The chapel was cool and dim. Bailey stood at the top of the aisle, rows of empty wooden pews stretching out on either side of her down to the front of the room. There, atop the altar stood a painted statue of Jesus hanging on the cross, his face frozen in an expression of pious agony.
She was keenly aware of the bundles of cash secreted just beneath her waistband, and had been so ever since Toni had given them to her.
She scanned the room again. There was no sign of anyone else in here. Yet.
As for Father O’Malley, his office door was closed and she had no intention of disturbing him.
As soon as Toni had informed her that the chapel was to be the rendezvous point, the possibility had crossed her mind that Father O’Malley might be the contact. But it seemed unlikely. He was a drunk and drunks just weren’t reliable enough for this type of thing. More probable was that the chapel had been chosen for the very reason that he was too inebriated most of the time to pay proper attention to what was going on in there. At any rate, it explained why Toni had come here that time that Bailey had covertly followed her. She had been making a pick-up.
Bailey padded down the carpeted aisle to the front of the chapel and, as per Toni’s instructions, headed for the right-hand of the two confessional booths. She stepped inside the small wooden cubicle and sat down on the narrow seat. It was the first time she had been inside a confessional. It was cramped, very dim and it smelt faintly of varnish.
To her immediate right there was a wooden grate to enable communication between the two booths. And it was when she peered through this that she became aware of someone occupying the other booth. It was too indistinct to make out anything other than a shadowy outline sitting there in silence.
A jolt of anticipation went through her. This must be the contact she was supposed to meet.
The person shifted impatiently, their clothes rustling. Whoever it was, they were aware of her presence and waiting for her to say something.
‘Forgive me Father for I have sinned,’ she said.
‘A sin is not a sin if no one sees it,’ came the response. A man’s voice. A cockney accent. Definitely not Father O’Malley. It had to be one of the guards, but she wasn’t able to make out which one.
‘What the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over,’ she said, completing the script that Toni had told her to recite.
There was a pause. The silhouette leaned closer to the grate.
‘It’s under the seat,’ he said.
She reached between her legs and groped around under the wooden seat of the confessional, her fingers closing around a large package wrapped in polythene. She picked it up. It was fairly heavy. It must have weighed around a kilogram.
‘Leave the money in the same place,’ he said. She could smell cigarettes on his breath. He was a smoker.
She pulled the bundles of cash out from her waistband and placed them beneath the seat. She then tucked the drugs into her tracksuit top and zipped it up, hoping that it was baggy enough to disguise the bulky package.
If only she could see who was on the other side of the grate. It was frustrating to be so close and yet unable to make a positive ID.
‘The money’s there,’ she said.
‘Say ten Hail Marys and piss off.’ He laughed sarcastically.
She took one last squint through the grate.
‘Well, what are you waiting for?’ he growled. ‘Business is done for today.’
‘Thank you, Father,’ she whispered. She stood up, exited the confessional and scurried out of the chapel.
But once she was outside she didn’t go straight back to Toni’s cell as she’d been instructed to. It was imperative that she identified the contact and this could be her only opportunity.
The weather wasn’t bad, so the yard was relatively busy, unlike before when she’d followed Toni to the chapel. Not far away she noticed a group of inmates playing football, being cheered on by a few bystanders. She pulled her hood up and headed over to them, attempting to mingle with the spectators as inconspicuously as possible while maintaining an eye on the door of the chapel.
It took a long five minutes before the door opened and someone emerged.
It was Terry.
So Terry Brinkle was the source. He was definitely well concealed, or at least made an effort to be that way.
He stood by the door for a few moments, his eyes narrowed, scanning the yard to see if anyone was watching him.
She dropped her head, hiding her face beneath the hood, and made some cheering gestures at the footballers. Glancing up, she saw him walking briskly in the direction of the administration block. She imagined he was probably going to deposit the money in his locker or something like that.
A feeling of elation sparked within her. It was all starting to make sense now. Finally.
When she got back to Toni’s cell, the whole gang were there sitting around glaring at her. She felt an arctic chill of hostility and suspicion emanating from them.
‘What took you so long?’ hissed Toni, her eyes bulging in a scary fashion.
Bailey scrambled for an appropriate lie.
‘There were some screws hanging around in the yard by the entrance to the house-blocks. I was worried they might search me, so I took a detour to avoid them.’
Toni eyeballed her for a few moments, then nodded slowly, apparently satisfied with her explanation.
‘You can never be too careful,’ she said.
Bailey unzipped her tracksuit top and pulled out the package. She handed it to Toni, who hefted it in her hand, a satisfied smirk crossing her face. She tossed it to Keisha, who was sitting on the bunk. Keisha began to peel off the polythene.
The drugs consisted of two bars of what Bailey recognised as cannabis resin.
‘Each of those blocks of hash is five hundred grams,’ said Toni. ‘Each one has got twenty grams of smack and twenty grams of coke embedded in it. It’s the most efficient way of delivering it.’
Bailey nodded, carefully memorising the information.
Toni continued, ‘Once we split that up and sell it, it’ll net us in the region of forty grand or so. We can charge up to four times the street value in here, sometimes more. It’s all about supply and demand, see. And demand for that is at a premium.’
It was a lucrative business indeed and Bailey was eager to find out more about quantities and frequencies of deliveries so she could get a sense of the scale of their operation, as well as any insights into the nature of the organised crime group on the outside who were supplying the drugs. However, not wanting to appear too interested, she contented herself with an obedient nod.
Toni clapped her on the back and smiled, her gold tooth sparkling in the corner of her mouth. ‘You did good. You’re one of us now. And soon you’ll be reaping the rewards.’