‘Very clever.’

‘You have to make do with whatever’s available in here.’

Bailey frowned. ‘Does that mean you’re going to use biro ink?’

Poppy tutted in disgust and shook her head. ‘Your flesh’ll rot if you use that. The biro tube is just a housing for the needle.’ She pointed to the upturned bottle cap with its small amount of viscous black liquid. ‘This is what we’ll be using. It’s my own personal recipe. It basically contains soot, which you get from burning cotton wool, a few drops of baby oil to thicken it and – to disinfect it – a dash of ethyl alcohol distilled from hand sanitiser. So there’s no need to worry.’

She gave Bailey a brief thin smile. It was the first time she had smiled.

Without further ado, Poppy got onto the bunk and straddled Bailey. It was cramped and Bailey was acutely aware of Poppy’s proximity. It was strangely intimate, to be so close to a stranger. Bailey realised she hadn’t been naked and this close to another human being since…

Since her torture and violation at the hands of him.

At the thought of him, her nostrils filled with the phantom whiff of clove smoke, sweet and cloying. That’s what he’d smoked – clove cigarettes. And she’d hated the smell ever since.

With some effort, she pushed those painful memories away from the light of day back down into the darkness where they belonged.

She felt Poppy run her fingertips lightly over the scars and burn marks on her back. Bailey flinched at the contact, even though it was fleeting and surprisingly tender.

‘Sharp things and hot things by the looks of it. So how did these come about?’

The memories bubbled up again as Bailey flashed back to her previous undercover job. The nightmares. The razor blades. The burning tip of a clove cigarette. The horror.

‘I’d rather not talk about it,’ she said.

‘Suit yourself.’

Poppy fiddled with the wire on the tattoo gun. It buzzed into life. The tiny needle turned into a blur as it went back and forth at high speed.

‘Now keep still,’ she instructed.

Bailey placed her head sideways on her crossed arms. She felt the needle penetrate the skin of her lower back, at the base of her spine. The pain was acute and concentrated. She winced and tensed.

Poppy immediately stopped. ‘Does it hurt?’

It did hurt, although it was nothing compared to what she’d experienced before, to what had given her the scars that she bore. Anyhow, she reasoned that to admit any kind of pain would look weak to a member of a prison gang.

‘It’s fine. I can hardly feel a thing.’

Poppy gave a small murmur of approval and recommenced the tattooing, pausing from time to time to dip the needle into the tiny pot of tattoo ink.

Eventually, the area began to numb as Bailey’s brain released pain-suppressing endorphins. It was an almost pleasurable feeling. She began to relax a little.