Bailey peered around trying to work out where the noise had come from. She couldn’t see any sign of him. Yet.
Again the muted thump.
It was coming from the far end of the laundry.
Then a movement from one of the top-loader washing machines by the back wall. It was the one with the sign taped over its control panel which read: ‘OUT OF ORDER – ELECTROCUTION HAZARD!’
The lid of the washing machine began to lift up, seemingly of its own accord. Then black leather-gloved fingers emerged to grip either side of the rim, pulling upwards…
Bailey watched, transfixed, marvelling at the simple ingenuity of the deception. The well was concealed beneath the washing machine, which itself was conveniently out of order, no doubt to deter casual investigation. No wonder it had been impossible to find.
A head appeared. It was the head of a woman with long black hair. The hair hung down over her face, concealing her features. As she levered herself up out of the well, the hair fell aside to reveal her face, and that was when Bailey recognised her.
U-G-L-Y, you ain’t got no alibi. You’re ugly! Clap clap-clap. Ugly! Clap clap-clap.
The schoolyard taunt rang out in her head.
It was the inmate who Amber had been escorting across the atrium just a short while before Sharon had been killed and who, Bailey now realised, she had never seen since.
No wonder she’d looked like a man. She had been a man. In drag.
That had been the killer. That had been Leonard.
Amber had been taking him to the kitchen so he could kill Sharon.
Their modus operandi now became apparent – Leonard had been making his way around the prison disguised as a female inmate in the custody of Amber. The disguise had served him for the short periods that he had needed to traverse areas of the prison in view of other inmates and staff.
Calmly, he pulled himself out of the washing machine, swung his legs over the rim and jumped to the floor. Straightening up, he stood there, looking across the room at them. He flexed his fingers, the leather gloves creaking as he did so.
Lifting his hand, he brushed the long dark hair back to reveal a clean-shaven male face wearing a hint of lipstick and a dash of mascara. Without the make-up it could have been quite a handsome face, but right here, right now, under the harsh light of the halogen bulbs, it looked utterly grotesque – the freakish visage of a perverted monster.
He started to walk towards them, his trainers crunching lightly on the detergent powder scattered on the tiled floor.
And that was when the fear kicked in. A sudden blind terror arising from the primal depths of Bailey’s brain. He was coming to scalp her and kill her and each step he took brought that horrible fate a little closer.
She squirmed in vain against the heavy cast-iron mangle, the mesh bag cutting into her wrists, but she was held firm, sitting there helplessly on the floor with her hands tied behind her back, tethered immobile like a sacrificial lamb.
She suppressed a reflexive urge to scream at the top of her voice. Better to conserve her energy.
He stopped next to Amber. She turned to him and draped her arms over his shoulders. He placed an arm around her waist and pulled her close to him. They kissed, long and passionate.
Bailey watched in disgust and fascination.
Amber broke off and spoke in a low voice into her brother’s ear: ‘She knows all about you. She’s a policewoman, you know.’
Leonard looked at Bailey over Amber’s shoulder. Their eyes met and a shudder of revulsion went through her.
‘A policewoman?’ His deep male voice sounded bizarre, incongruous, coming from him dressed as he was.
‘She’s investigating you,’ said Amber.
‘I’m flattered,’ he murmured.
He disengaged himself from the embrace. Amber stood aside obediently. Reaching behind him, he pulled out a knife with a long shiny Bowie-style blade. He tested the edge with his thumb. It looked sharp. Raising his eyes, he grinned at Bailey.
‘She has nice hair,’ he said, peering at her scalp appreciatively. He glanced at his sister. ‘You chose well.’
‘She kind of chose herself,’ said Amber.
Bailey felt her guts twist in dread. She writhed and struggled, but to no avail. Her bonds were too tight.
This was it.
This was the end.
She cursed her bad luck.
So much for Mel’s tiger protecting her.
Be careful it bites.
Those words returned now, washed up like flotsam on the shores of her panicked mind. What had Mel meant? Had she meant anything at all? How could the tiger bite? It was only made of paper.
For protection.
Mel liked to protect herself because Mel was paranoid.
They don’t call her Crazy Mel for nothing…
Be careful it bites.
Protection.
Now Bailey understood.
She prayed that the origami tiger was still in her back pocket where she’d put it after Mel had given it to her. She’d forgotten all about it up to now.
Stretching and twisting herself, she managed to poke her fingers into her back pocket. With the tips of her fingers, she could feel the edge of the folded paper. Thank god it was still there.
If only she could get a grip on it. She didn’t have much time. A matter of seconds, maybe a minute, if that.
Amber looked down at her squirming. She gave Bailey a look of mock pity.
‘Don’t worry it’ll all be over soon.’
