MANOLIS HAD TO use all his powers of persuasion to get past the front gate of the detention centre. The security guards stared at him with pothole eyes. As employees of a private company, they did not take kindly to having their authority usurped and their kingdom invaded. Manolis was searched for contraband, a process that took an inordinately long period of time. He was given a laminated pass and signed in. As he was led through the checkpoint, he heard one of the guards joke about Molly’s stoning while the other laughed and mentioned ‘solitary’. From above, CCTV cameras captured every move.

The administration building had a newness about it, but also a sterility and sense of misery. There was a lack of natural light, and it was near silent. What little noise there was echoed through the bare corridors – footsteps on concrete, a slamming door, a ringing phone. It felt eerie.

Manolis was handed on to a second pair of bulky security guards and escorted to the facility manager’s office. Their tall frames cast long shadows across a dirt quadrangle in the late afternoon sun.

‘No photos,’ one of the guards told Manolis. ‘Photos inside the centre are prohibited.’

Manolis eyed his ID badge. It bore a single name: Deacon.

‘I’m a police officer,’ said Manolis.

‘Your badge means nothing here,’ Deacon barked. ‘You can still be prosecuted.’

Manolis again saw the outdoor basketball court, now empty. Beyond the court, makeshift washing lines sagged, heavy with cheap polyester and rayon. There were also rows upon rows of the same white underpants that had brought him there that day. The huts had been painted in parts, the detainees having tried valiantly to make their incarceration more tolerable. Their sketches included murals and foreign flags of origin. Gardens had been planted, airless rooms decorated. The detainees’ lives were monitored closely, their transitions between individual sections controlled by a phalanx of private security.

The guards themselves spoke in hushed undertones. They eyed their visitor with suspicion as his pupils darted to every corner of the common areas, examining holes in walls and broken windows and charred remains. Walking further, he overheard Deacon mention a ‘blindfold’ to his colleague. It was an offhand statement with an ounce of truth, and certainly would’ve kept Manolis from noticing what was in the next building: canisters of tear gas and boxes of rubber bullets and stun grenades and rows of batons and shields, all locked up securely in wire-mesh cages. Manolis kept looking for a children’s playground that wasn’t there.

In the mess area, the kitchen appeared derelict. There were signs of numerous maintenance jobs, including extensive patchwork. The floor was uneven and precarious in places, with insufficient storage space and old equipment piling up on benches.