By now it was late afternoon and Bailey knew that Toni probably had a good amount of both cash and drugs in her possession – more than enough illicit material to get her into serious trouble if she was searched. However, she had chosen her position well; from her perch at the end of the upper balcony, Toni had an excellent vantage point from which to spot any approaching prison officers.

After observing her from a safe distance for a short while, Bailey made her way to the stairwell and descended all the way down to the ground floor of D-Wing.

Earlier on, when she had been determining the locations of the gang members, she had made a mental note of where Shelley Foster had been patrolling. Shelley was the prison officer who’d reprimanded Bailey in the laundry, the one who resembled a female gorilla. She was known to be one of the most humourless, straight and stern of the prison officers, and that was exactly the reason that Bailey had chosen her for this next vital stage in her plan.

She was going to snitch.

This was a particularly risky venture as she could not afford to let the other inmates witness her communicating with Shelley. To be known as a snitch in prison was not a good thing. The comebacks were just as brutal as they were on the outside but a whole lot harder to evade. After all, you couldn’t just skip town if things got too hot. And once your card was marked, it stayed that way even if you were transferred to another institution.

Bailey retreated into the protective shadows of the large stairwell on the ground floor in the middle of D-Wing, waiting for Shelley to walk past. She could hear her big heavy shoes clunking on the floor as she got closer.

As she walked past, Bailey whispered to her from the shadows. ‘Hey! Psst! Shelley!’

Shelley halted and looked around. Her eyes narrowed in automatic suspicion as she sized Bailey up.

‘What do you want?’

Bailey beckoned her into the shadows, but Shelley just stood there, hands on her hips, tapping her foot.

‘It’s important,’ hissed Bailey, looking around urgently. Speed was of the essence.

Shelley sighed and stepped warily towards Bailey. She cocked her head to indicate that Bailey should come out with whatever it was she wanted to say.

‘You know Toni, the one with the gold tooth?’

Shelley nodded, grinding her jaw slightly. Of course she knew Toni. Everyone in the prison knew Toni. She probably hated her. ‘What about her?’

‘She’s up at the top of D-Wing, at the far end, selling drugs, right this minute.’

‘Is she now?’ Shelley raised her thick dark eyebrows.

She definitely looked interested. She also didn’t look particularly surprised. Bailey guessed the prison officers probably had a fairly good idea what Toni and her gang were up to.

Shelley eyed Bailey one last time, marking her as a snitch with a certain amount of contempt in her eyes, but then she probably regarded most of the inmates in here as scummy people with their own scummy reasons for wanting to stitch each other up. She probably thought Bailey had some score to settle with Toni. But that was immaterial if Bailey’s information was sound.