Seema laughed nervously. ‘You sure don’t want to make Mel paranoid. We don’t call her Crazy Mel for nothing…’

And with that, Seema suddenly leaned across to the table at the end of the cell and plucked a small square of coloured paper from a pile lying there. She thrust it out to Mel, who was still staring at Bailey.

‘Here, Mel, calm yourself down,’ she said.

Mel looked down and noticed the piece of paper. She suddenly seemed to snap out of whatever trance she was in. With a deft gesture, she swapped the joint for the piece of paper in Seema’s hand and started folding it furiously.

Bailey exhaled in relief and then watched her in bemusement.

Mel’s long brown fingers moved rapidly to fold and crease the paper. Bailey could see her visibly relax as she engaged completely with her task, now oblivious to the rest of them.

Seema nodded at Bailey and winked. ‘Origami. It chills her out, y’know… eastern mind–body shit.’

It explained all the little coloured paper animals lying around the cell.

‘Maybe she should just smoke less dope,’ said Bailey.

Mel grinned happily and looked up at the rest of them. She proudly displayed her outstretched palm to Bailey.

Standing there was a small origami duck.

Chapter 27

There were the customary large, noisy queues down by the phones. As she waited there, Bailey noticed Sharon join the end of the line. They made eye contact. Bailey smiled at her. Sharon smiled back.

After a few minutes, Bailey glanced over her shoulder again. Sharon was staring hard at her as if intensely curious. Bailey felt a pang of annoyance. One thing she didn’t need was a nosey parker like Sharon marking her every move.

When her turn came, Bailey pushed herself into the phone booth, twisting her head away from Sharon’s view, just in case she happened to be good at lip-reading.

She entered her PIN and then dialled the number. The phone rang for a few rings, then Rita answered in her nasal voice.

‘Hello, Sullivan Knight Solicitors. How can I help?’

‘It’s Bailey Pike speaking. I’d like to talk to Mr Knight please.’

‘Just putting you through.’

This brief exchange between Rita and Bailey took exactly the same format every time, the strict protocol decided in advance for the sake of security.

For a few seconds, Bailey enjoyed the sweeping melancholy tones of Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata’, and then it broke off as Frank Grinham came on the line.

‘So what have you got for me?’

‘It appears that a prison gang who call themselves the Ace Blade Crew hold a virtual monopoly on drug distribution within the prison.’

‘Ace Blade Crew?’

‘ABC for short. They’ve got these distinctive tattoos. I noticed them in the shower. Apparently they carry knives and they’re not averse to using them. People in here seem to be really scared of them. I think it’s highly possible that they killed both Alice and Poodle. Alice because she was a police officer, Poodle because she owed them drug debts.’