by Caro Savage
She was certain all would become clear soon enough. She had a good feeling about this job. She had succeeded in cracking the drugs ring and she sensed that the operation was now drawing to a successful close. More than anything, she was determined to make sure that Terry and the gang would pay the price for Alice’s death.
In many ways, Terry was more despicable than the gang in her eyes. As a corrupt prison officer, he was betraying the trust that had been imbued in him by the state and by the public, all for the sake of lining his own pockets. At least the gang were relatively frank about their criminality, but him, he was devious and dishonest. There was something low-down and dirty about what he was doing and it quite literally turned her stomach.
The more she watched him, the more she wondered how he’d been corrupted. When had he taken that first step down that dark road that had brought him to this current place?
As an undercover cop, she understood the lure of corruption all too well. One of the dangers of working undercover was letting yourself fall prey to the benefits of the criminal life. When you infiltrated a criminal gang, you were exposed to that kind of life, day in day out – the designer clothes, the high-performance cars, the posh restaurants, the respect and fear of virtually everyone you encountered. For a police officer who didn’t get paid a great deal, relatively speaking, the temptation could be very strong. And for some it was too much to resist.
For her, though, it had never been much of an issue. The fancy lifestyle – she could take it or leave it. What she’d always been more worried about was the mental contamination. Hanging about with criminals all the time meant that you started to pick up their habits and their fucked-up logic. Their mindset became your mindset and you became tainted with their twisted morality, or their complete lack of it. But sometimes you had no alternative. Because when it came to surviving in their world you had to think like them in order to be one step ahead of them.
Maybe that’s what had happened to Terry. He’d been contaminated. Working in the prison system, being around criminals all day long, he had at some point gone native.
53
The vegetarian lasagne was of a remarkably good quality – creamy béchamel sauce, a tender aubergine filling and a crispy brown cheese topping.
Today the lunch choice had been between that and chicken tikka masala. Bailey had never been a big curry fan, so she’d opted for the lasagne.
Sitting there by herself, her tray of food in front of her, with little else to occupy her attention, she idly observed the other inmates in the canteen as they ate their lunch. The various cliques sat at their tables, hunched conspiratorially over their food, gossiping furiously amongst themselves, no doubt speculating about Natalie’s murder. From what Bailey had eavesdropped, it appeared to be the sole topic of conversation at the moment. The demise of yet another inmate had inevitably cranked up the general sense of paranoia among the prison’s population.
Over in the queue, she noticed the three stoners – Kay, Seema and Mel – debating over the menu options, all of them eventually going for the chicken tikka masala. She watched them walk to a table holding their trays, Mel limping along behind the other two, her tangled afro bobbing up and down. Bailey had noticed on previous occasions that Mel had a gimpy leg which gave her a distinctive lopsided gait.
They had hardly sat down at the table before Kay began teasing Mel. Bailey was sitting a bit too far away to make out what she was saying, but the subject was quite clear – Kay was making exaggerated gesticulations miming the action of scalping and making horrible faces. Mel was twitching nervously, her eyes rolling, shaking her head and giving out sporadic low moans.
Bailey felt a twinge of pity for her. It was quite evident that she was mentally unhinged. She was what was referred to in here as a ‘fraggle’ – a headcase. Crazy Mel.
As for the cause of her mental health issues, who knew? Perhaps Doctor Bodie did. But all the drugs she smoked probably didn’t help.
Mel suddenly emitted a loud shriek and stood up sharply, her chair falling over behind her. She stormed out of the canteen, limping furiously to the exit and pushing the swing doors open so hard that they banged violently against the wall.
Everyone fell quiet to watch the scene, which was over almost as soon as it had started. Conversation drifted back to normal with shakes of the head, indicating that this was nothing to be particularly surprised about when it came to Mel.
Her tray of chicken tikka masala lay untouched on the table. Kay was shrugging innocently as if to say ‘what did I do wrong?’
Reflecting on the scene, Bailey wondered if she herself wasn’t too far off becoming a fraggle. After all, hadn’t Kay said that you had to be a bit crazy to want to be an undercover cop, let alone one who’d agreed to infiltrate a prison?
54
Leanne was scared. A cold sweat prickled across her skin and a nauseous dread filled her guts.
One minute she’d been in her cell enjoying a game of Connect4 with her cellmate. The next minute, the ABC were all standing there and they didn’t look too happy. Her cellmate had been told to make herself scarce, which she had done so in short order, leaving Leanne all alone with them. And that wasn’t a good situation to find oneself in.
She knew them all by name – Toni, Keisha, Rong and the big one they called Muscles, who was now blocking the doorway, her only avenue of escape. Not that escaping would have done much good. It would only be prolonging the inevitable.
She knew exactly why they were here.
‘I’ll get you the money,’ she stammered. ‘I promise. Just one more week. I promise.’
‘You said that last week,’ growled Keisha.
‘I mean it! Really.’ Against her will, a whiny pleading tone had entered her voice, which she knew would only increase their contempt for her.
‘The time for excuses is over,’ said Toni.
