Jax kneeled down and pulled the first meal from the trolley. He couldn’t tell what it was, given the mix of aromas coming from the trolley: beef, chicken, lamb, fish – it was just one meaty mash-up.

‘I don’t know you,’ the elderly man with the ponytail repeated. Then he started to scream as Jax slid his meal through the slot in the door. ‘Chief,’ he yelled, seeking the assistance of a guard, his moist, fleshy lips poking through the small circular sound holes peppering the glass. ‘Chief! Quick! They’re trying to kill me again. Quick!’

He opened the box that now contained his food and snatched his meal. ‘No way,’ he shouted as he ripped off the lid and emptied the contents onto the floor, pea and ham soup splattering on the concrete. ‘Youse won’t get me. I’m onto youse. Chief, quick! They’re trying to get me. Youse won’t get me. You’ll see.’

He then put the foil container on his head and mashed the pliable aluminium until it hugged his skull.

‘Can’t get me now,’ he said, proudly wearing his foil-cap, leftover soup streaming down his face. ‘Ha! Fuck off. Your brain laser won’t work.’

The man turned and walked to his bed. Jax shuddered to think what crimes this man had committed to end up in Supermax. Clearly mentally deranged, he must have been deemed too violent to keep in a psychiatric institute. Being crazy was not a defence against Supermax, which, with a psychiatrist on staff, was legally allowed to house such inmates.

Jax shook his head and moved to the next cell. ‘Hey, what happened to my dinner?’ came the question from the cell as he walked away. ‘Benny. Hey, Benny. Whydya throw it on the floor. Ah! Me soup!’

Thankfully, that response was a one-off, and the majority of inmates just ignored him as he delivered their meals. One after another, he pulled the containers from the trolley and shoved them through the slot without incident or interaction – some of the inmates were sleeping, some reading, two shitting and one masturbating, the obese man in Cell No. 5 not even breaking his stroke as Jax pushed his meal through the door. Jax didn’t respond to the two men who wanted to converse: one challenging him to a fistfight and the other threatening to cut his head off if his steak wasn’t medium to well done. He would have dismissed the threat had he not recognised the man who had issued it: George Carpenter had decapitated three prostitutes.

JAX LOOKED down at the trolley. Only two meals to go. One of the foil containers had an orange sticker on the side: HALAL. He looked at the lid: Cell No. 75. Almost there.