too indoctrinated to care.

Mansour stayed clear of the scrum. He had been here for only a few hours, so he needed no shower. And who did he have left to call? All Mansour required was food, and so he waited a full ten minutes before he ventured outside of his cell.

He could feel himself being watched as he walked the short distance to the single staircase that led down from the first floor. The feeling only increased as he descended. Guards at first. Then other inmates. All of them eyeing the new arrival.

It was to be expected, Mansour realised. Human nature. Any new face would be carefully considered. Their natural allegiances guessed at. Their place in the hierarchy determined.

Especially when that new face is a mass murderer, Mansour thought.

He kept his eyes down as he made his way along the ground floor, towards the food server that had been set up at the end of the wing.

The volume of Wing Three had noticeably lowered with Mansour’s presence, and even with his eyes down he could see small groupings of inmates speaking among themselves as he passed. Whispering as they followed his every step. Each making the connection between the TV news reports they had been watching all day and the man now living among them.

Some seemed to recognise him more quickly than others, but, with his eyes firmly down, Mansour could read none of their reactions.

He was not ready for that. Not yet.

The momentarily dimmed volume of Wing Three had risen back to its former level by the time Mansour reached the food server. The conversation was still about him, he suspected, but he couldn’t make out what was being said.

There were two men ahead of him at the server. Both queuing beside the ten-foot-long metal contraption from which Wing Three’s meals were dished out. Each of them was holding a single metal tray, onto which food was being placed by the three rough-looking prisoners who stood behind the food line, tasked with ‘kitchen duty’.

Mansour picked up his own metal tray, collected a light tin mug for the tall tea urn he could see at the end of the server, and prepared to wait his turn.

‘Use a different spoon.’

It was a simple enough sentence. In most circumstances, one which would attract no attention. But there was something about the voice. Something intense.