Leanne glanced desperately from one to the next, trying to eke out some glimmer of sympathy or understanding. But their faces were stony and unforgiving. She cowered before them and laughed nervously, as she was prone to do when things weren’t looking good.
‘What are you laughing at?’ snapped Rong, glaring at her cross-eyed.
‘Nothing.’
‘Are you laughing at me?’ Rong’s voice had taken on a low dangerous tone and she leaned in menacingly.
‘N… no.’
‘I don’t like people laughing at me. You laughed at me.’
‘No I didn’t.’
‘Are you saying I’m wrong?’
‘No, you’re right.’
‘No, I’m Rong, right?’
‘Right.’
‘So am I right or am I Rong?’
Leanne knew that whatever answer she gave would be incorrect. She let out a sob of despair.
They all burst out laughing. Keisha punched Rong playfully on the upper arm to congratulate her on her wordplay.
Toni stepped forward and looked at her watch. She turned to address Keisha.
‘Where is she?’
‘I told her to meet us here at three,’ said Keisha.
Leanne wondered who they were talking about, her sense of dread growing even more pronounced.
At that moment, Muscles stepped aside to let someone into the cell. It was a member of the gang Leanne hadn’t seen before. She was slender, with brown hair, pale skin and a distinctive scar down the left side of her face.
Toni turned to her. ‘Just wondering where you had got to.’
‘What’s up?’ said scar-face, surveying the scene with interest.
‘Get your shank out.’
Scar-face hesitated a moment, then reached behind her and pulled out a shank.
Leanne eyed it and gulped. This was just what she had been fearing. They weren’t called the Ace Blade Crew for nothing. She had been stupid enough to obtain drugs from them without having the means to pay and now she was going to suffer the consequences.
‘This cunt owes us money,’ said Toni. ‘And you
know how we feel about unpaid debts. We thought we’d let you do the honours.’
‘The honours?’
‘A nice little reminder if you know what I mean.’
Scar-face nodded. An unpleasant sneer came over her face.
‘With pleasure,’ she said, stepping towards Leanne.
Leanne retreated as far into the corner of the cell as she could manage, her back pressed right up against the wall.
This new member of the gang looked really mean, a proper nasty bit of work with those dead grey eyes and that horrible scar. She looked like the quiet type and they were always the worst, and she had that thousand-yard stare that all the real nutters had.
Scar-face stopped. She held up her shank and examined the edge of the blade, running her thumb along it.
‘You know I don’t know if this is sharp enough for what I’ve got in mind.’
‘Oh god… no…’ whispered Leanne. ‘Please…’
‘But then maybe blunt is better. It’ll take longer that way, give you more time to think about why you should pay your debts on time in the future.’
She took another step forward.
‘Please don’t hurt me,’ whimpered Leanne.
She had always had a low pain threshold. And she had a feeling this was going to hurt in a big way.
‘Now, where shall I start,’ said scar-face, licking her lips.
She was really stringing this out. What a sadist. She obviously enjoyed wallowing in the suffering of others.
Leanne’s mind was turning over all the horrible possibilities of what was about to be done to her. The terror grew and grew, enveloping her totally and thoroughly in its icy grip. Eventually it reached such a pitch that she didn’t think she could bear it any more. She felt her bowels loosen and then give way completely.
The stench of her defecation immediately filled the cell.
‘Phwoar!!’
The gang all put their hands over their faces with expressions of disgust.
‘That’s revolting!’
‘Have you got no self-control?’
Leanne sunk to the floor, a sobbing wreck, the warm brown goo oozing through her tracksuit trousers.
Scar-face looked down at her with contempt and shook her head. She put the shank away and turned to Toni. ‘I think she gets the point.’
55
Bailey breathed a sigh of relief as she left the cell with the rest of the gang. That had been a close call. Her heart had dropped when she’d realised what they expected her to do. She’d stalled as long as possible, frantically trying to think of some way to avoid having to physically harm the inmate. Thank god the poor creature had soiled herself. Fortunately, that appeared to have been enough to sate the sadistic urges of the gang. She just prayed that she wasn’t put on the spot like that again.
Toni moved alongside her so they were walking abreast along the landing.
‘Impressive. You made her shit herself. Not bad… for an accountant.’
Once again Toni was scrutinising her closely and Bailey couldn’t quite work out if she was completely convinced by her cover story.
‘Mental scars can be just as effective.’
‘Fear means power, and that’s all up here.’ Toni tapped her head. ‘And you seem to understand that.’
She placed a hand on Bailey’s upper arm.
‘Here, hold back a minute.’
They both waited for the rest of the gang to walk off along the landing.
Toni pressed something into Bailey’s palm. ‘This is for you.’
Bailey looked down. It was a roll of cash. It looked like several hundred pounds.
‘What’s this?’
‘Earnings.’ Toni flashed a gold-toothed smile at her. ‘I told you you’d soon be reaping the rewards.’
Drug money. It figured. That’s why they were doing it after all.
It technically counted as a criminal payment, which Bailey wasn’t allowed to spend. But she could hardly refuse it. That would just look downright suspicious.
