A knife would have made sense, I decided. Easy enough to pinch one from the kitchen or even bring one in from the outside. Yes, they’re supposed to search you if you’ve been out, but on the rare occasions they bother to pat anyone down, it’s always a bit . . . sloppy.

They’re more hands-on at the average airport.

When I looked away from the airlock, I could see that one of the detectives was standing near the men’s toilet staring at me, so even though I knew I wouldn’t be given very long I wandered out into plain view, shoved my hands into the pockets of my dressing gown and stepped across to have a word.

‘Who’s the SIO?’ I asked.

‘Excuse me?’ He had his hood down, so I could see the confusion. He was forty-something, with a shaved head and glasses. Like a football hooligan trying to look clever.

‘Only, you can tell whoever’s running the show that I’m around if they want a word.’

‘I’ll pass it on,’ he said.

It was hard to tell if he was taking the piss or not, but I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. ‘I’ve got intel, make sure you tell them that.’

‘Good to know.’

‘Inside intel.’

‘Right.’

I nodded and he nodded back. I said, ‘You know where I am, yeah?’

Sadly, it quickly became clear that Femi and George knew where I was, too. They loomed behind the detective who immediately stood aside when he clocked what was going on.

‘Alice,’ Femi said. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

I shook my head and pressed my wrists together, like I was waiting to be cuffed. I glanced at the cop to see if he appreciated the joke, but he didn’t seem to find it any funnier than Femi and George did.

George began guiding me back towards my own corridor. He said, ‘This is getting silly, now, pet. You do know we are dealing with a very serious situation.’

‘Of course I know. Why do you think I’m out here?’ I looked back at the cop who was watching them lead me away. I shook my head, like, Isn’t this ridiculous? Like, They just don’t get it.

When we were outside my bedroom door, George said, ‘If we catch you out of your room again, we’re going to have a problem. You understand?’

I knew he was talking about changing the status of my obs. At that time I was on hourly observation, like most of the others, but he could easily change it to fifteen-minute intermittent obs if he thought I was playing up, or within eyesight observation, or even the dreaded within arm’s length, which would mean someone being in my bedroom with me. Nobody in their right mind wanted to be on WAL.