Marsh reached across the table and gave Jax a backhander.

‘Pick,’ he said, ‘or you’ll get both.’

Jax nodded towards the weapon on Marsh’s right.

‘That’s a good boy,’ Marsh said as he picked up the shiv.

He growled as he jabbed the shiv through the centre of the note and into Jax’s thigh. ‘Hoped you picked the right one.’

Jax didn’t have to hope. He knew he had picked the right one.

MARSH knew Jax wouldn’t pay. Not with money. He didn’t want his money. That’s why he had now asked for $400 a week. Only one man had ever paid more than $400 a week for protection, and he’d been an IT millionaire. Marsh would have asked for much more than the $500 they’d agreed upon if he’d known the wife-bashing computer genius was in fact an IT billionaire.

Jax was no billionaire, no millionaire. Marsh knew the teenage former soldier would struggle to come up with even $100 a week, his stock standard price for protection. Jax didn’t have money, but he did have value. His boyish looks, his limited criminal record, and his girl-next-door girl were worth a lot more than protection payments. Marsh knew he didn’t have to bother with fee raises, bashings, zip ties and blades to get what he wanted. Not when he already held the ace. But he loved the theatrics. Prison was boring. Fucking with people was fun. His favourite part was probably mind-fucking the newbies in their first week. Keeping an eye on them from afar, knowing the silent treatment was driving them insane.

Marsh wasn’t ready to play his hand just yet. That would have been too easy. And he knew he hadn’t quite broken the kid yet. Marsh enjoyed breaking people as much as making money.

Actually, he stood corrected. His favourite part wasn’t the first week. His favourite part was the next part.

AT THE usual time, on the usual day, and on the usual phone, Marsh logged into his TAB phone betting account.

Betting accounts, the TAB. That’s how the bulk of jail business is done. Cash is scarce in prison, a liability. Cigarettes are only traded in movies. Bank accounts were used following the advent of phone banking. Not for long, though: the police soon caught on. But they had no idea about the betting accounts. Hadn’t clocked on to the fact that they were just banks without the fees or paperwork.

The phone room was heavily graffitied, like every other room in the prison. The phones, all ten, were bolted to the walls. The steel partitions, also bolted to the wall, provided only a suggestion of privacy.

There were always fights in the phone room.

‘Hurry up, ya cunt. It’s my turn.’

Whack!

‘Are you listening in to my call?’

Whack!

‘Hey, you skipped the queue. I’m next!’

Whack!