Leah Giarratano - Vodka doesn't freeze

Dinner in the suite had been exquisite. The harbour was magical; they'd shared a bottle of French champagne. Perfect. Everything. And then he couldn't. Nothing. Not even the hope of an erection. Mercy lied and told him it had happened to lots of guys she'd been with.

Maybe her feelings for him wouldn't have changed had he not become so strangely silent. He would not speak; his body seemed to almost vibrate with rage. While offering more reassurance to his closed, expressionless form, she had a sudden image of him striking her and she recoiled.

The affair had died then and there.

Atypically, Mercy had managed to remain cordial with a former lover, and they'd continued and then developed their professional relationship without ever again mentioning the Hyatt.

'Yeah, I'm fine, Noah.' She pulled her jacket over her open waistband and tried to keep her voice neutral. 'I just don't want to spend my whole life at work, that's all. I'll see you tomorrow.'

'Remember that we have an individual session in the afternoon.'

How could she forget? She avoided eye contact and left the room. She went to the hospital's nearest exit and lit a cigarette as soon as she hit the outside air. It was critical that she keep people out of her head, especially him.

Jill was unable to arrange a visit to Bobby Anglia until the next afternoon.

Great, she thought, driving to the correctional facility, he's in the MSPC. The Malabar Special Programs Centre of Long Bay Gaol catered for inmates with problems so severe that they were considered unsafe to themselves or others in the main gaol. A maximum-security facility, the MSPC was broken up into five sections, including a sex-offenders unit, a psych hospital and a unit for inmates considered acutely suicidal or at high risk of self-harm. Inside the walls of the MSPC was also a unit for those offenders requiring twenty-four hour monitoring – the Acute Crisis Management Unit (ACMU) – the most secure unit of its type in New South Wales Corrections. She'd been out there before, and wasn't looking forward to the revisit.

Jill sighed. Of course Anglia had to be in ACMU.

She had spent the morning on case notes and Department meetings. Scotty had a compulsory training session all day today, and she'd decided to make the trip to visit Anglia without him.

She'd had a swim at Clovelly at lunchtime; she was still feeling delicate, and a sheltered section of Clovelly beach ensured she could swim without being buffeted by waves. Problem was, she'd come straight from the beach without thinking to change her clothing for her trip to the gaol. Her first female supervisor had taught her never to wear anything the inmates could see through, down or up. She pulled the neckline of her T-shirt higher as she steered her work Commodore towards Malabar.

Jill turned the car stereo down as she drove up to the first security gates of Long Bay Gaol. She needn't have bothered – the prison officers saw her badge from their office, waved, and raised the gates. It was an unseasonable 38 degrees in the city today, and the guards would leave their glassed-in office as infrequently as possible. She drove past the main car park and up to the top section of the compound, parking in the area closest to the MSPC.

The MSPC was a gaol within a gaol; a walled compound located deep inside the already secure outer prison. Jill approached the entrance – a towering wall of stone inset with a blank-faced iron door big enough to admit a semi-trailer. A metal intercom box greeted visitors. She buzzed the guards, gave her details, and leaned against the wall to wait. She forced herself to slow everything down, adjusted her need to keep moving and get things done. Nothing in gaol was rushed – it was like combat duty: hurry up and wait. Fortunately, her impatience was tempered today by the after-effects of last night's painkillers. Her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth and it felt like cotton wool blocked her dull headache.

She picked at the skin around her nails, thinking about dinner at her mum's this weekend, pretending her ribs weren't killing her and that she didn't wish she was at home in bed. The sound of footsteps on the gravel path caused her to look up.

'Hello.' A grey, tired-looking woman smiled at her. 'Bit slow on the gates this afternoon, are they?'

'So what's new?' Jill smiled back. 'I've buzzed them. Shouldn't be long.'

'I've brought you luck,' the woman said as the gates were opened by a male guard in mirrored glasses. He glanced at Jill, nodded at her companion.

Jill followed the woman around to a small alcove on the right. She signed her name in the visitors' book, checked in her firearm and jotted down that she was visiting Bobby Anglia in the Acute Crisis Management Unit.

'I'm on my way there too,' the woman said, looking over Jill's shoulder. 'Claire Walker, visiting chaplain.' She held her hand out.

Jill adjusted her shoulder bag and put her pen down. She shook Claire's hand. 'Jill Jackson. I'm a detective over at Maroubra. Got an interview with an inmate.'

'Yes I saw, Robert Anglia. A very troubled soul.'

Jill looked down rather than respond, and pinned her temporary visitor's badge to her T-shirt.

Claire clipped on her chaplain's badge. They walked over to another set of gates and waited again. By then, another couple of people were also waiting to walk across the yard that led to yet another set of gates. A guard accompanied them all across the hot concrete courtyard and let them into the next area. Jill and Claire walked straight ahead, as the others veered left.

Claire used her own set of keys to open still another gate that led into the small compound that was the ACMU. Jill walked in behind her. Claire had a smile and a word for the two men in prison greens sweeping the path near the gate. Jill kept her face impassive as they surreptitiously checked her out. Blah. She already felt she needed a bath. They walked up the path to the officers' room and into its cool interior.

Ordinarily when cops had to interview a prisoner, the inmate would be brought over to an interview room in another section of the gaol. Jill knew the senior officer at ACMU, however, and he'd told her just to come over to the unit. The gaol was often short-staffed, and Jill knew having even one officer off the unit to transport an inmate could mean the entire unit had to be locked down. Jill had been there during lockdown several times. The inmates were sent to their single cells, each monitored on CCTV. Their every move was on camera. The first thing that one noted in the small strongbox that was the officers' quarters was the bank of CCTV screens on the left when you walked in. The second thing you saw was the riot gear lining the walls. Jill knew there was another locker full of the vests, helmets, restraints and stun guns just outside the unit.

There wasn't much for the inmates to do in their rooms during lockdown. Since her first visit, when she'd caught a man masturbating for the camera, Jill tried not to look at the screens.

Claire greeted the two taciturn guards on duty and Jill introduced herself; she hadn't met these officers before.

'Anglia's in the yard.' The female officer nodded at the bank of video screens on the wall. 'Closest to the wall there. You ready to go now? Boss said to use his office.'

'Yeah. Thanks.' Jill followed the heavy-set woman from the room, giving Claire a nod on the way out.

ACMU housed a maximum of fourteen inmates. As usual, the unit was full, and the majority of its occupants were out in the small, dusty courtyard of the compound. Four men kicked a tennis ball against a wall, while others watched the game from the partial shade of a covered walkway. Two or three men talked to themselves, making listless hand gestures to the air. Although obviously heavily medicated, their hallucinations were evidently breaking though. This unit wasn't designed to house the mentally ill, but with the majority of the gaol's population suffering some form of mental illness, all units had to share. These men would be especially vulnerable, unable to survive in the main gaol.