She looked at the cash in her palm, unsure of what to do with it. Toni seemed to read her mind.
‘Use it in here to buy stuff, the kind of things you can’t get in the prison shop. Or, if you’d rather, we can get our contact in here to pass it to trusted associates on the outside who’ll invest it for you, if you know what I mean.’ She winked at Bailey, no doubt referring to some money-laundering scheme. ‘A little nest egg for you for when you get out of here. We can chat personal finance in more detail at some point if you want. All you need to remember is that there’s plenty more where that came from. Talking of which…’ She glanced around furtively. ‘We’ve got another delivery coming in next Saturday. Same arrangement as last time. Can I count on you?’
‘Are you certain?’
‘That’s what she said. Next Saturday. Saturday the twenty-second of June.’
Bailey glanced over her shoulder, discreetly tucking herself even further into the phone booth.
‘We’ll have to apprehend Terry outside the prison,’ said Frank. ‘Presumably he’ll either have it on his person or in his car. Because of the highly secretive nature of the operation, we will not be informing the prison authorities in advance.’
‘And me?’
‘Carry on as normal for the time being. We’ll stay in close contact. If all turns out as expected, then I can see us pulling you out within a matter of days.’
‘I just want to make sure we nail Alice’s killer.’
‘And we will. Don’t doubt that for one moment. You’ve done a sterling job, Bailey. I knew it wasn’t a mistake getting you back on board.’
56
Doctor Bodie reflected with some rancour on how the hard-faced police detective running the murder investigation at the prison had dismissed his offer of help with nary a consideration for the fact that he had a PhD in forensic psychology.
The police had refused to share any kind of official information about the murders with him despite the fact that had they done so, he might actually have been able to give them insight into which of the inmates could potentially have been responsible for committing such horrendous crimes, because from what he’d heard, the murders had sounded particularly gruesome.
But if that’s how the police wanted to play it, then so be it. They were just cutting off their noses to spite their faces.
He took a sulky slurp of tea from his ‘World’s Okayest Dad’ mug and placated himself with the knowledge that probably the reason they’d excluded him from the investigation was because they were treating him as a potential suspect in the case, as they were just about everyone else in the place, inmates and staff alike.
There was a knock on the door. He sighed and made himself forget about the police and their murder investigation. Composing himself, he put on a welcoming smile.
‘Come in,’ he said.
The door opened. It was Bailey Pike.
Her follow-up appointment was due today and he was pleased to see her. At least he had something interesting to focus his skills on. The more he found out about this particular inmate, the more intrigued he was by her.
She sat down opposite him. Once again she had her head tilted away from him, her hair hanging down over one side of her face, her arms and legs crossed – her overall demeanour giving the impression that being here constituted something of an inconvenience for her.
He had analysed the tests that she had done the last time she was here and the results had proved to be most interesting. Her answers indicated a level of pathological dissociation indicative of some kind of traumatic experience. What he hoped to achieve today was to gain some insight into the nature of that trauma.
But first things first. He smiled at her.
‘Have you done your homework?’
She frowned in puzzlement.
‘Your thought diary?’ he said.
‘Oh that. Sorry, I completely forgot about it.’
He sighed. This didn’t come as a total surprise to
him.
‘Like I said in our previous meeting, Bailey, if you want to get better, then you have to want to help yourself.’
‘I’m sorry, Doctor. It genuinely slipped my mind. I got sidetracked with some other stuff.’
He gestured at the sheets of paper on the table in front of him. ‘These are the tests you did last time you were here. Remember? The results are quite revealing.’
‘Revealing?’ A wary look.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You were referred to me because you threw yourself off a balcony. An attempt at suicide or self-harm tells me that you’re clearly troubled in some way. Looking at your test results, I’m wondering if this is down to a traumatic experience which happened to you in the past.’
He saw a flash of something in her eyes. Raw emotion. Pain. Fear. But then, just as quickly, it was gone, the grey eyes staring at him cool and calm once again.
‘You can tell that just from this test?’ she said, a sceptical tone in her voice.
In truth, he didn’t need a test to know that something unpleasant was locked up inside that head of hers. With her mannerisms and her scar, which he guessed was the outcome of some violent encounter, it was hardly an outlandish assumption to make. And with almost twenty years’ experience as a forensic psychologist he had become particularly attuned to reading people like her.
‘Would you like to talk about it?’ he asked.
‘Not particularly.’
‘Traumatic experiences, if unaddressed, can be the cause of major mental health issues. They can lead to suicide attempts, self-harm and other highly detrimental behaviour.’ He paused. ‘Have you heard of something called post-traumatic stress disorder?’
She nodded and looked away.
‘When we undergo a particularly traumatic experience, the mind can compartmentalise that experience. It’s like a defence mechanism in order to help us preserve a functional sense of self and prevent emotionally unacceptable material from entering our consciousness. But because those memories aren’t properly integrated, they’re not anchored in any context of time or place like normal memories are. That means that when they intrude, which can happen quite suddenly, it feels like—’