Jax was soon certain Khalil was out cold, not just because of the drug he had put in his drink, but because of the way he was breathing. The surest way of determining whether or not someone was in a state of REM was by measuring their breathing rate, and Khalil’s breathing rate had decreased by twenty per cent since Jax’s last count. A drop of between fourteen and twenty-four percent meant they were out. A drop of between twenty-five percent and fifty percent meant get help. A drop of fifty percent or more meant to the sleeper would soon be dead.

Jax’s daily dose of medication from the prison dispensary always looked the same: six capsules – two green and white, two red and yellow, and two solid blue – but they would rarely be filled with the drug they were purported to contain. The blue ones, supposedly an over-the-counter antihistamine called fexofenadine, were in fact a blend of human growth hormone and anabolic steroids. The green and white (paracetamol) and the red and yellow (diclofenac) were filled with whatever he had requested: sometimes an upper to keep him awake, sometimes a downer to knock someone out.

Jax had laced Khalil’s drinking water with a mild dose of flunitrazepam. Clarke had told him to use the contents of an entire capsule, all five milligrams of the prescription-only sleeping pill commonly known as Rohypnol, the so-called date rape drug, but Jax had only given Khalil half. He was only small, about sixty kilograms, and Jax had worried that his new cellmate might never wake up if he gave him the lot.

Jax slid across the cold floor, pushing one sock forward at a time, silently skating on the concrete. Khalil was snoring by the time he reached his box shelves, where he kept his two plastic tubs and ‘buy-ups’. The cell was dark, the only sources of light a finger of moonlight coming in through the high, barred cell exterior window and the reflection of the fluorescent overhead lights in the wing, coming through the cell’s small internal window. It wasn’t much, as the overhead lights were only half-lit at night, but just enough to enable the guards to do their rounds.

Jax had to feel for the false front at the bottom of his shelves. He popped the magnetic lock and pulled the false front free. Then, lying on the ground, he pushed his arm into the cavity. He reached around, feeling for the item he was after, touching objects and pushing them aside. He found the small metal penlight. Arm back out, he put the penlight between his teeth as he pushed the false front back into place.

He grabbed the package that had been delivered to his cell earlier that day from underneath his mattress.

LEGAL MAIL: DO NOT OPEN: Riley James Jax, Case No. S309/2019, 171/CLR, HCA:24.