Bailey got a grip on the origami tiger between her thumb and forefinger. She eased it carefully out of her back pocket. If she dropped it now all would be lost. She pressed her finger against the folded ridge which formed its back. She felt a sharp jabbing sensation as it sliced into her fingertip. Never before had she felt so pleased to feel pain.
It was just as she had suspected. Mel had hidden a razor blade inside the origami tiger. A razor blade – Mel’s favourite form of self-defence.
Gripping the tiger firmly, Bailey began to awkwardly saw through the mesh bag which bound her wrists.
She glanced up at him from her sedentary position on the floor. Leonard was beginning to walk towards her, the knife dangling loosely at his side.
She needed to stall him somehow. She needed to think of something to say. Anything.
‘Is that just a normal wig or is that a scalp you’re wearing?’ she stammered, trying to force a conversational tone into her voice.
‘Just a wig,’ he said, looking faintly amused.
He was getting closer. Four metres away… three metres away… two metres away…
Bailey sawed furiously at her bonds. With her hands tied behind her, she was working blind, but she could feel the individual strands of mesh giving way beneath the edge of the razor.
‘The Hairdresser, huh?’ Her voice shook. ‘I bet you would have preferred to be called something like the Hunter or the Ripper. Hairdresser sounds kind of… effete, don’t you think?’
‘You’re only making it harder on yourself,’ said Amber.
And then he was there standing astride her. From her perspective, sitting at his feet, he seemed huge, like a silent colossus, blocking out the light.
He looked down at her and adjusted his grip on the knife, placing his thumb on the back of the blade so he could apply more pressure when cutting.
Bailey’s heart pounded uncontrollably in her chest as she desperately sawed through the bonds.
Amber seated herself back on top of the dryer, swinging her feet in anticipation like an excited child.
‘This is a rare treat,’ she said. ‘Normally I don’t get to watch.’
Leonard bent down over Bailey’s seated form and grabbed a handful of her hair. He viciously yanked her head at an angle and began to wind her hair around his fist, tautening her scalp. She winced and gasped, feeling the roots popping out. He eyed her hairline in the detached manner of a surgeon gauging the best angle from which to make a cut.
She frantically sawed away, feeling just a final few strands remaining.
‘Stay still,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to ruin it.’
He bent down closer to her level. She felt his warm breath on her face.
He placed the cold steel edge of his knife horizontally across the top of her forehead. She felt him tense as he prepared to slice her scalp off.
The final few strands of mesh gave way. In that instant, she brought up her left hand and knocked his knife away from her forehead. With her right hand, in a single transverse swipe, she drew the origami tiger across the side of his neck. It left a thin red line in its wake.
Leonard jerked upright and reeled backwards in surprise.
Amber jumped off the washing machine, a puzzled frown on her face.
He put his hand up to the cut on his neck, then looked at his gloved fingers. He grunted dismissively.
The three of them all looked at the little origami tiger, which she was holding up in front of her. It looked pathetic, crumpled, mangled by her efforts to break free. It was barely recognisable as a piece of origami.
‘It’s a tiger,’ said Bailey. ‘And it bites.’
Leonard snorted in contempt and his face twisted into an angry sneer. He hefted his knife with relish. She’d pissed him off and he was angry now. He was going to finish what he hadn’t quite started, and he was going to make sure it hurt. Except he wouldn’t get the chance to…
Bailey tilted the origami tiger so that the razor blade was visible protruding from the crumpled paper.
And at that exact moment the thin red cut on the side of his neck suddenly opened up into a large gaping gash. A geyser of blood sprayed up the side of his face.
She had severed his carotid artery.
He took a step backwards, a disbelieving expression on his face. He clamped a hand to the side of his neck in a vain attempt to stem the flow. Bright red blood now squirted between his fingers.
‘Leonard!’ gasped Amber, rushing to his side.
She pulled his hand away to get a look at the wound and a gout of blood jetted across her face. She recoiled in shock.
‘That’s coming out at five litres a minute,’ said Bailey.
Using the mangle for support, she pushed herself upright from her sitting position to her feet, gritting her teeth against the excruciating pain from her knee.
Leonard tried to lift his knife hand, but with his life force pumping so rapidly out of him he was unable to. The knife fell from his limp grip and clattered to the floor. He staggered backwards and sat down sharply against the dryer.
Amber stood there aghast, her face dripping with his blood.
‘Leonard!’
The jets of blood were weaker now, as his heart slowed down, pumping feebly over the surface of the dryer, getting smaller and smaller until they lapsed into nothing more than a faint trickle.
Leonard’s eyes glazed over and his head fell to one side.
Amber screeched a feral cry of torment. She spun around to face Bailey.
Bailey brandished the razor blade before her.
‘Want to try that little trick with the gas spray again?’ she growled.
Amber hissed at her. Even with her damaged knee, Bailey knew she could take her.
Amber looked down at her dead brother, then she glanced over her shoulder at the far end of the laundry. Bailey realised what she was planning and lunged for her.
