NO ALE 

                              NO BAIL 

                              NO TAIL

                              ALL JAIL

Danny rested his forearms on the wrought iron railings of C Wing. H.M. Prison Pentonville still held the cold of the Victorian era. The bricks carried the same grime, and the wooden signs on the walls still ordered discipline and silence. But the silence was gone. It drowned under the noise of daytime television, the vibration of smuggled smartphones, and the shouting of young men smoking synthetic weed. The screws no longer wore stiff caps from the history books. They walked the landings in stab vests with body cameras blinking on their chests.
Danny looked at the crumpled piece of paper in his hands. He traded two disposable vapes for it yesterday. The text at the top reads 1000091260.png. It was a printout of this exact wing. Someone had painted the iron walkways and the heavy cell doors in thick, gloomy strokes. Right in the middle of the landings hung a giant, weeping clown head. The words 'TEARS OF A CLOWN' dripped across the bottom of the page.
Miller stepped out of the next cell. "You staring at that picture again?"
"It makes sense," Danny said.
"It is a clown. Bin it."
Danny smoothed the creases against the metal railing. Miller missed the point. The picture captured the reality of the place. They were locked in an antique cage while the rest of London ordered groceries on apps and took cheap flights to Spain. A kid on the ground floor was currently filming a dance routine on a contraband phone in his grey prison joggers. The prison was a circus. The painted clown with its smeared blue makeup understood the joke. It stared out of the page with miserable eyes while the real guards rattled their electronic fobs and slammed the heavy steel doors shut for the night.