‘I’m proving once and for all that nothing can keep me down. Now let’s walk back to my cell together and you can fill me in on what’s been happening. I hear we have two interesting new occupants and I want you to tell me all you know about them, OK?’

Georgio nodded. Rising, he made the mistake of offering Lewis his help. His hand was knocked away with a ferocity that belied the man’s sorry condition.

The rec room watched them disappear through the door with the two minders in tow. Sadie laid her head on her arms and thought about Timmy and Lewis. Suddenly she felt a hand grasp hers and sat up in wonder. It was young Benjamin Dawes, the Wing joker.

‘Any chance of a bit of a laugh, Sade?’

Sadie looked into the young man’s eyes and felt a deep bitterness inside herself.

‘How long have you been away, Benjamin?’ she hissed. ‘A year on remand, and now what, three months in here, and already you’re an arsehole bandit? Let me give you a bit of advice, love. You’re in on a good one, I admit, but if you can’t control your urges you’ll end up with the real big one - HIV. There’s already three in here carrying the virus that I know of. Now you do yourself a favour, Sonny Jim. You make your right hand your best friend, and if you ever come on to me again I’ll shake your dick till it drops off and then I’ll wear it as a keepsake! Do you understand what I’m saying?’

Benjamin stood up, all youth and battered dignity. ‘I only fucking asked.’

Sadie, recovering her usual bravado, said in a camp voice: ‘I hope you treat the real girls better than you do me, sonny!’

The whole rec room cracked up with laughter. Benjamin stormed off, shouting: ‘Fucking queens, you’re all the same.’

Sadie rolled her eyes and sighed. ‘Now there,’ she cried, ‘speaks the voice of experience.’

All the men laughed again, respecting Sadie for putting the young man in his place, all knowing that if the boy got caught up with Sadie this early in his sentence he’d be used and abused by the bigger men before he was paroled. In nick you had to be able to look after yourself to stop the raping and the abuse that went on behind cell doors. Especially when you were a youngster like Benjamin, who thought he knew it all and knew nothing really.

Sadie sat back in her chair once more, mind awhirl again with one thought.

Lewis was back.

Lewis was back and acting as if nothing had happened.

Lewis had smiled, which meant they were still on, and Sadie could do nothing about it.

If young Benjamin were her only problem, how much easier life would be . . .