She sat on the chair in the cell, one knee up under her chin, observing Bailey, while the rest of the gang filed out, leaving just the two of them in there.

Poppy’s cell was situated on the very top floor of C-Wing at the far end of the landing. From this high up, it was possible to see over the prison wall, to see the countryside which lay beyond – a patchwork of fields and woods and the blue expanse of a nearby reservoir. The cell felt akin to an eyrie and Poppy some kind of exotic beautiful bird which dwelt there.

Poppy eyed Bailey up and down, scrutinising her body with the professional detached eye of a craftsman. She looked serious, stern even.

‘Take off your clothes,’ she said, unsmiling.

Knowing there was no easy way out of this, Bailey obeyed, pulling off her shoes, then removing her trousers and then her vest, until she was standing there just in her underwear.

‘And the bra,’ said Poppy.

She took off her bra and dropped it on the floor on top of her other clothes. She crossed her arms across her breasts. Bailey’s modesty elicited a small glint of amusement in Poppy’s eyes.

‘Turn around.’

Bailey turned around slowly, three hundred and sixty degrees. She could feel Poppy’s eyes on her, an intense penetrating gaze, inspecting every inch of her body.

Poppy raised her eyebrows. ‘Mmm… no tattoos. Unusual.’

It was true – almost every inmate Bailey had seen in here had a tattoo of one form or another.

‘I could never think of anything I wanted engraved on my body for eternity.’

Poppy gazed at the lattice of scars with interest. Bailey dropped her arms to reveal the scars in their entirety.

Poppy frowned. ‘Did you do those yourself?’

‘I’m not the self-harming type.’

Poppy nodded slowly as if forming some unspoken opinion about her.

‘Lie down on the bed, on your front.’

Bailey obeyed, positioning herself on the lower bunk, her head facing the door.

The chair creaked as Poppy stood up. She pulled the chair over to the side of the bed. On the chair, she placed a home-made contraption which Bailey assumed was the tattoo gun, along with an upturned bottle cap containing a small amount of a dense black liquid.

Poppy picked up the tattoo gun. Bailey eyed it with trepidation.

‘Don’t worry. It’s sterilised,’ said Poppy.

Looking closer, Bailey could see that the tattoo gun appeared to be constructed out of a toothbrush which had been cut down and bent or melted out of shape. The lower half of a biro formed the top of the gun, a tiny piece of wire poking out from where the ballpoint had been chopped off. Bailey assumed that was the needle. A small electric motor was taped to the back of the device. Bailey couldn’t even begin to imagine where that had come from. Two long thin wires connected the motor to a battery that lay on the chair next to the gun. It was ingeniously constructed and Bailey marvelled at the resourcefulness it entailed.