by Caro Savage
The real reason for her visit today was to access the inmates’ files. As Doctor Bodie had mentioned in passing during her very first appointment with him, they were stored in the office right next door to his.
To get inside the administration block, a magnetic key swipe was required and that meant that inmates couldn’t just walk in. The only way for her to get in, to get to the filing office, had been to make an appointment with Doctor Bodie.
She looked both ways, up and down the corridor. There was no one around. But she had to act fast. She tried the door handle of the filing office. It was unlocked, as she expected it would be during office hours while people needed access to the files.
She took a deep breath and hoped that no one else was already in there.
She pushed the door open. The filing office was unoccupied.
It was a barren room with drab grey walls lined with row upon row of large green filing cabinets containing the prison records of all the inmates incarcerated at HMP Foxbrook. By the considerable size and number of cabinets, it looked like the records probably went back a while. Or at least that was what she was hoping.
She gently closed the door behind her.
She looked at her watch. She had no more than two or three minutes at most to try and find what she was looking for.
She prayed that no one would come in and catch her. It would result in serious disciplining, a long stretch in segregation for sure. And that would mess up things in a big way, especially in regard to the forthcoming murder.
She went to the first cabinet and gently eased the top drawer open. The files were arranged in alphabetical order. She was at the ‘A’s.
She closed the drawer and moved to the top drawer of the third cabinet along. The ‘H’s. She moved to two drawers below it. The ‘M’s. She moved up a drawer. The ‘L’s. Bingo! Kneeling down by the drawer she began to leaf through the files, going slower now.
She heard the sound of voices outside, two people getting closer, talking to each other. Male voices. It sounded like two prison officers. She froze, her mouth dry, her heart beating hard. There was no time to move, or to hide, not that there was anywhere to hide in here anyhow. All she could do was wait and hope. She watched as their outlines passed by on the other side of the frosted glass. The conversation faded into the distance as they continued up the corridor. She breathed a sigh of relief. But she knew she needed to act fast.
She turned her attention back to the files. She didn’t have much time. Maybe a minute or so left.
She leafed through them, one by one, going through the surnames.
Lane…
Lansbury…
Laughton…
Ledoux…
Lee
There were quite a few Lees.
Abigail…
Anna…
Barbara…
Denise…
Felicia.
There it was.
She slid the manila folder out of the drawer, her hands shaking with excitement.
She opened it quickly to check.
Her attention was immediately drawn to the photo that was stapled to the top inside corner of the file. It depicted a pale-skinned girl with dark eyes and a tangle of punky-looking black hair staring vacantly back at the camera.
So that’s what the infamous Felicia Lee looked like.
For a moment, they stared into each other’s eyes. Bailey felt an odd inexplicable shudder go through her. There was something about this girl. Bailey knew instinctively that she had hit the nail on the head.
She was sorely tempted to read through the file right now, but she didn’t have time. Instead she closed it and tucked it beneath her jogging top which she then zipped up tight.
She gently pushed the drawer closed and stood up. She figured it would be a long time, if ever, before anyone noticed that the file had gone missing. After all, why would anyone want to look at it? Felicia Lee was no longer here. It was a dormant file.
Bailey stepped up to the door and once again hoped that she didn’t bump into anyone in the corridor. She opened the door a crack and peeked out.
There was no one there.
She slipped out of the filing office and walked back into Doctor Bodie’s office. Sitting down, she was conscious of the large stiff cardboard file concealed beneath her clothing. Hopefully it wasn’t too obvious.
‘Feeling better?’ said Doctor Bodie, looking pointedly at his watch.
She nodded.
‘So where were we?’ she said.
‘You were about to tell me all about your traumatic experiences.’
‘Where shall I start?’
‘Let’s try the beginning.’
‘The beginning? Sure.’ She took a deep breath. ‘It all started with this guinea pig I owned when I was a little girl. His name was Squeaky. I used to adore that little guinea pig. But then one day my father came home drunk…’
95
Bailey waited until later that evening, until after she had been locked in her cell for the night, before taking out the file from underneath her mattress, where she had concealed it immediately after getting back from Doctor Bodie’s office.
Now, at last, she had the time and the privacy to peruse it at her leisure and she was both nervous and excited about what she might discover. Sitting on the edge of the lower bunk, she laid the file across her knees and opened it up.
Once again she was drawn to the small photograph at the top. She examined it in more detail. By the looks of it, Felicia Lee couldn’t have been older than her mid-twenties when the picture had been taken. It had likely been done on her induction to the prison.
She wasn’t unattractive, but it was quite clear that, at least in this photograph, her appearance was the least of her concerns. Her punky hair stuck up in messy black tufts and her pale skin contrasted sharply against the dark rings around her eyes. She seemed to be looking back at the camera from some distant, cold place where the sun never shone. There was something unmistakably damaged about her, but Bailey couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. Maybe it was the absence of something rather than the presence of something that unnerved her as she studied the photograph.
