Then he’d get angry, and Dora would apologize, say she must have misunderstood, she’d thought he said it was a singing job, when he must have told her it was stripping.

‘Singing?’ He’d laughed at that. ‘You’re tone deaf, Dora. Must be all the fags and booze – which cost me a fucking fortune, I might add. You ain’t got a voice to sing with.’

Now Donny was leaning down and grabbing a hank of her hair, shoving his face close to hers.

‘Didn’t you hear me? I got a job for you.’

‘All right! Don’t . . .’ Her scalp was agony.

Donny let her go. Dora rubbed at her head, wincing.

‘It’s gonna be a little celebration,’ he said.

‘Celebrating what?’ asked Dora, her eyes watering with pain.

‘Whatever the fuck I want,’ he said, and left her sitting there.

72

Frank had a lot more freedom inside now. He’d been downgraded to Category C, which meant no more signing in and out, no more dog handlers, no more of all the shit that came with being Category A.

The first thing he did with this new-found freedom was make contact with all the cons who were his mates, which he’d been pretty much unable to do up until now. Then he sorted out in his mind how much backup Peter Cannock had at his disposal, and found that he, Frank, had more.

After that, it was the small matter of a riot erupting on the landings. There were chairs, tables, and chamber pots full of piss being flung all over the place. In the midst of the furore someone lit a fire in Peter Cannock’s cell that sadly resulted in the top con being toasted to a turn. Peter wound up dead, and it all looked accidental.

It wasn’t.

But then Frank, who could never stand being number two at anything, was number one, top dog. Now he was king of the landings. All the little perks that came with this went straight to Frank, and with his new relaxed Category C grading, things got much easier and so Frank was able to conduct his business behind bars almost as freely as he’d done outside.

Baxter Graves came in to see him on a regular basis. Frank often wondered about Bruno, Baxter’s uglier brother, who hadn’t been seen in five years, but Baxter only ever shrugged his massive shoulders when Frank mentioned it.

‘Who knows?’ he said. ‘Who cares?’

Time was passing. Frank was always careful to give an impression to the warders, to the governor and to the bleeding-heart social worker lot who traipsed through the gaff on occasion that he was a reformed character. That unfortunate business with Peter Cannock and the riot had died down, and none of it had been laid anywhere near Frank’s door. He was a model prisoner, showing nothing but good behaviour.

Give it another ten years and he’d be out on licence. That was his aim. That was what he kept in mind, every single day in this fucking hell hole. Until then, he’d be a good boy so far as all the screws were concerned; he’d keep his nose clean. And then, he was going to have his revenge.