Improvise.

Ant flung a fistful of gravel in Grey’s face. He howled in surprise and pain, and she followed up by slamming her head into his kidneys. As he crumpled, she hurled another volley of stones before POs with tasers took her down. Hit once in the hamstring and once in the neck, Ant felt all her muscles spasm with pain like she had never experienced before. Grunting, she collapsed. The agony lasted only a few seconds, but by the time it had subsided, rough hands had dragged her and Max into the prison building. She felt the strap-key case being pulled out of her pocket.

Ant vomited copiously; Max swiftly followed suit. When she opened her eyes, she realized they had an audience. Grey, holding a dressing to his bleeding face, stood in front of a squad of armed POs. He watched impassively as she retched and spat.

‘Why don’t you come closer?’ she said in a harsh whisper. ‘I could be sick on your shoes rather than wasting it on the floor.’

‘Cuff them,’ he ordered brusquely. Denholm and McTavish stepped forward and hauled Ant and Max to their feet, steel handcuffs snapping around their wrists.

‘I want to see my brother!’ said Ant.

‘Sure you do.’ Grey walked past them into a fiercely lit corridor. ‘Follow me!’

Ant and Max were led past bemused staff, who moved aside as they realized who was striding towards them; a scrum of POs and press followed in their wake. Now reunited with their security passes, the two CB&TV crew fussed with cameras and headphones. Two flights of stairs and Grey swooped left, ignored a saluting PO who was holding the door open, and turned to face his new inmates.

‘Unlock them,’ he said to the POs, ‘and wait at the door.’

As the cuffs came off, Ant caught Max’s eye. He was spent. Exhausted, in pain and in mourning, she wasn’t sure he could walk another step. Or say another word.

I’m on my own here.

Grey had gone over to the window where she had spied him on their drive around the prison. A thousand years ago. It was a sparsely decorated room, austere even. One desk with a small zipped bag on it, one chair. A computer screen. Whitewashed walls – no paintings, pictures or curtains. A modest green carpet.

Grey guessed what she was thinking. ‘Each inmate is allowed seven possessions in their cell. I lead by example.’ He turned to face them, still holding the cloth to his face, and Ant realized he was already wearing TV make-up. The bag on the desk.

‘You’ll need some blusher,’ she said. ‘Hides the blood.’

Grey pursed his lips, folded the dressing and put it in his pocket. He ignored her provocation.

‘I have one more possession now. One that was stolen from me a while back.’ From his jacket pocket he produced the strap-key case and opened it. ‘Back in its box,’ he said, stroking the key.

I know you’re not watching, Max, but nicely reassembled anyway. He knows nothing.

Grey’s voice was harder now. ‘Do you know how much trouble you caused me? Do you know we had to change the strap design after you stole this? You cost the country millions of pounds – a debt you’ll be paying off for the rest of your life! However long that may be . . .’

Ant got the threat. So that’s why the key didn’t work on some straps . . .

‘So,’ he said, TV voice back again, ‘is there anything you want to tell me? Anything you’ve learned while you were an on-the-run?’

‘Yes,’ said Ant. ‘I’ve learned that my friends are brave. And that as we were the first to escape from Spike, we are an inspiration to strutters everywhere. There will be many others.’

‘Will there, Abigail? Will there really?’ he said sarcastically. ‘And that’s it? Nothing else?’

Say nothing. He’s fishing.

Ant shrugged. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ She focused on Grey, avoiding the strong temptation to glance at the strap-key case.

He nodded slowly. ‘Oh, I just thought that after all this time you might have a list of grievances . . . against me, against the prison service . . .’

Say nothing.

‘Would it make any difference?’

Grey smiled coldly. ‘Maybe not.’ He nodded to himself, as if he’d resolved an issue to his satisfaction. ‘So.’ He folded his arms. ‘It took longer than I expected,’ he said. ‘But here you are. And what should I call you now? Abigail? Ant? The “goose girl”?’ He raised a finger to his chin as though trying to work out an answer. ‘Well, whatever. Same girl, same problem. And why the goose I wonder? It’s a wild goose, I think . . . Am I right? A cross-breed maybe? Uncontrollable, untamed. How romantic, how moving. They make a lot of noise, I think . . . I am right, aren’t I? And here’s the thing . . .’ He smiled with satisfaction. ‘They bite when captured! We all need to keep our distance.’

Ant glared straight back and said nothing.

‘And of course you have one more name! You are the Not to Blame girl too. I should thank you really. Because of you, I am now a governor. Because of you, the old ways are gone. John Grey is on the rise, Abigail. So thank you.’

She glanced again at Max, who was swaying slightly, eyes closed. Big tears rolled down his face. Grey noticed her concern and raised an eyebrow. ‘Why so sad?’

Now she spoke. ‘You killed his parents. Why do you think?’

