Bailey caught her breath. God, it felt good to be able to breathe. She leaned in close to Mel’s contorted face.

‘Mel, I’m not the killer,’ she panted. ‘The killer is out there. Not in here.’

Mel gasped and wheezed. Her eyes rolled. Once again Mel wasn’t there. She was in some other place.

Bailey braced herself and then jumped off Mel as fast as she could, lurching to the far side of the cell and into the doorway. But Mel just lay there on the ground panting, gibbering, tears running from her eyes, her energy spent.

‘Bor-ing,’ said Kay.

‘Now you know why we call her Crazy Mel,’ said Seema.

Chapter 69

The tattoo gun whirred as the tiny needle etched its marks into the flesh of her lower back, Poppy pausing intermittently to dip it into the pot of ink beside her.

Coming here was still a necessity for Bailey if she realistically wanted to maintain her cover. Although the focus of her investigation had now shifted away from the gang, she couldn’t just decide to part company with them unless she wanted to discover exactly what ‘blood out’ entailed, and she was in no rush to do that.

Anyhow, she’d grown to look forward to these sessions, having become accustomed to the pain, and found it satisfying to witness the gradual completion of what was shaping up to be a beautiful and intricate tattoo, even if ultimately she might have to get rid of it.

She heard Poppy suddenly gasp.

‘What’s the matter?’ said Bailey.

‘You’ve got a nasty bruise on your neck.’

‘It’s nothing. I had a run-in with one of the more unbalanced inmates.’

‘Who?’ asked Poppy, a dangerous tone in her voice. ‘I’ll sort her out.’

‘Really, it’s nothing. It looks worse than it is. I honestly can’t feel a thing.’

‘If you say so…’

Bailey felt Poppy’s fingertips tenderly brush across the bruised tissue. They lingered there for a short while, then they trailed down to the hard ridges of scar tissue and cigarette burns which adorned her neck and upper back.

‘Tell me about him,’ said Poppy.

‘Who?’

‘Your ex. The one who did this to you.’

Bailey was silent for a few moments. She desperately craved the catharsis of being able to spill the truth to Poppy, but there was only so much she could reveal.

‘I should never have got involved with him in the first place.’

‘How did you meet him?’

‘It was through work.’

It had all started when the police arrested Spyros Scafidi, a Greek national who occupied a key logistical role in the car theft ring.

The ring was operated by a notorious and well-established London crime family who had their tentacles in many places, car theft being one of their more lucrative enterprises.

They targeted top-of-the-range vehicles, premium brands, which they acquired through all manner of means, from keyless theft to straightforward carjacking. The stolen cars were taken to a network of scrapyards and lock-up garages which the gang owned around the country, where the necessary work was done on them to obscure their dodgy provenance. Then they were sold abroad in the kinds of places where law enforcement was slack, corruption was rife and wealthy people wanted nice cars without asking too many questions about where they came from.