‘I never really got on with Sharon to be honest. She always thought she was smarter than she actually was. And look where it got her. She was swimming way out of her depth.’

‘Seems like a lot of trouble to go to though.’

‘What?’

‘Getting a job here, in the same prison where you were an inmate. Risking being discovered.’

Amber smiled. ‘That’s all part of the thrill. That’s what I get off on. Knowing that I’m fooling everybody. Laughing at them secretly. The stupid mugs. I’ve never played such a fun game in all my life. You wouldn’t know just how fun it is unless—’ Her eyes suddenly widened. ‘Oh, well actually you probably would know, wouldn’t you, Miss Undercover Cop?’

Bailey grimaced. Sadly, Amber was right on the button. They were more alike in that respect than Bailey cared to admit.

‘But I still don’t get it though,’ said Bailey.

‘What is there to get?’

Bailey shook her head in puzzlement. ‘Why are you both doing it?’

‘Why?’ Amber looked baffled, as if what she and her brother were engaged in was the most normal thing in the world.

‘Yes. Why?’

A smile spread across Amber’s face like an oil slick across water. Her eyes now glittered with an alien coldness. She threw her head back and laughed a low husky laugh. The sound chilled Bailey to the bone.

Amber dropped her head and fixed Bailey with a piercing stare. ‘It’s all about needs. Leonard’s got needs. Special needs.’

‘You’re telling me.’

Amber’s face hardened.

‘That’s the mistake you people always make,’ she snapped. ‘You think people like us are stupid, like we’ve got learning difficulties or something. Well we’re not! Anyhow, you’re the one who was stupid enough to let herself get tied up.’

‘I don’t think you’re stupid. I just think you’re fucked up. You’re sick. You need help. I can help you. I can help both of you.’

Amber raised one eyebrow.

‘I think you’re the one who needs help.’ She sighed. ‘But sadly it looks like you’re not going to get any.’

She looked at her watch and began to hum a jaunty little tune to herself.

‘Tell me about “The Family”,’ said Bailey.

Amber stopped humming and looked at her with surprise.

‘My, my… you have been industrious.’

‘They had extreme religious views, didn’t they?’

Amber snorted a laugh. ‘That’s an understatement. They had a rather puritanical ethic, shall we say. Anything denoting beauty or sensuality was forbidden. We were kept in cages, forced to wear sackcloth, that kind of thing. Long hair was forbidden. We all had our heads shaved.’

She paused in reminiscence. ‘Leonard developed quite a thing for it. For hair. For women’s hair. So much so that when he got a bit older they let him do the shearing once in a while. He used to love that. Shearing the girls in the cages. His special treat. I guess he was at a particularly impressionable age. But then it all got taken away from him when social services came along and “rescued” us. He tried it on the outside for a bit – taking women’s hair – but it was never quite the same. But when I told him about this place – all the women in cages just waiting to be sheared – he was beside himself. He couldn’t wait to get stuck in.’