Shaking off the feeling of unease, Bailey leafed through the file. As well as information relating to her incarceration, the file contained details of Felicia Lee’s criminal record, a variety of psychiatric assessments and a number of reports made by social workers. This was exactly the kind of information that Bailey was looking for.
Outside, the sun had gone down and the sky had turned dark blue with the first twinkles of stars beginning to appear.
Sitting there on the bunk, Bailey started to read through the file…
96
‘She’s off the radar completely,’ said Frank. ‘Seeing as she’s still on the run, my guess is that she’s been lying low somewhere for the past few years. She might have changed her identity. She could even be abroad for all we know. Either way, the trail’s dead.’
Bailey stood in the phone booth listening to him break the bad news. It didn’t come as a complete surprise to her.
‘My luck was slightly better,’ she said. ‘I managed to gain access to her prison record. I was up all last night reading it.’
‘Prison records? I thought that kind of thing was confidential.’
‘“You need to be able to use your initiative”. Isn’t that what you told me that very first time I started working for you?’
He chuckled. ‘So I did. What did you find out then?’
‘She grew up in an abusive environment. She was eventually removed from her birth parents and placed into care, and that was basically where she spent the rest of her childhood, in various foster homes and the like.’
‘Sounds like the typical background of your average prison inmate.’
‘Yeah, but there’s something else. The social worker reports mention something called “The Family”, spelt with a capital “F”. It relates to the abusive environment that she was in p
rior to being placed into care, but they don’t elaborate on what it actually meant. Does it mean anything to you?’
‘The Family? Hmm…. doesn’t ring any bells.’
‘Okay. Anyhow, as an adult she got pregnant and gave birth to a child, which she then subsequently murdered by smashing its head against a wall. And that’s what brought her in here.’
‘Why did she do it?’
‘In her defence she claimed it was down to post-natal depression. That didn’t manage to get her off but it played a mitigating factor in her sentencing.’
‘What about the father?’
‘No mention of him in the file. I’m guessing she probably accidentally got pregnant by some random bloke and couldn’t handle the responsibility of raising a child by herself.’
‘Well, that’s all fascinating, Bailey. And depressing. But it still doesn’t explain how she’s tied into the murders, does it?’
‘I know she’s connected somehow. I can feel it. Just looking at her picture, I know it.’
‘The trail is dead, as I told you. There’s nothing more I can do to help you. And what’s more, the drugs squad have lost patience with your “new angle”. I think they’re starting to suspect that I’m bullshitting them, but they don’t know why. Either way, I can’t stall them any longer, Bailey, we’re going to have to pull you out.’
‘The next murder is in two days,’ she pleaded.
‘And you’re no closer to finding out who’s going to do it.’
She sighed in frustration. He was right. But she wasn’t going to give up. Not now. Not yet.
‘That “Family” thing is niggling at me,’ she said. ‘Can you look into it? Just do this one last thing for me. Please?’
The other end of the phone was silent.
‘Frank?’ she said.
‘It’s the last roll of the dice, Bailey. But I’ll see what I can do.’
And he hung up.
97
The tattoo gun ceased its buzzing. The sudden silence broke Bailey’s trance of concentration.
‘Have you been listening to anything I’ve been saying?’ said Poppy from behind her.
Poppy had been speaking for the past few minutes, but Bailey hadn’t been paying attention to any of it, so preoccupied was she by thoughts of how she could progress her investigation.
‘Sorry? What were you saying? I was totally zoned out.’
‘I was saying that I’m really excited about opening our tattoo shop. About going into business together. About our future.’
‘I’m excited as well,’ said Bailey. ‘It’ll be great. I know that whatever you do, it’ll work out just fine.’
‘All I ever needed was someone to believe in me. Someone like you.’
Poppy switched the tattoo gun back on again and resumed her work on Bailey’s lower back.
A short while later, she switched off the gun and placed it on the chair by the bed. She dabbed at her handiwork with a tissue.
‘There. It’s almost done. One more session and it’ll be finished.’
She climbed off Bailey and stood up.
Bailey got off the bunk and pulled her vest on. She turned to face Poppy. Poppy’s face went serious as she realised Bailey had something important to say.
‘What is it?’ asked Poppy.
‘I want you to be careful,’ said Bailey.
Poppy looked confused. ‘Why? What’s wrong?’
‘This Tuesday…’ started Bailey, but she didn’t know how she could explain it to Poppy without telling her everything.
‘What about this Tuesday?’
She started again. ‘These murders that have been happening… I want you to be careful.’
Poppy’s face broke into a smile. ‘You don’t need to worry about me.’ She patted the back of her waistband, presumably where she was carrying her shank. ‘I can handle myself just fine.’
‘I’m sure you can. But… just watch out, okay?’
Poppy placed both hands on Bailey’s shoulders and looked deep into her eyes. ‘It means a lot to me that you care though. You’re a true friend.’
