Amber gritted her teeth and nodded. She was rapidly learning that hard experience was the only thing that could truly prepare her for the reality of this job.

Chapter 14

Bailey stood in the lunch queue scanning the inmates sitting in the canteen, wondering if Alice’s killer was sitting somewhere among them right now. Much as Alice was the reason that she had elected to come in here, she had to remind herself that her operational priority was to find out about the drugs ring, and if she didn’t do that then Frank would be unhappy and the pressure on her would only increase.

Her best bet, in terms of finding out useful information, was to start talking to her fellow convicts. But where was the best place to start? Where was the best place to sit? Which one of them was Melanie Clarke? Bailey had no idea what she even looked like.

She glanced from table to table, trying to spot the right opportunity. She ruled out the table of butch-looking dykes sitting together whispering furtively amongst themselves. They looked too cliquey to break into. Likewise with the group of black inmates over by the window. As she’d already found out, by its very nature prison was cliquey and inmates tended to gravitate towards groups formed of their own types. Bailey had known that this would present a challenge for a new lone inmate such as herself.

Then she noticed the girl she’d seen in the shower, the one with the track marks on her arms. Her bleached hair, shaved at the back and sides, was tied up in a distinctive topknot, and she was wearing a long-sleeved jogging top which concealed her punctured forearms. As luck would have it, she was sitting by herself.

As soon as she got served her food, Bailey headed over to the girl’s table, and stood there, her tray poised.

‘Mind if I sit here?’

The girl looked up at her with pained dark-rimmed eyes. Her pale skin glistened with a faint sheen of perspiration and she appeared to be shivering slightly.

‘Fuck off,’ she muttered.

Okay, maybe some other time, thought Bailey.

She shrugged and looked around for somewhere else to sit. She spotted an empty table in the corner. She headed over to it and placed her tray down. Maybe it would work the other way round. Hopefully someone would come and sit down at her table and start a conversation with her.

She started eating. She’d opted for the chicken chasseur and it tasted surprisingly good. In between mouthfuls, she began to notice other people in the canteen staring at her. The table of dykes were murmuring and looking in her direction. She wondered what they were saying about her. She was starting to get a bad feeling. Something wasn’t quite right.

She got her answer a short while later, but not quite in the way she was hoping.

‘You’re sitting in my seat,’ said a harsh, rough voice.

Bailey looked up. Standing over her was a blonde inmate with short spiky hair. She was accompanied by several others who all had the same hard, sinewy look about them. There was a black one, an oriental one who appeared to have a squint, and a huge one, looming up behind them, who looked like she’d been hewn from a large block of concrete.