For what seemed like aeons, they all stood there in silence, Toni scrutinising her with her flint-grey eyes.

Bailey started to feel dizzy and then realised she had been holding her breath as she awaited the verdict.

Toni’s face broke into a smile. She handed the syringe to Rong, patted Bailey on the shoulder and straightened her tracksuit top which had got rumpled in the altercation.

‘Guess it was just a case of mistaken identity after all. Had to be sure though. No hard feelings, eh?’

Then she and the rest of the gang filed out of the cell as promptly as they had entered.

Only Poppy remained, standing there with her arms crossed, leaning against the wall.

‘Thanks for sticking up for me,’ said Bailey, rolling her left sleeve back down, massaging her forearm from where they had been gripping it.

Poppy said nothing, and just stood there studying her for a few moments.

‘Just remember our deal,’ she said.

And then she turned and left the cell.

Bailey stood there all alone, her heart beating hard. She felt weak and shaky all of a sudden now that the adrenaline had run its course. She slumped down onto the bunk.

As she sat there, she reflected on the wisdom of having previously set up a special code with Frank. As part of the security protocol they’d agreed that if she prefaced the call to the switchboard with ‘It’s really important that I talk to’ instead of the usual ‘I’d like to talk to’ then it was a signal to Rita that she should prompt Frank to answer in character as there might be other people listening in.

Once again she’d scraped through. Just.

Chapter 88

Bailey stood by herself in the canteen queue, impervious to the clatter and chatter going on around her, lost in thought about the murders. She knew the answer was lying there right in front of her, tantalisingly close, almost within her grasp. It resembled a particularly difficult cryptic crossword clue, except that in this case someone would die in five days’ time if she didn’t work it out.

She sighed in frustration and shuffled along with the rest of the queue. She momentarily ceased her introspection to tune into the conversations around her, hoping to detect some elusive fragment of information that would solve the mystery. From what she could overhear, the fear of being viciously mutilated and murdered was still foremost in the minds of many of the inmates. After all, quite a few of them had witnessed first-hand the aftermath of Sharon’s slaying and if they hadn’t fully comprehended the gory reality of it before, then they certainly did now. An edgy pall of impending doom hung in the air – even if they weren’t consciously aware that one of them would die in five days’ time, it seemed like they could almost sense the inevitable butchery that was to come.

So saying, not everyone was talking about murder…

Directly in front of her stood two white inmates who were squinting up at the lunchtime menu that was written in messy black marker pen on the whiteboard propped next to the serving counter.