Tell no one anything in there, Nizar, Michael had said. You never know who you’re speaking to.

Mansour had been a soldier. He knew how to follow orders.

‘Yes,’ he said again. ‘I am.’

‘Do you wanna eat or not?’ The question came from the first server: a small, wiry man who looked in need of a shower. His hands looked dirty, but at least the serving ladle he was holding did not.

‘Yes,’ Mansour replied. ‘I want to eat.’

‘What do you want?’

Mansour glanced at the other man in line.

‘Whatever is halal,’ he replied. He could hardly call himself a Muslim and then say otherwise.

The first server ladled a gloopy, lukewarm soup into one of the smaller sections. The second server added a dollop of some sort of pink custard to another. Finally the third server spooned something more identifiable into the main section: rice and curry.

‘Thank you,’ Mansour said without looking up.

As he turned to look for a place where he could sit, he found that the other man from the line had waited for him.

‘Come on. Eat with me,’ the man said, indicating to the nearest of the tables set out in the wing’s dining area. The only one still free.

They both took a seat, one across from the other. Mansour prepared to eat, but his new friend seemed less interested in the food they had placed down. His attention was elsewhere.

‘So you’re big news today, ain’t ya,’ he said. His tone was jumpy. Excitable.

‘I . . . I . . .’ Mansour did not know what to say to the statement. ‘I think I should not speak about that.’

‘Don’t worry. No one speaks about it at first. Shit, it’s early enough you’re probably still saying you didn’t do it.’

Mansour did not reply. He was not sure what to think.

His silence did not seem to concern the other prisoner, who held out his hand.

‘David Carter, by the way. And just so we start out honest, I did do what I’m in for.’

Mansour took Carter’s hand and shook it.

‘Nizar Mansour.’

Mansour said nothing more. Instead he took his spoon and began to eat his rapidly cooling soup.

Carter seemed bemused by the lack of conversation. He offered a wide smile and spoke again.

‘Drugs, for me,’ he explained. ‘Biggest importation of cocaine ever prosecuted in the UK. Me and Terry over there.’

He indicated to an older man, about mid sixties, who was playing pool alone in the recreation area.

Mansour looked from one to the other. He was surprised. Terry was a tall, serious-looking man. At least twenty years older than Carter. Maybe more. But it was not just a generation or two that divided them. Terry carried with him an air of authority. Of a man to be followed. A man to be obeyed. Carter had no such aura. If anything, he seemed more like one of the servers than he did the other occupants of the unit.