Silence in the dark cell.

Spyros.

She’d refused to say the name at the time, knowing that if she had done so, then they would have killed her just as surely as they would have killed him.

Now she repeated it night after night in a fruitless attempt to give her torturer what he wanted, to just make him stop, to make the nightmares go away…

Sharon knew. Somehow she had found out. She must have heard about the contract – it was the kind of thing that was common knowledge in underworld circles.

‘What a coincidence,’ said Bailey, trying to keep her voice level. ‘Must be some other Spyros.’

‘Sure,’ said Sharon. ‘Must be a plain old coincidence…’

The next morning no mention was made of the previous night’s conversation, but as she was getting dressed, Bailey noticed Sharon paying more attention than usual to the lattice of scars which adorned her upper body. She self-consciously pulled on her tracksuit top to cover them up and began to prepare breakfast.

As they sat there drinking tea, Sharon was infuriatingly and uncharacteristically quiet, a smug knowing glint in her eyes.

There was no way that Bailey was going to acknowledge that Sharon had come anywhere near the truth, regardless of how plain the connection might appear. If confronted outright, she would deny it completely. She had no other option.

Never. Break. Cover.

Although they shared an ostensibly friendly relationship as cellmates, Bailey felt a deep ambiguity about Sharon’s motives. She was well aware by now of the reason that Sharon was in here and was under no illusion as to the possibility that she would stitch her up if it served her purposes to do so.

‘Up to anything exciting today?’ asked Bailey in an attempt to puncture the awkward silence.

Sharon smiled enigmatically and tapped the side of her nose.

Bailey knew Sharon was dying for her to ask more, but she decided to deny her the satisfaction of doing so. Today in particular she was in no mood for playing her mind games.

Instead she finished her tea and started on a cryptic crossword, impatient for free association time to start so she could escape the claustrophobic atmosphere in the cell.

Chapter 60

The ABC were out in force in the atrium, sprawled across one of the plastic picnic-style benches. During free association time they were usually engaged in some form of criminal enterprise but, since Toni’s edict to tone down their drug-related activities, they were sitting idle.

Keisha and Rong were playing ‘I spy’, Poppy was lounging languidly across the top of the table, Muscles was sitting motionless as a block of stone, her huge hands resting on her knees, just staring straight ahead, and in the centre was Toni, a scowl on her face, grinding her teeth, scanning the atrium back and forth relentlessly.

Bailey walked over and sat down amongst them. There wasn’t really much else to do apart from sit there and project the appropriate air of casual menace, which is what she did.