Kay and Seema snapped out of their stupors a few moments later, vaguely disconcerted, puzzled as to what they had just heard. But Mel knew what it was. Oh yes, she knew all right.

‘It’s him,’ she gasped. ‘Him cum bak again. Cum bak to kill. Come bak fi Mel!’

Her face had morphed into an ashen mask of pure dread. She pushed herself along the bunk into the corner of the cell as far as she could go until she was hunched into a ball, staring petrified at the open cell door.

‘De duppy ah guh fi guh kill wi aal,’ she panted. ‘Everi lass one of wi…’ Then, with an awful realisation, she lifted up a clenched fist and slowly uncurled her fingers.

The three of them stared transfixed at her outstretched hand as it became apparent that lying there in her palm was a crushed origami duck.

Chapter 63

Amber had just about finished berating the gang when a scream echoed through the prison, instantly stopping them all in their tracks.

High-pitched and agonisingly drawn-out, it hit Bailey like an icicle jammed down her spine.

‘What on earth?’ exclaimed Amber, looking up and around, trying to locate its source.

The gang perked up like meerkats, their ennui instantly dissipating. It sounded like something highly unpleasant had just occurred. In other words, it sounded like it could be interesting.

There was one other prison officer in the atrium. Bailey recognised him as Brian. He had been standing over on the other side.

‘Canteen!’ he barked, his eyes bulging in alarm. ‘It came from the canteen!’

He beckoned furiously at Amber and she sprinted after him in the direction of the prison canteen.

A fraction of a second later, all of the inmates in the atrium followed suit in a ghoulish stampede to see what had happened. A red-faced Brian led the way, panting with the effort, his bald head shining with perspiration.

Bailey raced along with them, hot on the heels of the prison officers, starting to form her own uneasy ideas about what they might encounter.

They burst into the canteen, scattering the chairs asunder in their mad rush, looking around wildly but seeing nothing amiss.

‘The kitchen,’ panted Amber. ‘Must be in the kitchen.’

En masse, they piled into the kitchen.

And stopped dead. Silent. Struck dumb by the gory tableau which confronted them.

The stainless-steel surfaces were splattered with blood. Everywhere.

At first, Bailey didn’t recognise that it was Sharon who was lying there on the floor. Her head was covered in blood, the glistening raw surface of her skull clearly visible where her scalp had been hacked off, her eyes half-open in the dull vacant stare of death.

She lay on the floor between the counter top and a row of steel cupboards. One arm was stretched out before her in a final plea for escape, the splayed fingers of her hand dripping red.

Amber, who was standing right over the body, had visibly blanched. Even Bailey, who had become relatively inured to the sight of dead bodies as a policewoman, was shocked by what she saw, not least because the victim was her very own cellmate.