As morning sunlight slowly illuminated his cell, Jax lowered himself to the ground again, and for the first time noticed the years of graffiti scratched into the desk he’d been standing on. It was juvenile stuff, the kind of thing you’d expect to find on a school desk, and there was nothing of note in the messages. He took a moment to study the initials, names and styles – a short history of the cell and its inhabitants. While he was no handwriting expert, Jax could made out a dozen different names and sixteen different scripts pretty easily. He sat back on the bed and wondered about them. Who they were and what they had done. Were they murderers like him? Maybe they hadn’t known either.

THE first cell was cracked at around 7 am. Jax did not have a watch, but he’d read a sunrise chart a few years back and could recall the numbers. He had kept an unconscious count since first light.

As he was only four cells from the beginning of the block, Jax did not have to wait long for the guard to get to him.

‘You’re keen,’ a new face said, surprised to be confronted by the fully awake and fully dressed prisoner. Not that he’d had a choice – the rest of his clothing was yet to be delivered to his cell.

Jax studied the guard without staring. Mid-twenties, pockmarked cheeks, short back and sides, he looked like a soldier he knew.

‘And young,’ he continued. ‘Shit, you even eighteen?’

Jax nodded. ‘Blessed with a baby face.’

‘No blessing in here. Where’s your bedding?’

‘Not sure, mate. It didn’t arrive.’

‘Why didn’t you knock up?’ he pointed to the one-way intercom beside the open cell door.

‘I didn’t think it classified as an emergency.’

The guard laughed. ‘Mate, some of these shit-bags knock up just to ask for the time. Had one bloke ask for a large Big Mac meal once, thought he was in a McDonald’s drive-through. Use it if you need it. I’ll chase up your kit. You’ve got fifteen minutes until muster. Chuck a left and keep on going until you find the yard. And keep your head down, babyface.’

THE central section of D-Block was now bathed in light. UV poured through a gigantic sunroof, straight through the metal mesh landing that separated the ground floor from the first. Jax squinted at the sun reflecting off the linoleum floor and onto his face.