But Seema was staring up at Bailey with an expression of wonderment verging on awe. ‘You know she’s right,’ she murmured. ‘Jean-Claude’s character is called Gibson Rickenbacker. Gibson is a type of guitar and so is Rickenbacker. And the baddie’s called Fender. Another guitar!’

Seema shook her head in stupefaction.

‘Guitars! Fuck me! All these times I’ve watched it and I’ve never noticed. Man that totally blows my mind. What do you think, Mel?’

Mel had been sitting there vacantly, her eyes half-closed and her mouth half-open, taking a pull from a spliff every so often, a long head of ash building up at the end. She didn’t seem to have heard Seema.

Seema whacked her on the upper arm to get her attention. ‘Mel, I asked you a question.’

Mel blinked and looked around at them as if for the first time. The head of ash fell off the spliff into her lap. She didn’t seem to notice.

‘Uhh… yeah… rich tea biscuits… yeah.’

Kay screwed up her face in disgust. ‘Mel, get with the picture! We had the biscuit conversation over twenty minutes ago.’

Mel looked confused. With a faint sense of dismay, Bailey could see that extracting any kind of useful information from this inmate would require an effort of the first order. And that was if she actually even had anything useful to say, which Bailey was beginning to seriously doubt from looking at her. Either way, she judged that now wasn’t the time or the place to start grilling her. Still, at least she knew what she looked like and where she hung out.

Mel turned to face her. Bailey looked down and realised that Mel was holding out the spliff.

‘Don’t give her our weed!’ said Kay. ‘The only reason she butted in just now was so she could weasel a smoke out of us. We don’t even know her name.’

Bailey held up a hand to refuse the spliff. It was a good excuse to avoid having to smoke any. As an undercover police officer, she was technically forbidden from taking drugs, although sometimes situations arose when it was difficult not to participate without appearing suspicious.

Evaluating the situation, she saw an opportunity to provide an excuse for her intrusion and also hopefully gain some understanding of how the drugs were distributed in this place.

‘My name’s Bailey. I just happened to be passing by and I smelt your gear. If you’d just be nice enough to tell me where I could buy some, I’ll get out of your hair.’

Seema looked her up and down, then conceded, ‘Keisha. She stands on the third floor at the end of C-Wing. She’ll sort you out.’

Chapter 17

‘Spyros!’

Bailey jerked awake, breathing hard, soaked in sweat, sheets tangled around her, repeating the name over and over.

The grey light of pre-dawn filtered through the small cell window. She guessed it was about 4 a.m., but in here she couldn’t get up and watch TV to distract herself from the bad dreams like she could at home.