But Amber was too fast. She bolted for the well. Bailey threw herself into pursuit, but her injured leg prevented her from catching up. She half-limped, half-ran, every step an agony, gasping and cursing to herself.
Amber wrenched open the lid of the washing machine which concealed the well. She climbed inside and disappeared completely from view, the lid clanging shut on top of her.
Bailey arrived a few moments later, panting hard. Pocketing the razor blade, she pulled open the lid and peered inside. The bottom of the washing machine drum had been modified to be opened from beneath, like a trapdoor. And it now hung open, revealing a mouldy brickwork shaft into the side of which were set ancient rusted rungs. The shaft disappeared down into darkness – a black maw that smelled of soil and dampness.
She listened. Silence.
Then, she climbed into the washing machine and began her descent. She gripped the rusty rungs, making her way stiffly downwards, impeded by her injured knee.
Soon, darkness had enveloped her completely. She wondered how long it would take to reach the bottom. She wondered if when she got there she would encounter Amber waiting to attack her, but she had no choice. For one thing, she was determined to apprehend Amber, and for another, she needed to escape from this place in one piece.
As she descended the shaft, bits of dirt and mould fell into her hair and at one point something scuttled across the back of her hand. And then suddenly there were no more rungs. She hung there in the blackness. Lifting her left foot from the bottom rung, she probed downwards into the void.
The tips of her toes brushed a surface of some sort. It must be the bottom of the well. Letting go of the rungs, she dropped downwards, crying in pain as she landed on her damaged leg. She fell to the ground, feeling rough, dry dirt beneath her face.
Wincing, she pushed herself to her feet and stood there, totally disoriented. The absence of light was complete and she had no idea which direction to go in. In the darkness, she could end up getting forever lost in some underground cave system, never to see the light of day again.
She heard a scratching noise. She froze, and then braced herself for an attack. It got closer. It passed by, down by her feet. A rat.
Silence once again. No sound of Amber.
If she wasn’t mistaken, she could detect a very faint air current, the smallest of breezes blowing on her face. It must be coming from outside. It was ever so slight, but it was enough to tell her which direction to head in.
She began to edge her way along the dried-up subterranean riverbed, wary, as she moved forward, that Amber could be lying in wait around the next bend. Pulling the razor blade from her pocket, she once more clutched it defensively in front of her. The ground was thick with sediment, and the stony ceiling of the passage was low and uneven, sometimes causing her to stoop down in order to continue. She limped along, grasping the walls for support, every other step sending a bolt of pain through her.
She willed herself onwards, pulling herself along with her hands. In the sheer blackness, she soon lost track of how long she had been stumbling along, but eventually, after what seemed like ages, she noticed the gradient changing slightly, moving upwards. The passage seemed to be opening up, getting wider, light beginning to filter in imperceptibly. So far Amber had not materialised, and Bailey came to the conclusion that she must have fled.
Finally she reached the mouth of the passage, the point at which the tributary had gone underground. She emerged to find herself standing outside on the rocky dry riverbed of what had once been the River Foxbrook.
All around her were trees and she realised that she was deep in the woods that lay to the north of the prison. The night sky was clear and a bright crescent moon shone down over the gently swaying branches, transforming all colours into a monotone palette of greys and blacks. There was no noise but for the rustling of the leaves in the breeze and her own soft panting.
Bailey peered around. She could neither see nor hear any sign of Amber.
She cursed to herself. She’d lost her. Amber had gone. She’d escaped. She’d had too much of a head-start. If only Bailey hadn’t been held back by this blasted knee.
She limped forward and sagged against a tree for support. Exhaustion now overwhelmed her. As she leant there, it suddenly struck home that this was the first time she’d been out of the prison since… since being incarcerated. She was finally free of the place. And it felt weird.
She stood there listening to the rustling of the leaves around her, savouring the tranquillity of nature, cherishing the feel of the rough bark under her hands.
Thoughts of Alice flooded through her mind, filling her with warmth and sadness. Bailey had done all she could to give her friend what she owed her. She reflected too on Poppy with a bittersweet pang of remorse. On an emotional level, Bailey was totally and utterly spent.
She started to think about what she should do now, how she could best contact Frank and what their next course of action should be.
But then a noise penetrated her thoughts… a long sibilant hiss carried on the breeze.
Her hackles went up. It was an eerie spectral sound.
Bailey spun around, one way and then the other, looking for its source.
And then she saw it. A figure in the woods, standing about fifty metres away, barely more than a silhouette in the shadows.
Although she couldn’t make out her face, Bailey knew Amber was looking straight at her.
‘This isn’t over, Bailey!’ came the howl. ‘I’ll come for you one day!’
Bailey took a step forward. She blinked and squinted.
But the figure was no longer there. It had melted away into the woods, leaving only the branches swaying in the breeze.