The cell was meant for one. Now held two. Bunk beds added sometime in the nineties. Three metres by two. Toilet behind a half-wall that did nothing much. No dignity here. HMP Strangeways. Built 1868. Renovated after the riots, but you wouldn't know it.
Rain against Victorian brick. A window too high to see out of, just enough to tell day from night. Glass reinforced with wire mesh. The damp came in anyway.
Mark sat on the bottom bunk. Grey joggers, blue T-shirt with the sleeves pushed up. Tattoos: a rose, a name crossed out, the West Ham crossed hammers on his forearm. Stocky build gone soft round the middle. Forty-three now. Fourteen months into a five-year stretch. GBH.
"Bloody hell, it's cold," said Jamie from the top bunk. Twenty-four. Thin. Ginger hair cropped close to hide the thinning. Face still spotted like a teenager's. Second time inside. Three years for breaking into a Tesco Express. Had a knife on him. Didn't use it.
"Heating's packed in again," Mark said.
A cry from somewhere down the corridor. Then laughter. Then nothing.
Jamie climbed down. No ladder. Just jumped. Sat on the single metal stool bolted to the floor. The only other furniture was a small metal desk, also bolted down.
"Been thinking about something the chaplain said," Jamie said. He picked at a scab on his knuckle.
"Yeah?"
"About rules. Ten Commandments and all that."
Mark nodded. Didn't say anything.
"He reckons God made the rules. That's why we don't kill each other and that." Jamie looked at the door. Solid metal with a small observation window. "But if there's no God, right, why's everyone still follow rules? Most people, anyway."
Mark shifted on the thin mattress. Springs dug into his back.
"Evolution," he said. "Saw a programme on BBC Four before I came in. David Attenborough."
"What, like monkeys and that?"
"Sort of." Mark rubbed his face. Stubble. They'd run out of razors again. "It's like, humans who worked together survived better than ones who didn't. If you're on your own against a mammoth, you're fucked."
A guard's keys jangled outside. Tea time soon. The food trolley's squeaky wheel announced itself from down the wing.
"So we're good because of mammoths?" Jamie laughed. A sharp sound in the small space.
"Not exactly. But thinking about it, it makes sense, doesn't it? The ones who shared food, looked after each other, they survived. Had kids. Passed on those instincts."
"Tell that to my dad," Jamie said. His voice flat. "Left when I was three. Didn't pass on much except a taste for Special Brew."
The sounds from outside grew louder. Someone shouting about the football. Manchester United had lost again.
"Not everyone gets the same dose, do they?" Mark said. "Like, some people are colour blind. Some people don't have those instincts as strong."
"That what happened with you and your missus?"
Mark looked at his hands. Big hands. Labourer's hands. Now they mopped floors in the education block.
"I lost it," he said. "She was going on about her mum moving in. I'd had six cans. Next thing..."
He didn't finish. Didn't need to.
The slot in the door opened. Two plastic trays slid through. Shepherd's pie. At least that's what they called it. More like mince with instant mash. Two paper cups of tea, already cooling. Milk powder floating on top like scum.
"Bon appétit," said Jamie, taking a tray.
They ate without talking. Just the sound of plastic forks against plastic trays. The rain got heavier. A rhythm against the window.
"The thing is," Mark said finally, "we're not just animals, are we? In the animal programs, the chimps might bash each other with sticks, but they don't lock each other up after."
"No prison for naughty chimps." Jamie smiled a bit.
"We know what we're doing is wrong. The capacity for that, knowing right from wrong, that evolved too."
"So why'd we do wrong stuff then?"
Mark shrugged. "Other instincts. Survival. Getting things we need. Protecting what's ours. Those instincts are older, probably."
"Cor, listen to you. Professor Mark."
"Did an Open University course last year. Biology." Mark's face coloured slightly. "Nothing else to do in here, is there?"
The lights flickered. The prison's electrical system was as old as everything else. They'd been promised an upgrade. Like they'd been promised a lot of things.
"My gran used to say we're all born sinners," Jamie said. "Original sin and all that. Church of England, she was. Proper religious."
"Maybe that's just another way of saying the same thing. We're born with instincts that don't always fit with society."
A bell rang. Evening count coming up.
"I saw a bloke get stabbed in Wormwood Scrubs," Jamie said suddenly. "My first stretch. Over a packet of biscuits. Doesn't seem very evolved, does it?"
"Prison's different though, innit? Everything's concentrated. Resources are scarce. Like being back in the caves or something."
Jamie stood up, stretched. The ceiling was low enough that he had to bend his neck slightly.
"They're putting me forward for that brick-laying course," he said. "Starts next month."
"Yeah? That's good."
"Dunno. Seems pointless. Who's gonna hire an ex-con?"
"My cousin did that course at Pentonville. Works construction now. Six hundred quid a week."
Jamie nodded. Didn't say anything.
"It's about adaptation," Mark said. "That's what evolution is. Adapting to survive in your environment."
"Deep, you are," Jamie said, but without mockery.
The observation window darkened briefly as a guard looked in. Moved on.
"My dad," Mark said. "He spent thirty years in and out of prison. Southwark, Wandsworth, Belmarsh. Never adapted. Died in a hostel. Liver failure."
"Cheery thought."
"Just saying. You can change. Not because God says so. Because it's smarter. Better survival strategy."
Jamie climbed back up to his bunk. The metal frame creaked under his weight.
"I'll think about the brick-laying," he said.
Lights out rang through the block. The cell went dark except for the orange glow of the security light outside the window. Rain still falling.
"Know what's mental?" Jamie's voice came from above. "We're sitting in a Victorian prison talking about cavemen. Like nothing's changed in a hundred years. In thousands of years."
"Some things change," Mark said. "Some don't."
"Evolution's slow, innit?"
"Yeah," Mark said. "It's slow."
Neither of them spoke again. But both lay awake for a long time, listening to the rain, thinking about adaptation and survival. About rules. About tomorrow's brick-laying course. About the slow, grinding work of change.