A head appeared. It was the head of a woman with long black hair. The hair hung down over her face, concealing her features. As she levered herself up out of the well, the hair fell aside to reveal her face, and that was when Bailey recognised her.

U-G-L-Y, you ain’t got no alibi. You’re ugly! Clap clap-clap. Ugly! Clap clap-clap.

The schoolyard taunt rang out in her head.

It was the inmate who Amber had been escorting across the atrium just a short while before Sharon had been killed and who, Bailey now realised, she had never seen since.

No wonder she’d looked like a man. She had been a man. In drag.

That had been the killer. That had been Leonard.

Amber had been taking him to the kitchen so he could kill Sharon.

Their modus operandi now became apparent – Leonard had been making his way around the prison disguised as a female inmate in the custody of Amber. The disguise had served him for the short periods that he had needed to traverse areas of the prison in view of other inmates and staff.

Calmly, he pulled himself out of the washing machine, swung his legs over the rim and jumped to the floor. Straightening up, he stood there, looking across the room at them. He flexed his fingers, the leather gloves creaking as he did so.

Lifting his hand, he brushed the long dark hair back to reveal a clean-shaven male face wearing a hint of lipstick and a dash of mascara. Without the make-up it could have been quite a handsome face, but right here, right now, under the harsh light of the halogen bulbs, it looked utterly grotesque – the freakish visage of a perverted monster.

He started to walk towards them, his trainers crunching lightly on the detergent powder scattered on the tiled floor.

And that was when the fear kicked in. A sudden blind terror arising from the primal depths of Bailey’s brain. He was coming to scalp her and kill her and each step he took brought that horrible fate a little closer.

She squirmed in vain against the heavy cast-iron mangle, the mesh bag cutting into her wrists, but she was held firm, sitting there helplessly on the floor with her hands tied behind her back, tethered immobile like a sacrificial lamb.

She suppressed a reflexive urge to scream at the top of her voice. Better to conserve her energy.

He stopped next to Amber. She turned to him and draped her arms over his shoulders. He placed an arm around her waist and pulled her close to him. They kissed, long and passionate.

Bailey watched in disgust and fascination.

Amber broke off and spoke in a low voice into her brother’s ear: ‘She knows all about you. She’s a policewoman, you know.’

Leonard looked at Bailey over Amber’s shoulder. Their eyes met and a shudder of revulsion went through her.

‘A policewoman?’ His deep male voice sounded bizarre, incongruous, coming from him dressed as he was.