In fact, he told himself, if she’d been anyone else’s wife . . .

Georgio and Chopper sat in their cell and played poker. Chopper was holding all the winning cards. He took a deep swig of the prison hooch - a dangerous whisky made from potatoes and smelling suspiciously of paint-stripper - and breathed out harshly as the alcohol burned his mouth.

Georgio laughed. ‘I don’t know how you can drink that shit.’

‘Needs must when the devil drives,’ Chopper grinned.

The cell door was opened by one of the night screws, a tall heavyset man with a large handlebar moustache.

‘Lewis is out of danger and should be back on the Wing within ten days,’ he announced. ‘I’ve got a message for you, Brunos. Mr Lewis says you’re to be his eyes and ears till then.’

The door clanged shut.

‘I don’t know what Lewis is playing at,’ Georgio said.

Chopper shuffled the cards expertly. ‘Don’t you? I do. He knows your head’s in the noose so he wants a grass. He figures you already owe him and you’ll want to even the score a bit. It’s common knowledge he wants a hefty wedge from you and you ain’t saying where it is. He thinks you’ll spy for him to get in his good books - it’s as simple as that.’

Georgio stood up and stared at himself in the small mirror leaning on the windowsill. His thick black curly hair was showing grey around the sides; his deepset eyes had bags beneath them. He noticed the prison pallor was already evident.

‘Don’t worry, Brunos, you’re still good-looking.’

He ran his hands through his hair. ‘I don’t understand you, Chopper. According to Lewis we was deliberately banged up together. You were his eyes and ears in here, so to speak. He gets a caning, and you want to be number one. What’s your scam? Come out into the open and let’s clear the fucking air.’

Chopper laughed. ‘You make me die, Brunos. You was a big fish in a little pond—’

Georgio cut him off. ‘Then that just shows how much you know, don’t it? If I wasn’t banged up in here with Lewis and his silly henchmen, I’d have wasted that ponce ages ago. I’m getting sick of this place, I’m warning you. I’m sick of the smell, the setup, and the people. Don’t push me too far, Chopper. You don’t scare me and your juvenile name don’t scare me.’

‘But Lewis does, I take it?’