I was waved through, feeling shrivelled and fearful, like I’d done something wrong, and the room was huge and noisy, waves of sound crashing against the walls like in the canteen at school. The boys were so big, in their yellow tabards, with their tattoos. Meaty hands resting on tables. Shaved heads. Bulging muscles as they hugged the women, their mothers and girlfriends and the children brought to see them, already semi-hysterical with fear and joy. And in the middle of them was Jake. He was sitting at the table looking thin and hunched, like a wartime evacuee. The tabard was too big for him. He’s only a kid, was my first thought. Not much older than Benji. Hardly older than Cassie at all. Imagine Cassie in a women’s prison. She had, after all, broken the law by sending that picture, though she didn’t realise it. Perhaps breaking the law wasn’t such a big transgression as we thought. All too easy to cross that line. I made my feet walk towards him and then I stood in front of him.

He looked at me. His hands were neatly folded. Such delicate hands. Mike’s hands. Why did I never see it before? Because you didn’t want to, Ali. I wanted to reach out and flatten his hair, as I had when he was little. Again, I felt tears rising up, in my eyes and nose. I couldn’t cry in front of Jake.

‘Hi,’ I said, and my mouth was so dry I could hardly speak. He looked at me. ‘Can I sit, please?’

He jerked his head in assent.

‘Um . . . I can get you a tea, or . . . a soft drink or something? Food?’

He looked towards the vending machines. A flicker on his face. ‘Juice. I don’t drink that caffeine crap.’

The walk to the vending machine was welcome, a chance to compose myself, fumbling change until my fingers were metallic. The juice box tumbled out and I scrabbled for it in the bottom. I used to give Benji these. I still did sometimes. Jake was only eight years older. How could he be in here, when he drank the same drinks as Benji? Benji had believed in Santa Claus until two years ago. Asked to write an essay in class on how they’d learned there was no Santa, that was how he learned the truth, and he had to bite his trembling lip all day. Maybe I’d babied him too much.

Jake stabbed the straw in and drank without saying thank you.

‘How are you?’

He shrugged. ‘Alright.’

‘The other guys, are they . . . is it violent or anything like . . .’

Shrugs. ‘The guards stop anything like that. They leave me alone mostly.’

‘Oh. Good. That’s good.’