Bailey stood on the landing doing what most of the inmates did best – lounging. It ranked as one of their top activities. There was an art to it, she’d discovered, to be able to stand around and be casually engaged in nothing in particular.
But she was lounging with a purpose, using the architecture of the prison to her advantage. From her position at the centre, she could see down all four wings.
She was propped nonchalantly against a metal balcony, the cold iron surface beneath her hands worn smooth by generations of inmates who’d been doing the same kind of thing. She craned her head slightly to peer downwards.
It didn’t take her long to identify Keisha standing on the landing below at the far end of C-Wing, just where Seema had said she would be. It wasn’t hard to spot a drug dealer when you knew what you were looking for. As a police officer, Bailey’d had plenty of experience in that area.
She watched as a string of different inmates approached Keisha, smiled and greeted her with a handshake. And always something passed between them, transferred via the handshake, so subtle and fast that it would have been easy to miss if she hadn’t been paying attention.
Keisha was putting on a pretty good act of lounging, her hands tucked in the pockets of her jogging top, but Bailey knew that those pockets contained more than just a pair of hands.
Bailey pushed herself off the balcony and moved along the landing to get a closer look. She’d learned covert surveillance techniques as part of her undercover training. Really, though, all it came down to was being as observant as possible whilst remaining as inconspicuous as possible. Fortunately for her, the inmates’ general predilection towards lounging made it much easier for her to blend in and disguise her actions.
She observed another inmate walk up to Keisha, exchange a few inaudible words and a handshake. Watching closely, she saw the inmate casually palm something into her pocket, most likely a small package of drugs that had been concealed within the handshake. The exchange was quick and furtive and over in less than five seconds.
Bailey marvelled at Keisha’s audacity. She was blatantly dealing drugs under the noses of the prison officers, although, admittedly, there were only two per landing.
More interestingly though, when it came to putting a face to the name, Keisha’s face belonged to one of the inmates in the group of bullies who had harassed her in the canteen a few days earlier. She was the black one in the group. As Bailey was learning, it was a small world in here.
She waited until Keisha had finished dealing with the inmate before deciding to act. Pushing herself off the balcony, she walked to the end of the landing and descended the metal staircase to Keisha’s level. Looking around, she saw a male prison officer approaching, his shiny black shoes clumping along on the concrete floor. She waited until he had passed her and then made her move. She trotted up to Keisha and leant on the balcony next to her.
Keisha looked her up and down suspiciously with her hard cold eyes. If she recognised Bailey from the altercation in the canteen, she didn’t show it.
‘I want to buy some weed,’ said Bailey quietly.
‘How much?’
‘An eighth.’
‘Ninety quid.’
‘Ninety quid!’
Bailey was stunned. That was more than four times the street price for an eighth of an ounce of marijuana.
Keisha shrugged and looked away as if to say take it or leave it.
‘All right,’ said Bailey.
‘Have you got cash?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s not allowed, is it?’
Keisha snorted in contempt as if she had said something stupid. ‘Cigarettes then. From your canteen account.’
‘It’ll take me a while to get that many.’
‘You can have it on credit.’ Keisha’s face twisted into a mean-looking sneer. ‘But if you lose it or get it confiscated, you still have to pay. Just remember… when it comes to paying, you always pay, because there’s nowhere to hide in here and it won’t take us long to find out where you live.’
Bailey was in no doubt that this would be the case. She smiled at Keisha, shook her hand, pocketed the weed and walked off.