‘Are you certain?’

‘That’s what she said. Next Saturday. Saturday the twenty-second of June.’

Bailey glanced over her shoulder, discreetly tucking herself even further into the phone booth.

‘We’ll have to apprehend Terry outside the prison,’ said Frank. ‘Presumably he’ll either have it on his person or in his car. Because of the highly secretive nature of the operation, we will not be informing the prison authorities in advance.’

‘And me?’

‘Carry on as normal for the time being. We’ll stay in close contact. If all turns out as expected, then I can see us pulling you out within a matter of days.’

‘I just want to make sure we nail Alice’s killer.’

‘And we will. Don’t doubt that for one moment. You’ve done a sterling job, Bailey. I knew it wasn’t a mistake getting you back on board.’

Chapter 56

Doctor Bodie reflected with some rancour on how the hard-faced police detective running the murder investigation at the prison had dismissed his offer of help with nary a consideration for the fact that he had a PhD in forensic psychology.

The police had refused to share any kind of official information about the murders with him despite the fact that had they done so, he might actually have been able to give them insight into which of the inmates could potentially have been responsible for committing such horrendous crimes, because from what he’d heard, the murders had sounded particularly gruesome.

But if that’s how the police wanted to play it, then so be it. They were just cutting off their noses to spite their faces.

He took a sulky slurp of tea from his ‘World’s Okayest Dad’ mug and placated himself with the knowledge that probably the reason they’d excluded him from the investigation was because they were treating him as a potential suspect in the case, as they were just about everyone else in the place, inmates and staff alike.

There was a knock on the door. He sighed and made himself forget about the police and their murder investigation. Composing himself, he put on a welcoming smile.

‘Come in,’ he said.

The door opened. It was Bailey Pike.

Her follow-up appointment was due today and he was pleased to see her. At least he had something interesting to focus his skills on. The more he found out about this particular inmate, the more intrigued he was by her.

She sat down opposite him. Once again she had her head tilted away from him, her hair hanging down over one side of her face, her arms and legs crossed – her overall demeanour giving the impression that being here constituted something of an inconvenience for her.

He had analysed the tests that she had done the last time she was here and the results had proved to be most interesting. Her answers indicated a level of pathological dissociation indicative of some kind of traumatic experience. What he hoped to achieve today was to gain some insight into the nature of that trauma.