Hell (A Prison Diary 1)

‘Not like my brother’s funeral,’ he says. ‘Not only were the whole family in handcuffs, but they had helicopters circling overhead. There were more police by the graveside than mourners.’

‘But in my case,’ I pointed out, ‘no one thought I would try to escape.’

‘Houdini couldn’t have escaped from that bunch,’ William retorts.

What puzzles me about William is that if the rest of the family are as bright and charismatic as he is, why don’t they combine their talents and energy and do something worthwhile, rather than settling for a life of crime?

‘Drugs,’ he replies, matter-of-factly. ‘Once you’re hooked, you can never earn enough to satisfy the craving, so you end up becoming either a thief or a pusher. And I have to admit,’ William adds, ‘I’m lazy.’

I’ve watched him carefully since he’s joined the chain, and the one thing he is not, is lazy. He has filled more plastic bags than Peter and me put together. I point this out to him.

‘Well, when I say lazy, Jeffrey, I mean lazy about settling down to a nine-to-five job, when you can pick up a couple of grand a week selling drugs.’

‘So will you go back to the drug scene once you’re released?’

‘I don’t want to,’ he says. ‘I’m thirty-five, and one thing’s for certain, I don’t need to come back inside.’ He hesitates. ‘But I just don’t know if I’m strong-willed enough to stay away from drugs or the quick rewards that are guaranteed when you sell them.’

‘How much are we talking about,’ I ask, ‘and which drugs in particular?’

‘Heroin,’ he says, ‘is the biggest money-spinner. A joey’ – even after an explanation, I’m still not quite sure what a joey is – ‘has come down in price from one hundred pounds to forty since I’ve been in prison [ten years], which is a clear indication how the market has grown. And some people need as many as ten joeys a day. When I first came into prison,’ William continues, ‘cocaine was the designer drug Today it’s heroin, and it’s often your lot who are on it,’ he says, looking directly at me.

‘But I’ve never taken a drug in my life,’ I tell him, ‘I don’t even smoke.’

‘I knew that the moment you walked in,’ he said.

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘The first thing I check is the pallor of the skin – not bad for sixty-one,’ he says, displaying that Irish charm again. ‘Then I look at the nose, followed by the lips and finally the arms, and it’s clear you’re not a potential customer. But I’d be willing to bet there’s something you need Del Boy to supply you with.’

‘Bottled water, still, preferably Highland Spring.’

‘How many bottles do you order from the canteen?’

‘Four, maybe five a week.’

‘Don’t let the screws find

out.’

‘Why not? I pay for them.’

‘Because while cannabis and cocaine remain in your bloodstream for a month, heroin can be flushed out in twenty-four hours. If it wasn’t you, Jeffrey, the screws would assume you were a heroin addict trying to show up negative whenever you were called in for a Mandatory Drug Test, and it’s all the fault of Ann Widdecombe.’

‘How can it possibly be Ann Widdecombe’s fault?’

‘Because it was Widdecombe who first brought in the MDT. That single decision has turned some cannabis smokers into heroin addicts.’

‘That’s quite a quantum leap,’ I suggest, ‘and some accusation.’

‘No,’ says William, ‘it was inevitable, and it only happened because Widdecombe knew nothing about the drug culture in prisons. How could she? Neither did you, before you were sent to Belmarsh. And worse, no one seems to have explained the problem to Blunkett either, because both are indirectly responsible for an unnecessary rise in heroin addicts, and even in some cases their deaths.’

‘Hold on,’ I say. ‘That’s accusing Blunkett and Widdecombe of manslaughter and cannot be either fair or accurate.’

‘When you take an MDT, they test you for marijuana [cannabis], cocaine, crack cocaine and heroin,’ continues William, ignoring my comment. ‘It’s a urine test, and your sample is sent to an independent laboratory and then returned to the prison a week later with the result.’

‘I’m with you so far.’

‘Marijuana can show up in urine for as long as twenty-eight days. You may well have smoked a joint three weeks ago, even forgotten about it, but it will still come up as positive on an MDT, which is not the case with heroin. Because if you drink pints of water immediately after taking the drug, you can clear any trace of heroin out of your system within twenty-four hours, which means you won’t test positive.’