Jax turned his attention to the six men on his half-empty table. All thin, with lightly loaded plates, two of them completely forgoing food – he didn’t have to see track marks to know that these men were addicts. But even though most of them were underweight, sickly and unlikely to be concerned with prison politics, Jax knew they still posed a threat. Addicts were dangerous: volatile, malleable and often psychotic, there was nothing they wouldn’t do for a hit. Right now, though – having been medicated, he presumed – they were placid, docile and ignorant of the new clean-cut kid.

One of them, all grey hair and long brittle beard, caught Jax’s eye, not because of the way he looked but because of what he was doing: flattening a carton that, until recently, had contained milk.

‘Mate, this is gunna be good,’ he said as he compacted the finished 300-millilitre single-serve carton. ‘The filthy flog is gunna get it.’

The man lifted his jumper and pushed the flattened container into his waistband.

‘Shit yeah,’ said another as he unfolded then flattened another carton. ‘Can’t believe he got away with it for so long. How many of ’em did he rape? All on the set, right?’

At first Jax thought the milk containers had nothing to do with the conversation. A drug thing? But then he noticed that the carton-flattening was not restricted to the addicts at his table. Behind glazed eyes, he tuned in to the chatter from another table nearby, all the while hoping he appeared uninterested.

‘Used to be my favourite show,’ he heard. ‘He was like the dad I never had. Makes me feel fucking sick now. I’m going to kill the cunt if I get a chance.’

‘Yeah, I’d rape him first,’ another man joined in, while pouring the last of his milk onto his plate. ‘Give him a taste of his own medicine.’ He corrected himself when his declaration turned heads. ‘Na, not with me schlong, ya fuckwits. I’m no queer. I’d bend him over and throw a shotty up his arse. I’d jam it in there, all the way, as far as I could, and then I’d let him have it.’ The man held up an imaginary shotgun and pulled the trigger. ‘Boom.’

By now Jax had worked out which inmate they were discussing – a well-known actor who had raped three children. But he was still wondering what the cartons had to do with him. Whatever it was, the guards didn’t seem to mind. They even contributed, walking around the room handing out second servings of milk.