by Caro Savage
‘We’ll see what the union has to say about that,’ Terry huffed.
44
Bailey lay there and tried to focus her mind on something other than the sharp pain in her lower back as the tattoo gun drilled its intricate patterns into her flesh.
Poppy was once again sitting astride her on the bunk, working intently on the design.
‘Tell me more about your crime,’ said Poppy, pausing to dip the tattoo needle into the tiny pot of ink on the chair beside the bunk.
Bailey was surprised that Poppy was so curious about the reason that she had supposedly ended up in here. It wasn’t as if it was a particularly interesting or unusual crime, and she’d already told her a bit about it during their previous session.
It did cross her mind that Poppy might have been tasked with probing her story in a little more depth in order to confirm that she was actually who she said she was.
Either way, Bailey had no choice but to recite her story just the way she had rehearsed it so many times in her head.
‘Like I told you before, I worked in the accounts department for a big marketing company. People never suspect that the mild-mannered person in accounts is actually stealing hundreds of thousands of pounds from the company. I guess their mistake was that they had the same person responsible for setting up new vendors, processing invoices, making payments and reconciling the financial statements. That person was me.
‘I saw how much the top executives would spend on their business trips, on entertaining top clients, and so on. So I thought I’d take the opportunity to siphon off a bit of that cash for myself. The company was rolling in it and I thought they wouldn’t notice if a little bit went missing here and there.
‘It was dead easy as there wasn’t really any system in place to check what I was doing. It was pretty simple for me to set up a new vendor, a made-up company which appeared on the financial statements as “Corporate Services Ltd”. It sounded convincing enough not to raise any suspicions and it sounded suitably bland enough that it could have been providing anything from corporate entertainment to logistics.
‘I billed the marketing company for the services provided by this fake vendor, processing the invoices myself and then writing the cheques to be paid directly into their bank account, which happened to be my own personal bank account.’
‘Hmm… very clever. So how did you get caught then?’
‘How do you think? I got greedy didn’t I. You see, no one noticed at the beginning. It was just too easy. I got overconfident and started to increase the amounts. But then all it took was somebody questioning a particularly large payment to “Corporate Services Ltd”, and it all began to unravel. They suspected something was up, so they brought in a forensic accountant behind my back to do some digging around. They checked out the vendor and found out it was fake and that was that.
‘If I’d have kept it low-key, I’d have gotten away with it. I’d have flown beneath the radar and no one would have been any the wiser. I’d probably still be doing it now.’
‘Well, maybe things are meant to happen for a reason,’ said Poppy. ‘Maybe it was fate that brought you in here.’
There was something slightly cryptic about Poppy’s response and Bailey couldn’t quite work out what she was getting at.
‘Yeah maybe, but hopefully not fated to get scalped though,’ she said, steering the conversation in a new direction.
Poppy sighed. ‘It’s a pity really. I kind of liked her.’
‘Who?’
‘Natalie.’
‘You knew her?’
Apart from her name, Bailey knew next to nothing about the latest victim, save that she had met her demise whilst incarcerated in what was supposedly the securest part of the prison.
‘It doesn’t seem like that long ago that she was lying right here on this bunk where you are now, getting her tattoo done.’
Bailey perked up, lifting her head. ‘You mean…?’
‘She used to be one of us.’
‘A member of the ABC?’
‘Didn’t you know?’
Toni and the others had mentioned nothing to hint that Natalie had once been a member of the gang. This was a revelation. This was just the kind of information Bailey had been hoping to find out.
‘They don’t tell me anything.’
‘That’s because you’re new.’
‘Is that why she was in segregation?’ Bailey asked.
‘She wanted out. But you know how it is…’
‘Blood out…’
‘Apparently she was going to snitch on us. I guess that ain’t going to happen now.’
Now it all made sense. The talk of being one member down and the dark looks that had passed between the gang whenever the subject arose. Natalie was the missing member. Natalie was a snitch. Natalie had wanted to leave the gang. And there was only one way to leave. Blood out.
The question Bailey was dying to ask was on the very tip of her tongue…
‘Right, that’ll do for today,’ said Poppy, wiping the blood and excess ink from the tattoo. ‘It’ll take a few more sessions to get the details completed, but I want to make sure it’s perfect.’
The moment had passed. Bailey felt a rush of frustration. She had been tantalisingly close to finding out the truth, she was sure of it.
She got off the bunk and put her clothes back on before glancing at her watch. Twenty minutes of free association time left. She hoped the queues at the phones weren’t too long.
45
‘And that’s the reason it’s called HMP Foxbrook. Because of the River Foxbrook.’
Bailey stood in the queue for the phones half listening to Maggie as she cheerfully regaled the waiting line of inmates with facts and tales about the prison’s history.
Maggie was there to clear the queue and make sure that all the inmates went back to their cells when free association ended, which it would in about eight minutes’ time. But she appeared to be enjoying the opportunity to explain the etymology of the prison’s name to what was essentially a captive audience.
