Her attention snagged on the white shirt and black epaulettes of a prison officer’s uniform. The female officer – stern and masculine-looking – had just emerged from behind the racking and was slowly patrolling the other side of the room. Bailey didn’t know her name.

Bailey hurriedly turned away and took hold of the nearest trolley and began to push it along, keeping her head down as she did so. Her trolley appeared to be piled with used cleaning rags and mop ends and it didn’t smell too good.

She walked along, feeling the crunch of spilt washing powder on the tiled floor beneath her feet and eventually found that she had reached the far end of the laundry.

Glancing around, she decided to buy a little more time by pretending to do some work. She manoeuvred the trolley in front of a washing machine, an old top-loader standing up against the wall, and picked up a handful of rags, wrinkling her nose at the horrible smell which emanated from them. Holding them in one hand at arm’s length, she started to lift up the lid of the washing machine.

‘Can’t you read the sign?’ said a voice with a hint of alarm.

Bailey turned around. A small tubby inmate was standing there. She had pale blotchy skin and the kind of cheap glasses which made her eyes look huge.

‘What sign?’

‘That one.’

The inmate was pointing to a piece of A4 paper taped over the washing machine’s control panel. Written on it in crude felt-tip pen were the words: ‘OUT OF ORDER – ELECTROCUTION HAZARD!’

Bailey jerked away from the machine, letting the lid drop shut with a clang.

‘Thanks,’ she muttered.

The inmate squinted at the handful of rags she was holding. ‘You shouldn’t be washing that stuff anyway. We’re leaving all the mops and rags until Friday. Today it’s sheets, pillowcases, towels and blankets.’

Bailey looked at the stinking handful of rags.

‘Oh right. Sure.’ She dropped them back into the trolley and watched the inmate trudge away, dwarfed by the huge trolley she was pushing.

Bailey left the trolley full of smelly rags where it was and stealthily made her way around the back of the laundry so she could walk along the other side of the racking.

As she did so, she noticed an odd contraption standing next to the wall. It had a large cast-iron frame and two thick wooden rollers. It took her a few moments to realise that it was an industrial mangle, a relic from Victorian times. Surely they still didn’t use this to dry clothes? She smiled to herself at the thought of it. More likely they’d just never got round to moving it – it looked like it weighed a ton.

‘Who are you?’

Bailey spun around, her heart thumping in surprise.

The stern-looking prison officer she had seen a short while earlier was standing there, arms crossed, eyeing her suspiciously. She was short and heavily built, like a female gorilla, and she didn’t look like the kind of person who brooked any messing around.