As he passed by, he shot her a sly knowing look. He knew exactly what she was up to and it served to line his pockets handsomely. He strolled slowly past.

She waited until his back was turned and he was walking away from her down the other side of the landing before completing the transaction with the lank-haired inmate. The inmate wandered off, leaving Bailey once again by herself, leaning on the balcony.

She glumly fingered the bag of drugs in her pocket. Despite her efforts, despite Alice’s efforts, the drugs were flowing back into the prison in much the same quantities as before, all thanks to Terry. Somehow he was getting them in. Somehow…

A thought started to take form in her mind…

She looked up sharply at Terry’s receding back as he walked off down the landing.

Terry had found a way to evade gatehouse security and the random checks which that entailed. How else did it explain the fact that he’d never got caught? How else did it explain the fact that he felt confident enough to continue smuggling drugs in despite being under suspicion so recently?

He must be exploiting some kind of hidden gap in the prison’s security. Could this be one and the same gap that Felicia Lee had used in order to escape?

Terry had the answer to what Bailey was looking for, but she could hardly go up and ask him.

She stood there on the landing, furiously analysing the situation, examining it from every angle, going back, right back, to the beginning…

Terry… the drugs… the killer… they all intersected with one person.

Alice.

Alice had been investigating the drugs ring and Alice had been murdered by the killer.

She thought back to Alice’s original text message: Source well concealed in prison. Investigating today. Will update later.

Could it be possible that Alice had been referring to the breach rather than to a person?

The breach quite obviously had to be well concealed because if everyone knew about it then everyone would try and escape through it. But as part of her investigation into the drugs ring, Alice had somehow worked out where it was, identifying it as the source point of the drugs flowing into the prison. She had gone to investigate the breach and she had encountered the killer getting into the prison. And that’s how she’d ended up dead.

The breach was located in the laundry.

Chapter 100

Bailey looked at her watch. Sixteen minutes of association time left. She still had time.

She scanned the landing for signs of Toni and the others. She couldn’t see them anywhere. Now was her chance; she couldn’t leave it any longer.

She headed for the stairwell, gripping both banisters, launching herself downwards, two or three steps at a time, her trainers clumping hard on the metal beneath her feet.

‘No running on the landings!’ she heard one of the prison officers shout from somewhere up above her. Bailey slowed temporarily until she was out of his line of sight, then resumed her frantic pace.