‘The riot killed his parents,’ said Grey. ‘And who caused the riot? Who provoked two whole prisons to attack a third? You did, Abigail. You killed his parents.’

Max was swaying now. ‘Can he have a chair?’ she said.

Grey smiled. ‘Can he have a chair? My chair? Of course not. It’s the governor’s chair, and has been since 1897. He can sit on the floor if he can’t stand.’

Ant took Max by the arm and eased him down. ‘He says you can sit,’ she whispered in his ear. Max allowed himself to be guided to the floor, where he sat with his head on his knees.

‘I want to see Mattie,’ she said. ‘I want to see my brother.’

‘Ah yes. The sorry tale of Matthew Norton Turner,’ said Grey, preening.

Ant looked away, eyes narrowing. Something in Grey’s tone, his words, his stance, seemed significant. Her head still throbbed from the taser but she forced herself to focus. And then she remembered.

Correction.

‘That’s what you said before Mattie’s film.’

‘I may well have done—’ began Grey.

‘All those lies . . .’ interrupted Ant. ‘Why did you do that? Why go to all that trouble?’ And then, her eyes widening, she answered her own question. ‘You knew, didn’t you? You knew I would go crazy . . . knew you’d have to send me to SHU. Then MacMillan told me the plan . . .’ She stood with her mouth open, everything suddenly clear. Terrifyingly, brutally clear. Her words were slow and quiet, almost hushed. ‘It was your plan, wasn’t it?’ she said. ‘You let me visit Holloway. Let me visit Pentonville. You wanted me to cause trouble!’

Grey’s mouth twitched. He came closer, stopping just out of reach. ‘All this time? It’s really taken you all this time? There was only one person who was ever going to be able to cause enough trouble in both prisons, and that was you. All I had to do was . . . allow it to happen. I knew that MacMillan had got friendly with you. I had the plan planted, and he passed it on to you.’

‘But I wasn’t supposed to make it out of Pentonville, was I? Me getting back to Spike wasn’t part of the plan, was it? I remember you saying I’d messed up.’

‘I hadn’t expected a full-on riot,’ said Grey. ‘That is true. A more minor incident would have been fine. Just enough to show up the whole useless system. Just enough to send shock waves through the prison service. To get rid of flabby thinkers like Gaunt and Burridge. But you complicated matters.’

‘By surviving . . .’

‘Yes, by surviving. But the outcome was satisfactory. Holloway blew, Pentonville blew and Spike was invaded. You wouldn’t have escaped that either, but the stupid governor opened the cell doors and evened up the sides.’

‘Not all the doors,’ said Ant quietly.

Grey shrugged. ‘Couldn’t be helped.’

Now Max cleared his throat, spitting blood onto the carpet. ‘But it could. That’s the whole point,’ he said, his voice brittle but steady.

‘If it was you that caused the riot, you could have stopped it, but you didn’t. You could have saved my parents, but you chose not to. That makes you guilty. All this time I’ve blamed Ant for their deaths, but I was wrong. It was you.’

Grey waved his arms. ‘You believe what you want,’ he said. ‘No one cares about you or your opinions. I’d even forgotten you were here. Take him away and lock him up with the others. Let’s not concern ourselves with him any longer.’

The POs walked over and hauled Max to his feet.

Ant and Max exchanged a long, stricken look.

‘I’m so sorry, Ant,’ he whispered, then McTavish bundled him out of the office.

Ant stood, her head bowed. She shook with the effort of controlling her anger and her tears. ‘I want to see my brother,’ she repeated. ‘Please can I see my brother?’

‘Do you know, Abigail – in all the time we’ve known each other, that’s the first time you have ever said “please”.’

‘Please can I see Mattie?’ she said again.

‘Once you’ve recorded a message for me,’ said Grey, using his TV voice again. ‘I want you to tell everyone in Bodmin that you are actually finally here. They’ve been worried about you, you see. Some indeed might have hoped you’d escaped capture. We just need to set the record straight. There are screens in the cells, so you can speak to all your old friends. And, of course, your brother. You need to apologize.’

Ant shook her head. ‘I don’t need to apologize to anyone.’

‘Oh, but you do,’ said Grey with obvious relish. ‘The re-strapping, you see, is not going to be easy. You have experienced it before, but this is new. Improved. Ant-proof, if you like! There is an injection of anaesthetic, then titanium rivets go under the skin and latch onto the vertebrae. Perfect. Usually this procedure is performed by one of our medical team. But now everyone needs to know what happens if you break the rules. So today, to discourage the others and make sure there is no more nonsense, you and your Spike friends are going to re-strap each other.’

Ant felt faint, sensed her legs starting to buckle.

‘Just a brief message,’ said Grey. He inspected himself in a small mirror, then, satisfied, packed it away in the make-up bag. ‘And you should know that if you try anything, say anything, do anything that I disapprove of . . . then, when it is time for you to re-strap your brother, the anaesthetic will have run out.’