Purgatory (A Prison Diary 2)

8.45 am

I arrive for my pottery class to find it’s been cancelled because the teacher hasn’t turned up. Shaun tells me this is a regular occurrence, and he seems to be the only person who is disappointed because he was hoping to finish a painting. It gives me another couple of hours to write, while the other prisoners are happy to go off to the gym or their cells while still being paid PS1.40.

10.45 am

I hear a cry of ‘library’ bellowed down the corridor and, as I’ve just come to the end of another chapter of Oscar Wilde, decide to take a break and return Arts and Artists. I now know my way around the library and go straight to the art shelves. I select a book entitled Legendary Gemsby Eric Bruton and add a novel by Robert Goddard.

When I return to my cell I find my laundry is waiting in a neat pile, washed and dried. I look up to see Darren standing on my chair, clipping up a new curtain rail.

‘Let me warn you’ he says as he climbs back down off the chair, ‘you can’t hang yourself from a prison curtain rail.’

‘I hadn’t given the idea much thought, but why not?’ I ask, opening my notebook.

‘Because it just clips on, so if you attached a noose to the rail and then jumped off the chair, you’d land on the floor wrapped up in your curtain.’

‘So how can I hang myself?’ I demand.

‘You should have done it at your remand prison’ Darren replies.

‘I’m not sure I understand.’

‘Most remand prisons are of a Victorian vintage, and have high-level barred windows making the job that much easier.’

‘But I was only there for a few days.’

There are more hangings in the first few days in jail than at any other time.’

‘Why?’

‘Often the psychological impact of entering prison for the first time causes deep depression, and that’s when a prisoner sees suicide as the only way out.’

‘So it’s less common once you’ve been transferred?’

‘Yes, but I knew a prisoner who still found an original way to kill himself.’ I continue to scribble away. He was in a cell with a one-up and one-down, and when his room-mate went to work and he was left alone for the rest of the morning he stood the bed up on its end, so that the rail was about seven feet from the ground. He used his belt as a noose, and attached it to the top railing. He then climbed on top, placed his hands in the back of his jeans, rolled off the bed and hanged himself. On the table they found a letter from his girlfriend saying she couldn’t wait for three years. If you want to kill yourself, you can always find a way,’ Darren adds matter of factly. ‘Each year the Prison Service publishes statistics on how many inmates commit suicide. There were ninety-two in 2001’ says Darren, just before he leaves to continue his rounds. ‘However, what they don’t tell you is how many people die, or commit suicide within six months of being released.’ I slowly unpack my washing and stack it on the narrow shelves while I consider what Darren has just told me.

2.00 pm

After lunch I pick up Legendary Gems and turn to the chapter on emeralds. Everything Sergio has told me during the past ten days is verified by the author, which gives me more confidence in Sergio. However, two crucial questions remain: does Sergio have the right contacts and can he replace the middlemen? I am pleased to see that Laurence Graff warrants three mentions in the diamond chapter.

To date I haven’t mentioned Laurence Graff (of Graff’s of Bond Street, Madison Avenue and Monte Carlo), but I’m rather hoping he will agree to value the gem for me. Laurence and I first met at a charity function many years ago when I was the auctioneer. Since then he and his wife, Anne-Marie, have told me many stories about the diamond trade which have found their way into my books. It was Laurence who gave me the idea for the short story ‘Cheap at Half the Price’.

3.00 pm

Jimmy rushes into my cell with a large grin on his face. He scowls at Darren’s new curtain rail, immediately aware of who must have supplied it.

‘I am the bearer of glad tidings,’ he says. ‘A prisoner on our spur will be leaving tomorrow morning,

a week earlier than originally planned. He keeps the cleanest cell on the block. He’s even decorated it, and best news of all, it’s on the quiet side of the spur, so you’d better have a word with Meanwell before someone else grabs it.’

I’m just about to go off in search of Mr Meanwell, when Jimmy adds, ‘He’s off today, but he’s back on tomorrow morning at 7.30, and don’t forget you’ve got the special needs group at 8.45, so you’d better see him straight after breakfast.’ Darren walks in, livid to find Jimmy sitting on the end of my bed. He’s obviously picked up the same piece of information and had hoped to be the first to impart it.

‘I think you’ll find my information was as welcome as your curtain rail,’ suggests Jimmy smugly.

‘Only if his lordship ends up getting David’s cell,’ says Darren, well aware that I am playing them against each other. Still, like two children, they find the challenge irresistible.

7.00 pm

After supper, Sergio reveals good news. Having visited the mountain, his brother has selected a 4-carat emerald at a cost of $10,000.