Their shadows fell across the table.

For a few moments, they stood there surrounding her, holding their trays of food. The entire canteen had gone silent. Not even the smallest clatter of cutlery could be heard. Everyone was waiting for something to happen. To her.

But, unlike last time, they didn’t ask her to move.

They just sat down around her. She was sandwiched between the big lumbering one to her left and Keisha to her right. Toni sat directly opposite her, next to Rong.

Bailey breathed out slowly. So far so good…

Toni gave her a long hard look. Then she started eating, which was a signal for the others to also start eating.

They ate in silence, indecipherable looks occasionally passing between them.

Bailey also ate, forcing the food down even though she didn’t feel like it.

The rest of the canteen ate and watched, waiting – perhaps hopefully – for the inevitable violent outcome.

But that didn’t happen.

What happened was that Toni finished eating, put down her knife and fork, steepled her fingers and fixed Bailey with another long hard gaze with her pale flint-coloured eyes.

Bailey held her stare, forcing herself not to blink.

‘So, you want to sit at our table, huh?’ said Toni finally.

‘Seems like the best seat in the canteen,’ said Bailey.

Toni’s eyes narrowed as she sized Bailey up. She nodded to herself, coming to some unspoken conclusion.

Toni glanced around the canteen. All eyes seemed to be upon them. Everyone appeared to be straining to hear what they were saying. She leaned in close to Bailey and lowered her voice so it was almost inaudible.

‘Meet me in the yard. Half an hour. Corner of C-Wing.’

Then she stood up. The others followed suit. They left the canteen, leaving Bailey sitting by herself alone at the table.

She looked around.

The other inmates were looking at her with a certain amount of curiosity and even a little respect.

She couldn’t help but smile to herself, pleased with how it had turned out so far. But a strong sense of trepidation also gripped her. What was going to happen next?

Chapter 31

The yard was flat, bare, compacted dirt, encircled with wire fences topped with concertina coils of razor wire, beyond which lay the massive perimeter wall with its fortress-like crenellations and watchtowers. Inmates dotted the yard in ones and twos, some walking along, others kicking a ball to and fro, some sitting on the series of poured concrete picnic-style benches which lined one side. Mostly they just stood around and smoked.

Bailey trotted across the yard in the direction of her impending rendezvous. Although she felt a certain amount of apprehension, she was fairly confident she’d done a decent job of convincing them. After all she wasn’t a complete rookie when it came to this kind of work.

Moments later, she spotted Toni, smoking a cigarette, leaning against the corner of the exterior wall of the house-block which formed C-Wing. Toni smiled at her and beckoned her over.