‘Get it out. Slowly.’

He reached up carefully and pulled a folded piece of A4 paper from his top pocket. He unfolded it and held it up for her to see.

It was a printout that listed the names of all the prison officers and the dates that they were scheduled to work.

She scanned the rota for the date that Sharon had been murdered: the twenty-third of June.

On Dylan’s printout, that particular date had been ringed in biro with an arrow pointing to the twenty-fifth of June next to the name of Brian Bunter.

‘You swapped shifts with Brian?’

‘That’s right. I worked the twenty-fifth for him. Ask him if you want.’

She didn’t need to. She remembered now that it had been Brian who had led the mad rush to the kitchen in the immediate wake of Sharon’s murder. He had definitely been working that day even though this rota stated that he was supposed to have had the day off. That meant therefore that Dylan was likely to be telling the truth about the shift swap. And if he was telling the truth about the shift swap, could he be telling the truth about the murders? He had an alibi for Sharon’s murder at least.

Had the murder investigation team been aware of this informal shift swap arrangement when they’d been interrogating the prison officers? If they had, then the information hadn’t filtered down to either her or Frank.

Shit!

She let go of him. He dropped the rota and wrenched himself away from her.

They both stood up. He massaged his neck and eyed her warily.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I was wrong about you.’

He gazed at her curiously and shook his head. ‘Just what kind of weird game are you playing?’

Suddenly the door to the workshop creaked open. They both spun around. Maggie was standing there in the doorway, eyeing them both suspiciously. Bailey could see her register Dylan’s open shirt collar.

‘What’s going on here?’ she said.

‘Er… nothing,’ said Dylan, trying to pull the top of his shirt closed.

Bailey noticed the rota lying on the floor just behind the workbench. She quickly bent down, picked it up and slipped it into the back pocket of her tracksuit trousers.

‘There’s no reason for either of you to be in here,’ said Maggie, her arms crossed, tapping her foot.

She jerked her head at the door for Bailey to leave. Bailey dutifully scurried past Dylan and made her way out of the workshop.

As she did so, she heard Maggie say to Dylan: ‘I think it’s time you and me had a little word.’

She guessed that Dylan had somewhat of a reputation and that his colleagues were well aware of it. She left him to be reprimanded by Maggie, feeling a tiny twinge of guilt at leaving him to take the blame, especially now that it looked likely that he wasn’t the murderer.

Chapter 86

‘Hello, Sullivan Knight Solicitor’s. How can I help?’