Right at that moment, Bailey was hit by a powerful urge to tell Poppy the truth about everything, about who she really was and the reason she was really in here. It would take just a few words to forever remove that invisible one-way barrier that lay between them. Almost involuntarily, she felt the revelation move up to her mouth.
She took a deep breath and braced herself to speak. She would confess everything. Right now. And damn the consequences. She suddenly couldn’t bear to deceive Poppy any longer. For people she didn’t care about, she embraced the duplicity as part and parcel of the job, but when it came to someone she actually had feelings for, someone who trusted her, it pressed down on her like a heavy weight. These situations did arise every so often when working undercover, and when they did, Bailey always found them challenging to deal with.
She looked into Poppy’s eyes. She moistened her lips. She opened her mouth to speak…
Poppy slid her hands along Bailey’s shoulders and placed them gently around the back of her neck, cradling her head. She gently pulled Bailey’s head towards her and Bailey knew she was going to kiss her. She knew she didn’t want it to happen but she knew if she didn’t let it happen, then she’d spill everything to her.
Never break cover.
Never. Break. Cover.
So she let it happen.
Poppy’s lips locked onto hers, preventing Bailey from speaking, thus saving her from herself. Poppy pulled her close into a tight embrace and for a while they stood there entangled in intimacy.
Eventually the urge to reveal herself receded to a safe distance. Bailey broke off and drew away.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Poppy, looking a little guilty. ‘I couldn’t help myself.’
‘That’s okay. I’m glad you did.’
‘Business partners,’ said Poppy.
‘That’s right. Business partners.’
And it all was just business at the end of the day, thought Bailey as she left Poppy’s cell. That’s what she had to remember when it came to this game. That’s what she couldn’t afford to forget. All of it was just business. And nothing more.
98
Monday morning came. And still Bailey had nothing that she could act on. Felicia Lee’s file had made fascinating reading, and Bailey had learnt a good deal about her messed-up background, but she couldn’t work out for the life of her how it related to the murders in the prison. If it did at all. And that was the problem. If she was correct in her assumptions, then someone in here would die tomorrow and she was powerless to prevent it from happening. And then she would be pulled out of here and she would never find out who had killed Alice.
As soon as they unlocked her cell, she made her way to the phones. She didn’t have particularly high hopes that Frank would have managed to find out much in the short space of time since their last call. But what else was she going to do?
The queue for the phones seemed particularly long today. She waited impatiently in line, cursing every minute lost as a minute wasted. After what seemed an aeon, she reached the front of the queue and when a phone finally became free she marched over to it and furiously punched in the numbers.
‘Hello, Sullivan Knight Solicitors,’ said Rita. ‘How can I help?’
‘It’s Bailey Pike speaking. I’d like to talk to Mr Knight please.’
‘Just putting you through.’
Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata’ was on for less than a second before Frank came on the line.
‘What took you so long to call me?’ he said.
There was an urgent tone in his voice. Did he have bad news or did he have good news? She couldn’t tell.
‘You found out something?’ She was almost too scared to ask.
‘You bet I found out something.’
‘Well…?’
‘I looked into The Family.’
‘And…?’
‘Turns out that it was a re
ligious commune. It was kind of notorious at the time. They held rather extreme views.’
‘Like a cult?’
‘Yeah kind of, I guess. Mind control. Physical deprivation. And so on and so forth. They kept all the children locked up in cages. Anyhow, when they shut it down all of the kids were rescued and put in care.’ He paused. ‘Both Felicia Lee and her brother.’
‘She had a brother?’
‘The same age. They were twins.’
‘It didn’t say anything about a brother in her file!’
‘His name was Leonard.’
‘Leonard Lee?’
‘That’s right.’
‘We have to find him.’
‘I’m one step ahead of you, Bailey.’
‘Of course you are.’
‘Same deal as her. Off the radar. No trace of him.’
There was a pregnant pause on the line.
‘Why do I get this funny feeling you’re about to pull something big out of the hat?’ she said.
‘Leonard’s trail went dead at his last known address. Hilden Close, Wolverhampton.’
He let the news sink in.
‘Oh shit,’ she whispered. ‘The Hairdresser is Leonard.’
‘I cross-checked with West Midlands Police homicide files. The Hairdresser murders ceased at around the same time that Leonard stopped living at the Wolverhampton address.’
‘So that’s who Mel met,’ murmured Bailey. ‘She must have met Leonard. And it’s him who’s killing the inmates.’
‘If Leonard is the Hairdresser, and he’s not one of the prison officers, then how’s he getting into the prison?’
‘He’s getting in the same way that his sister got out.’
‘But no one knows how that is.’
‘That’s what I have to find out. By the end of today.’
99
Bailey stood in the yard and gazed at the huge perimeter wall and the gatehouse that was situated partway along its eastern length. The gatehouse was the only official way into the prison and, with its X-ray machines and electronic double-door entry system, security there was pretty tight. And elsewhere in the prison the sturdy Victorian fortifications weren’t exactly designed to make it easy to get in and out of this place. But somehow Leonard was managing it, like his sister had done.