Bailey looked at her watch anxiously and willed one of the phones to become free soon. She had reached the very front of the queue and she was impatient to update Frank with what she had learned.
She glanced behind her. Some of the inmates were making a point of yawning widely, but that didn’t seem to deter Maggie from her mission to educate them on the more obscure points of the prison’s background. As prison officers went though, Bailey thought that Maggie seemed a good type and she did actually find some of her facts quite interesting.
Noticing a phone become free, she quickly hurried over to it. There were six minutes left within which to make the call. She punched in her PIN number and then dialled Frank’s telephone number. Rita answered after two rings.
‘Hello, Sullivan Knight Solicitors. How can I help?’
‘It’s Bailey Pike speaking. I’d like to talk to Mr Knight please.’
‘Just putting you through.’
She got to listen to five seconds of Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata’ before Frank came on the line.
‘Have you found out how the drugs are getting into the prison?’ he said, bypassing the usual pleasantries.
‘I’m still working on it,’ she said.
‘Well work harder. The drugs squad are on my case. They’re the ones ploughing cash into this operation and so far they haven’t received any actionable intelligence from you.’
She didn’t take his harsh tone too personally. She remembered now that he got like this whenever he was under the cosh.
‘Leave it with me, Frank. You know I’ll deliver the goods one way or another.’
‘Do you have anything that you can tell me?’
‘Natalie Spakes was scalped.’
‘I already know that. You, on the other hand, as an inmate, are not supposed to know that. We haven’t made that information public.’
‘Word gets around fast in here. Same signature. Same killer. I�
��m ninety-nine per cent certain it’s the gang. Did you know that she used to be a member? And she wanted out. Apparently she was planning to blow the lid on their activities.’
‘Yeah I know. Her boyfriend mentioned it. He’s pretty cut up about her death. They’ve got a kid you know. A four-year-old. The kid’s the reason she wanted to leave the gang. She was hoping that by snitching she could get out earlier so she could be with him. I can’t understand why she joined them in the first place.’
‘Protection. Prestige. Peer pressure. Who knows? You wouldn’t understand unless you were in here. Being in here twists your perspective on things.’
‘The murder investigation team are working off the possibility that a member of staff may have been involved, if not in actually committing the crime, then at least in facilitating it. She was found dead in a locked cell in a particularly secure and heavily monitored part of the prison. Somebody with access to a set of keys must have been complicit somehow. What’s more, the cameras to that part of the prison went down shortly before the murder happened. They thought it was a technical glitch, so they called an engineer out, but he wasn’t able to get there until the next morning, by which time the deed had already been done.’ He paused. ‘It turns out that some wires had been cut.’
‘Cut?’
‘Apparently there was a small vulnerability in the wiring leading to the segregation block. Anyone who knew about it – staff or inmate – could have cut those wires.’
The fact that the murder had taken place in the segregation block had been a strong hint to Bailey that a member of staff was embroiled in some way, but the news of the wire cutting illustrated just how audacious and determined the perpetrators actually were.
‘The whole thing must have been planned out in advance,’ she said. ‘It looks like the drugs ring and the murders are all tied up together. If a member of staff was involved in Natalie’s murder, then I bet that same person or persons is helping the gang get the drugs into the prison. We just need to work out who they are.’
‘According to the rota, there were over thirty prison officers on duty that night – Friday the seventh of June. They’ve interviewed all of them, but no one seems to know anything. Like I mentioned before, the staff aren’t particularly co-operative and the inmates even less so.’
‘What about forensics? DNA? Surely that must have thrown up something.’
‘Inconclusive. Just like with the other two. When it comes to DNA, there’s just too much opportunity for cross-contamination to make it a reliable source of evidence. Even in segregation, Natalie’s clothes, her bedding, her food, could have come into contact with numerous members of staff and inmates through a variety of means.’
Maggie came over to Bailey and tapped her wristwatch, indicating that her time was almost up. Bailey nodded and smiled, waiting until she’d moved away before continuing.
‘The fact that she was murdered in segregation means that they’re sending a clear message that no one is safe from them,’ she said.
‘If a member of staff is involved, then we need to find some way to narrow it down. Currently there are just too many contenders and not enough information to pinpoint any one of them as a feasible suspect.’
Maggie had come back again and was now gesturing for her to tie up the call.
‘Look I have to go now,’ said Bailey. ‘I’ll do my best.’
And she hung up.
46
Amber patrolled slowly around the edge of the canteen keeping a watchful eye on the inmates as they ate their dinner. It looked like chilli con carne was on the menu and the smell of it made her mouth water.
