‘I got held up.’

‘Where?’ Toni’s eyes bored into her.

They had all fallen silent and were now staring at her. She remembered her undercover training. Stick to the truth where possible.

‘I accidentally got locked in a room in the basement.’

‘And why did you get locked in a room in the basement?’ said Toni slowly, her brow creasing quizzically.

And now the lie. Bailey took a deep breath.

‘I was checking out possible alternative locations to keep a stash. You know… what with what’s been going on. I thought it might be a good idea.’

Toni eyed her for a few moments, then nodded. An acceptable excuse it seemed. She turned her attention back to the rest of the gang.

‘The reason we’re having this meeting is that I wanted to let you know that we’re going to resume operations fairly soon.’

‘I thought you said it was too risky,’ frowned Keisha. ‘I thought you said it was too soon.’

‘Our contact is confident he can get it in without being found out.’

Bailey wondered how Terry was doing it. Surely, in light of what had happened recently, he wouldn’t want to risk spot checks at the prison entrance.

‘How’s he bringing it in?’ she asked.

Toni shrugged. ‘I don’t know and I don’t care. All I know is that every minute we’re not working, we’re losing money.’

She rubbed her thumb and forefinger together and smiled, her gold tooth glinting, a venal look in her eyes.

Chapter 79

‘Dylan Prince. Dylan spelt D-Y-L-A-N.’

‘As in the Welsh poet?’ said Frank. ‘Just checking right now…’

She stood in the phone booth listening to the tapping of computer keys as Frank checked the prison officers’ rota. She glanced over her shoulder at the busy queue for the phones. Nobody seemed to be paying her too much attention.

Frank came back on the line. ‘According to this… Dylan was on duty when Alice was killed, when Poodle was killed, when Natalie was killed and when Sharon was killed.’

‘All of them?’ Even if Bailey had her suspicions about Dylan, she was still somewhat surprised.

‘That’s right. Who exactly is this Dylan Prince?’

‘That’s what I’m trying to work out.’

Having had minimal interaction with Dylan before, and having never spoken to him properly, Bailey had very little sense of the kind of person he was. Although she’d noticed him around the prison, he had been fairly elusive so far in terms of making any kind of specific impression on her.

‘Well, you’d better work it out soon. I had a meeting with the drugs squad yesterday and they can’t understand why this operation’s still going. They’re giving me all kinds of flak about it. With each day that goes by it’s getting harder and harder for me to justify your presence in there.’

She could sense the stress in his voice and she knew from previous experience that he wasn’t nice to be around when he got stressed. Being in this place, she couldn’t have been further removed from him physically, yet here she was feeling the pressure from him more than ever.