‘Good work. Now we’re getting somewhere. But—’

‘It’s not enough. Yes, I know. We need something more tangible than say-so and conjecture.’

‘So what’s your next move?’

‘I need to find a way in somehow.’

‘Prison gangs are notoriously hard to infiltrate. It would be somewhat easier if we had an informant in place to vouch for you.’

‘But we don’t. And that’s fine by me.’

He was quiet for a few moments. She knew he was well aware of how her previous job had panned out. The whole debacle had centred around an informant.

‘Oh, yeah, and I’m going to need some more money in my canteen account to buy stuff like cigarettes.’

‘You don’t smoke.’

‘They’re used as currency in here. I made a small drugs buy the other day and it wasn’t cheap, I can tell you that.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said.

‘Thanks.’

‘By the way,’ he said. ‘I think it’ll be okay with Alice’s family. I think I managed to smooth it over with them and convince them not to go to the papers.’

‘That’s good news.’

There was a loaded pause. ‘Bailey?’

‘Yes.’

‘Be careful.’

She nodded without saying anything, not that he could see her, and hung up the phone. She looked around. Sharon was nowhere to be seen and she guessed that was a good thing.

Chapter 28

Bailey observed Toni through the anti-suicide netting that was strung between the balconies at an interval of every two floors.

Now that she knew Toni was the leader, Bailey had switched the focus of her surveillance onto her. Toni was walking along the landing below with her customary self-assured swagger, her lip curled in an expression of permanent disdain.

She glanced upwards and Bailey drew back behind the thin cover of a cast-iron balcony column. Her stomach turned over, for she feared that Toni might have spotted her. But peeking out from behind the pillar it seemed that she hadn’t.

Bailey took off, moving parallel to Toni on the landing above, weaving between the inmates who were lounging there. Utilising her covert surveillance skills, she trailed her at a distance as she reached the end of the landing and descended to the floor below. It looked like she was heading for the house-block exit and the prison yard. Bailey moved rapidly, her heart beating hard as she skipped down the metal stairs, determined not to lose sight of her target.

She had been secretly observing the movements and activities of Toni and her gang for several days now, determined to generate some useful information. But she was careful to be very discreet and stay well out of their way. After all, she now knew that they carried weapons and had few qualms about using them.

Her observations so far confirmed what she had assumed – that Toni was the leader of the gang, for it was she who appeared to be the one issuing commands to the others. It seemed that her second-in-command, or lieutenant, was Keisha. The oriental one with the squint was called Rong, she’d overheard, but she still didn’t know the name of the big one that looked like a bodybuilder.