In the shadows, silence.

Then she saw it…

The glitter of metal.

The glitter of polished steel.

And the figure standing there, wreathed in penumbra, holding the blade in a black leather-gloved hand.

She opened her mouth to scream.

And then the figure came at her out of the shadows. Lightning fast. Faster than she could anticipate. Faster than she was able to draw breath to form a scream.

Chapter 41

The lockdown was the first sign that something was up. Soon after that there was a cell search, in which a prison officer wearing rubber gloves rooted through her personal belongings. His name was Brian Bunter as Bailey recalled. She’d never talked to him before.

‘Hey it’s Brian, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘What’s going on?’

But Brian wasn’t particularly forthcoming, merely issuing a non-communicative grunt. He was somewhat overweight and his bald head had begun to glisten with a faint sheen of sweat from the exertions of lifting up their mattresses to look underneath.

‘Looking for murder weapons?’ she asked.

He looked up at her sharply, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.

‘I thought so,’ she said.

‘Another murder?!’ said Sharon, who was standing in the corner watching him with her arms crossed. ‘What’s that now? Three? How about bumping up security a bit?’

‘What do you want? A personal bodyguard?’ he sneered.

‘Feeling a little bit safer would make a nice start.’

‘Are you scared?’ he taunted.

‘No!’ she said defensively, but to Bailey’s ears she didn’t sound too certain.

As soon as the lockdown was lifted, Bailey headed down to the prison yard. As she made her way along the landings and descended the stairwells, she couldn’t help but catch the dark murmurs of the inmates huddled protectively in their groups. Already they knew about the murder. The guards, too, conversed with one another in low, grave tones, momentarily hushing when she passed. A palpable feeling of fear and suspicion permeated the echoing dingy Victorian structure and she was glad to get outside.

Standing in the sunshine, she peered around the yard. She spotted the gang sitting on one of the concrete picnic benches.

They nodded to her as she went over and sat down amongst them. She was keen to find out what they knew of the situation, but they were midway through verbally abusing the remaining police forensics officers and detectives who were packing their material back into their vans a short distance away on the other side of the chain-link fencing.

They were making the inevitable pig-snorting noises and turning up the ends of their noses in imitation of pigs’ snouts.

‘I smell bacon!’

‘Fucking pigs!’

‘Oink oink!’

Bailey played along with them in an attempt to fit in, feeling vaguely embarrassed for herself and for her police colleagues who, if they were in earshot of the taunts, pretended not to hear them.

Eventually the mockery subsided.

‘Do you know what they do to pigs in abattoirs?’ said Toni, a nasty grin on her face. ‘They hang them upside down and cut their throats. That’s what I’d do to a pig if I had one all by myself.’