Page 44 of Deadly Cry

But you can be sure that more people are going to die.

Noah

Even she could see the difference in tone from the first letter. She had a murderer who had set his sights on her personally and now that murderer was very pissed off.

Thirty-Seven

Stacey leaned over and kissed Devon on the cheek. ‘Thanks, love.’

‘Want me to wait?’

Stacey shook her head. An immigration officer, Devon had been on a late-night raid. She’d walked in the door at 4 a.m., too wired to go straight to sleep, and had offered to drive Stacey to the prison. Stacey knew she should think about learning to drive, but in truth, the longer she left it the more frightening it became.

She yawned. ‘I could just pop my head down here for a…’

‘It’s not a sign, is it, D?’ Stacey asked.

‘Is what not a sign of what?’ she asked with a look that asked if she’d said that right.

‘The cake?’ Stacey asked.

Despite her fatigue, Devon opened her eyes widely.

‘Babe, we’ve booked a photographer, flowers, ushers, a DJ and catering without a hitch, but you wanna call it off because Aunt Abebi can’t make our cake?’

The smile behind her eyes spoke volumes of Devon’s tolerance levels when Stacey’s thoughts were carrying her away.

Truth was, there were still times she couldn’t believe that the gorgeous, intelligent, funny woman by her side had chosen her to spend the rest of her life with.

Devon reached across and squeezed her arm. ‘Babe, I’ll marry you in the high street with a bouquet of daisies, my camera phone, a supper from the chippy and a jam doughnut if it means you’ll become my wife, so…’

‘I bloody love you, woman, now go home and get some rest,’ Stacey said, leaning across and kissing her on the cheek. Devon wasn’t due into work until 2 p.m., so she could get some quality sleep in bed.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Devon said as Stacey got out the car.

She approached the entrance to the prison and looked back. She was not surprised to note that the engine on the Clio had been switched off and the driver’s seat reclined.

Devon was waiting for her.

She shook her head as that familiar glow ignited inside her again. She was a very lucky girl.

The entrance to the prison looked pretty standard to her, even though Stacey was not a frequent visitor to male prisons.

Featherstone was a category C prison housing approximately seven hundred inmates. Stacey remembered reading that in the early 1980s inmates of the prison were caught making forgeries of the work of Bernard Leach. At the turn of the millennium, the place was revealed to have the highest number of drug-using prisoners in the UK, with a whopping thirty-four per cent getting high on something, even if it was the beer they made using Marmite, fruit and vegetables. Stacey often wondered how such industriousness could be used for the purpose of good if channelled in the right direction.

Stacey stepped inside and introduced herself to a security officer named Nathan who looked to be around eighteen years old. Whatever his age, she couldn’t imagine that his youthful appearance elicited a compliant response to his instruction.

Stacey understood that the profession of a prison officer had probably altered over the years in line with diversity directives. Muscles, aggression and fear were not the tools needed to deal with every situation or every prisoner. And yet, a small part of her couldn’t help thinking he wouldn’t be the first officer to whom you’d be handing out riot gear.

The same could be said for her, she supposed, as Nathan began explaining the rules of engagement.

‘Obviously, this was a special request due to an ongoing investigation. There will be no other visitors in the room, but Daisy will remain with you at all times.’

On command, the least-looking Daisy she’d ever seen appeared and towered over Stacey. The smile took the sting out of the six-foot height and gym-honed body that Stacey would have to step left or right to see around.Now, she would be getting riot gear, Stacey thought.

‘Ready?’ Daisy asked pleasantly.

Stacey nodded as Nathan locked away her possessions.