There were few appealing choices when it came to where to sit. The metal pews, painted a heavy green, were mostly occupied by the kind of men Jax would once have crossed a street to avoid. He took the closest spot, sat and concentrated on his breathing, willing himself to keep his good eye open and not fall into the deep sleep that was tugging on every corner of his mind.

And that’s what he did for the next twenty-five minutes, even focusing on the bickering between the addicts to take his mind off his throbbing eye.

‘You got any gear in your wing?’ one asked. ‘We got nuthin’. All dry. I had to smoke Buskies.’

‘Buskies?’ the other replied. ‘What are you fucking on about?’

‘Buskies! Nah, bra. You’re shitting me, right? You never smoked a Buskie? Nah. Fuck off.’ After a dumb silence, he resumed. ‘It’s Buscopan. That shit you get for stomach cramps. Tell the nurse you have crook guts. Trust me, bra, you’ll be off yer tree.’

Another dumb silence.

‘They’re little white pills,’ he said. ‘Just keep ’em under your tongue and smoke ’em up on a foily when you get back to your cell. Make sure you get rid of the plastic coating and cut ’em up good. And don’t eat ’em. They don’t do shit if ya eat ’em, unless you have a pain in the guts. But you get mad fucked up if you smoke that shit, bra.’

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Jax was called.

THERE were six cells inside the clinic, each like a hospital room except for the reinforced and locked steel doors, where inmates needing more than a hit of methadone, medication, or a bandage were treated. Essentially the clinic was a fully functioning hospital – and probably saw as many serious injuries as the average emergency room. State-of-the-art and the best prison clinic in the country, Jax recalled his admitting officer saying. At the time, Jax had thought it wasn’t much to be so proud of, but he understood better now.

There were also another two cells called observation cells, whose walls and doors were completely transparent, being made of heavy-duty Perspex. One of these cells was occupied.

It was like trying not to look at a car crash. Cuffed to the bed, both his ankles and hands strapped to the metal frame by medieval-looking leather restraints, was a man – if you could call him that – whom Jax recognised immediately. Known initially in the media as Cerebral the Cannibal, Scott Wensley had subsequently gained the sinister sobriquet of the Serpent after the press learned that he had paralysed his victims with snake venom before he tortured and killed them. The police had found the correct licences for forty-four eastern brown snakes in his basement.