She proceeded to tell him what Mel had told her, leaving out any mention of duppies. When she had finished, he fixed her with a faintly amused look.

‘A claim about a serial killer coming from an ex-crack whore who you yourself said is a bit…’ he made the ‘crazy’ gesture with his finger. ‘It’s not exactly the strongest of sources to go on. But then again… it would be remiss to disregard it completely.’

‘I did some research on it.’

She took out the book that she had borrowed from the library. A book was one of the few items that inmates were permitted to bring to a visit. She looked around surreptitiously. No one appeared to be paying them any attention.

She put it on the table and slid it over to him.

He picked it up and looked sceptically at the tacky cover with its embossed silver lettering.

‘Cold Cases Volume Three? Looks like the kind of thing some hack knocked out in five minutes.’

‘It was all they had in the prison library. Listen…’

She took it from him, opened it up and started to read to him in a low voice.

‘The Hairdresser. A serial killer who preyed on sex workers in the red-light districts of Wolverhampton and Walsall. He was dubbed the Hairdresser by the local media because of his obsession with cutting off and taking his victims’ hair. Six prostitutes fell prey to his cruel knife. The killings all happened within an eight-month period during 2014 and then stopped abruptly and were never repeated. He was never captured. What happened to the Hairdresser? Did he die? Did he give up? Did he just get tired of it? Or is he waiting for the ruckus to die down so he can strike again?’

‘Cold cases are usually cold for a good reason,’ said Frank. ‘I remember when all that was going on. They had a shitload of police on the investigation. And they didn’t manage to solve it. It turned out to be one big dead-end.’

‘I remember once when I was a kid,’ said Bailey in a soft voice, ‘we went to stay with some friends of my parents who had a smallholding in the countryside. One night we woke up to the most godawful squawking noise. The next morning, we went outside to see what had happened. It turned out that a fox had managed to get inside the chicken coop. There were white feathers and blood everywhere. And dead chickens. Lots of dead chickens. Torn to pieces. Once the fox had got in there, they were…’ She grasped for the right word.

‘Sitting ducks?’ suggested Frank drily.

‘The women in here fit his victim type exactly – ex-hookers… lost women. But this is a group of victims with a difference. They’re all enclosed like chickens in a coop. They’re easy prey.’

‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying?’ he said, eyeing the prison officers making their slow circuit of the visit hall.