Breakfast was followed by free time. After going back to his cell and realising he couldn’t lock himself in, Jax decided that the yard, watched by both cameras and guards, was his safest option. He took a moment to steel himself before walking back through the wing to the oversized opening that led to the yard. He was surprised to find he was one of the first there: so far, only a few inmates had congregated in front of the ten-foot wire fence on the far side.

The D-Block yard was one of four located in the prison’s gigantic central quadrangle, which was bounded by the sandstone walls of the four original wings. At some point, wire fencing and walkways had been erected to divide this space into quarters. It had been one of these fenced-in walkways he’d been led down the night before, but it had been too dark for him to make out much detail.

Jax figured the prison yard would be a lot like the school yard he had disliked so much as a child. Each section of the concrete quadrangle would be marked by invisible stakes. He knew stepping into the wrong area could be deadly, so he made his way to the darkest and coldest corner of the yard, figuring that the worst real-estate would likely be the least popular.

He ignored the empty aluminium bench seats, the type he’d sat on at school – alone while the others played – and lowered himself onto the cold concrete ground. He leant back against the wall, which had been decorated with murals: a surfer riding a wave, an Australian flag, and, of all things, a pink flower – what looked like a waratah gone wrong.

Scanning the yard from his frigid spot on the ground, Jax raised a brow when the groups he had anticipated failed to form. Instead, as men spilled from the wing, they joined a single moving mass, all back-slapping and excited, a mob heading for the far fence.

Jax sighed knowingly when he spotted what they were holding: the milk cartons, now reconstructed and apparently full.

He continued to watch from a distance as the famous actor who’d been the subject of discussion at breakfast that morning stepped from the shadows and into a sunlit walkway on the other side of the ten-foot-high wire cyclone fence.

‘He’s here,’ came the cry. ‘It’s him!’

‘Cop this, you fucking scumbag,’ another inmate screamed.