Dylan had been in here a few moments earlier, revealing the secrets of his special guacamole recipe to her, a side dish he said he always liked to make when he had chilli. Somehow he’d ended up making her laugh even though it was just guacamole he’d been talking about. Something about putting so much salt in it that you’d have a stroke before you’d even finished eating it. He was a ladies’ man, no doubt about that. He had that twinkle in his eye. And she knew when someone was trying to chat her up. Still, she didn’t mind. She was kind of flattered. He was quite handsome, she supposed. And, anyhow, it temporarily lightened the grim atmosphere that had been enveloping the prison of late. But now that he’d excused himself to go off somewhere, she was all by herself in here and once again she felt that ubiquitous aura of unease descend upon her.
Although everything seemed outwardly calm, there was an indefinable sense of something else in the air. A tension, like that atmospheric electricity you felt in your skin just prior to a thunderstorm.
She knew what it was of course. The recent spate of murders had really put the wind up the inmates, made them more fearful, more uptight than normal. She had noticed that there had been more flare-ups of late, attributable no doubt to this heightened state of agitation. With each new killing, the tension seemed to ratchet up another notch.
Amber checked her watch. It was 18:35. Just under an hour and a half left on today’s shift. She began to run her mind through what she’d do once she got home—
An ear-splitting screech tore through the room. Amber jerked around sharply. A fight had suddenly erupted out of nowhere, two inmates viciously going at it. She’d passed by their table only moments earlier, where they’d been sitting together, just the two of them, chatting in low tones, ostensibly engaged in amicable conversation.
But now, all of a sudden, they were punching and scratching each other, wrenching each other’s hair out, screaming and spitting abuse.
A fight.
A slam.
Amber’s heart rate immediately tripled as she frantically tried to think what to do. She cast her mind back to her training, trying to recall which control and restraint procedure would be most appropriate.
She looked around desperately for support, but there were no other prison officers present in the canteen. She was all by herself.
‘You fucking bitch!’ one of them was screaming. ‘He’s mine!’
‘Well now he’s mine!’ screamed the other one.
She recognised them as Agata and Marlena. They were both Eastern European. Agata was Polish and Marlena was Slovakian. Or was it the other way round? Right now, it didn’t really matter.
A tray of food got knocked off the table, clattering noisily onto the floor, splattering chilli con carne over the surrounding inmates, which didn’t help to defuse the situation.
There was nothing else for it. Amber took a deep breath and waded straight in.
‘That’s enough!’ she barked, attempting to separate them, but it was like trying to pull apart two very large, particularly vicious cats.
There were whoops of encouragement from the rest of the inmates. They revelled in diversions like this and they had all stopped eating to watch.
‘You’re nothing but a fucking slut!’ shouted Marlena as she swiped at Agata’s eyes with her long, painted fingernails.
‘He’s over you! You don’t mean anything now!’ hissed Agata as she kicked Marlena in the shins.
Marlena responded with a left hook.
Unfortunately, Amber’s face was in the way and she caught part of the blow on her temple, the force of it knocking her glasses right off her head. They skittered across the floor under a table.
She staggered back, momentarily stunned, her head throbbing from the impact.
The two inmates paused, staring at her in surprise as if registering her presence for the first time.
And then a large heavy figure barrelled into Marlena, knocking her to the ground.
It was Terry.
At last. Backup.
He knelt on Marlena’s back and bent her arm roughly behind her so she was pinned to the floor. She shrieked in pain, swearing at him.
‘Fighting’s not allowed!’ he growled in her ear.
‘That fucking bitch took my man!’ she shouted.
Amber gathered herself and turned to face Agata, who backed down, hands raised de
fensively, a nervous smile on her face.
‘It wasn’t my fault,’ she said. ‘She started it.’
‘I’m putting you both on the nicking sheet,’ said Amber, trying to block out the throbbing pain in the side of her head.
The situation was soon ironed out and the canteen went back to normal. There was a faint air of disappointment – from the inmates, at least – that the excitement was over.
Terry picked up Amber’s glasses and handed them to her.
‘Thanks. I was wondering where those had got to.’ She put them back on. ‘And thanks for backing me up.’
He shrugged it off like it was no big deal.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked.
She rubbed the side of her head. It still stung from the blow.
‘I think so.’
‘Side-handle batons. That’s what we need. Like I’m always saying.’
Amber was much more inclined to agree with him now she’d tasted violence first-hand. It had been her first experience of it in here and she hadn’t felt particularly able to protect herself.
She left the canteen.
As she was walking along the corridor, Terry caught up with her.
‘Hey Amber,’ he whispered, looking around to check that there was no one watching.
‘Yeah?’ she said.
He pulled something from his pocket and offered it to her. In his open palm was what appeared to be a small aerosol canister.
‘CS gas. Technically illegal, but it could save your life if things go tits up in a big way.’
He pressed it into her palm and before she could say anything he was gone.
She looked down at the CS gas. The sight of the small black can sent an illicit frisson through her and she slipped it quickly into her pocket before anyone could notice.
This certainly hadn’t been in her prison officer training.
47
Later that evening, Bailey was lying on her bunk doing a cryptic crossword, killing time before lights went out, absently curling her loose lock of hair around her fingers and letting it uncurl as she tried to work out the answers.