Hell (A Prison Diary 1)

4) Ecstasy – E. doves, disco biscuits, echoes, hug drug, burgers, fantasy.

5) Cocaine – coke, charlie, snow, C.

6) Heroin – smack, gear, brown, horse, junk, scag, jack.

There are several slang names for each drug according to which part of the country you live in. The Misuse of Drugs Act divides illegal drugs into three classes, and provides for maximum penalties of between two and fourteen years.

Fletch tells me that we have our own heroin dealer on the spur, and he knows exactly who his customers are. There are fifty-eight prisoners on our spur and eleven of them are, or have been, on heroin and forty-one of them are currently taking drugs.

HMP BELMARSH

GOVERNOR’S NOTICE TO INMATES NO: 64/2001

POSSIBLE BATCH OF CONTAMINATED HEROIN

AT RISK OF CAUSING SEVERE SYSTEMIC SEPSIS

IN INJECTING DRUG USERS

All inmates will be aware that possession, or use, of any controlled drug is an offence against prison discipline. However, any inmate who chooses to ignore this should be aware of possible health risks associated with injecting drugs.

It is possible that parts of a batch of heroin, which may have been responsible for a number of deaths in Scotland, Ireland and various parts of England last year, may be circulating on the drugs market again.

Any inmate who injects drugs is therefore placing himself at extreme risk.

I’m about to leave when I see five roses on his window sill. Fletch is obviously a man who likes to have flowers in his room. I look at the little bunch more closely. He makes the petals out of bread, and the raindrop effect on the red petals are grains of sugar. He paints them with a brush made up of hairs that have fallen out of a shaving brush. They are attached to the end of a pencil with the aid of a rubber band. He finally produces the colour by using a wet brush and applying it to the end of a red crayon. He’s made six of these bread roses and planted them in a bread roll, as he’s not allowed a flower pot because when broken it could be used as a weapon.

‘Why won’t they let you have a paintbox?’ I ask.

‘No boxes or tins are allowed in Belmarsh,’ he explains, ‘because they can also be turned into a weapon and weapons are a massive problem for the screws. They have to allow you a new Bic razor every day, otherwise all the cons would be unshaven. Last month a con glued two Bic razor blades to the end of a toothbrush, caught someone in the shower and left him with a scar across his face that no plastic surgeon will be able to disguise. Whenever you open a can of anything,’ Fletch continues, ‘you have to tip the contents out onto a plate, and pass the empty can back to an officer, as you could cut someone’s throat with the serrated edge of the lid. However,’ Fletch adds, ‘there are still many other ways a determined prisoner can make himself a weapon.’ I don’t interrupt his flow.

‘For example,’ he continues, ‘you could hit someone over the head with your steel Thermos flask You could pour the hot water from your Thermos over another prisoner; you could remove one of the iron struts from under your bed and you’d have a crude knife; I’ve even seen someone’s throat cut with a sharpened phonecard. Fletch picks up his plastic lavatory brush. ‘One prisoner quite recently used his razor supply to shave down the handle [nine inches in length] so that he turned his bog brush into a sword, and then in the middle of the night stabbed his cell-mate to death.’

‘But that would only ensure that he remained in prison for the rest of his life,’ I reminded him.

‘He already had a life sentence,’ said Fletch without emotion. ‘If a prisoner is determined to kill his cell-mate or even another prisoner, it’s all too easy, because once you’re banged up, the screws can’t spend all night checking what’s taking place on the other side of the iron door.’

Only two weeks ago I would have been appalled, horrified, disgusted by this matter-of-fact conversation. Am I already becoming anaesthetized, numbed by anything other than the most horrific?

When I leave Fletch’s cell, Colin (football hooligan) is waiting to see me. He hands me a copy of his rewritten critique on Frank McCourt’s latest book, ’Tis, as well as a poem that he’s written. Colin offers me a banana, not my usual fee for editing, but a fair exchange in the circumstances.

I return to my cell and immediately commit to paper everything Fletch has told me.

12 noon

Lunch. Tony has selected a jacket potato covered in grated cheese. I eat his offering slowly while listening to the cricket on the radio. England have already collapsed, and were all out for 161 in their second innings, leaving Australia to chase a total of 156 to win the match and retain the Ashes. I leave the radio on, kidding myself that if Gough and Caddick make an early breakthrough, we could be in with a chance. Wrong again.

3.00 pm

Exercise. I haven’t been out of the building for three days, and decide I must get some fresh air. After being searched, I step out into the yard, and immediately spot the two tearaways who threatened me the last time I took some exercise. They’re perched up against the wire at the far end of the yard, skulking. I glance behind to find Billy and Colin are tracking me. Billy adds the helpful comment, ‘You need a haircut, Jeffrey.’ He’s right.

I’m joined on the walk by Peter Fabri, who is all smiles. He’s out on Monday, to be reunited with his wife and six-week-old child. As I have been wr

iting about him this morning, I check over my facts. ‘You were offered a thousand pounds to beat up a witness, in a trial due to be heard at the Bailey in the near future?’

‘Even that’s changed since I last saw you,’ said Peter. ‘He’s now offering me forty thousand to bump off the witness. He told me that he’s made a profit of two hundred thousand on the crime for which he’s been charged, so he reckons it’s worth forty to have the only witness snuffed out. You know,’ says Peter, ‘I think if I was in this place for another fortnight, he’d be offering me a hundred grand.’

Home Secretary, I hope you’re still paying attention.