Purgatory (A Prison Diary 2)

12.09 pm

I call Mary in Grantchester. How I miss my weekends with her, strolling around the garden at the Old Vicarage: the smell of the flowers and the grass, feeding the fish and watching students idly punting on the Cam. Mary briefs me on what line she intends to take on the Today programme, now that the Foreign Office and the KDP (Kurdish Democratic Party) have confirmed how the money for the Kurds was raised and distributed. I try to think how Ms Nicholson will spin herself out of this one.

Mary reminds me that she can’t come to see me until she receives a VO. I confirm I sent her one yesterday. She goes on to tell me that her own book, Photoconversion Volume One: Clean Electricity from Photovoltaics (advance sales 1,229, price PS110), has been well received by the academic world.

We finish by discussing family matters. Although I’ve come to the end of my twenty units, I don’t tell her that I am in possession of another two phonecards as that might cause trouble for Dale, especially if the conversation is being taped. I promise to call her again on Tuesday, and we agree a time. Just in case you’ve forgotten, the calls are always one way: OUT.

My next call is to James, who is giving a lunch party for ten friends at our apartment in London. I do miss his cooking. He tells me who’s sitting round my table and what they are eating: Roquefort, fig and walnut salad, spaghetti, and ice cream, followed by Brie, Stilton or Cheddar. This will be accompanied by an Australian red and a Californian white. I begin to salivate.

‘Dinner’ yells an officer, and I quickly return to the real world.

12.20 pm

Lunch: Chinese stir-fried vegetables (they may have been stirred, but they are still glued together), an apple, supplemented by a Mars bar (30p), and a glass of Evian. Guests: pre-selected.

1.00 pm

I join Dale on the enhanced wing. I grab Darren’s Sunday Times, and read very slowly while Dale and Jimmy play backgammon. The lead story is the alleged rape of a girl in Essex by Neil and Christine Hamilton. This is more graphically described in Dale’s News of the World, and the implausible story is memorable for Christine Hamilton’s observation, ‘If I wanted to do that sort of thing, it would be in Kensington or Chelsea, not Essex.’

We play several games of backgammon, during which time the assembled gathering questions me about the contest for the Tory party leadership. Darren (marijuana only) is a fan of Michael Portillo, and asks how I feel. I tell him that I think it might have been wise of the 1922 Committee to let all three candidates who reached the second round - Clarke 59, Duncan Smith 54 and Portillo 53 - be presented to the party membership. Leaving Michael out is bound to create some bad feeling and may even cause trouble in the future. It’s quite possible that the membership would have rejected Portillo in any case, but I feel that they should have been allowed the opportunity to do so.

Dale (wounding with intent) is a huge fan of Margaret Thatcher, while Jimmy (Ecstasy courier) voted for John Major. ‘A decent bloke’ he says. It’s sometimes hard to remember that I may be sitting in a room with an armed robber, a drug dealer, a million-pound fraudster, and heaven only knows who else. It’s also worth mentioning that when it comes to their ‘other world’, they never discuss anything in front of me.

3.00 pm

Exercise: I take the long walk around the perimeter of the prison - about half a mile - and several inmates greet me in a more friendly fashion than they did on my first outing last Thursday. The first person to join me is a man who is obviously on drugs. Unlike William Keane - do you remember him from Belmarsh? - I can’t tell which drug he’s on just by looking at his skin. His name is Darrell, and he tells me that his original sentence was for ten years. His crime: cutting someone up in a pub with a broken bottle. He was nineteen at the time. I take a second look. He looks about forty.

Then why are you still here?’ I ask, assuming he will explain that he’s serving a second or third sentence for another offence. ‘Once I ended up in prison, I got hooked on drugs, didn’t I?’ ‘Did you?’

‘Yeah, and I’d never taken a drug before I came in. But when you’re given a ten-year sentence and then banged up for twenty-two hours a day with prisoners who are already on skag, you sort of fall in with it, don’t you? First I was caught smoking cannabis so the governor added twenty-eight days to my sentence.’

Twenty-eight days for smoking cannabis? But…’

‘I then tried cocaine and finally moved on to heroin. Every time I got caught, my sentence was lengthened. Mind you, I’ve been clean for over a year now, Jeff. I’ve had to be, otherwise I’m never going to get out of this fuckin’ shithole, am I?’

‘How long has it been?’

Twenty-one years. I’m forty-one, and over half my sentence has been added be

cause of being caught taking drugs while inside.’

I’m trying to take this in when we’re joined by a burly older man of around my height, who looks Middle Eastern. Darrell slips quietly away, which I fear means trouble. The new man doesn’t bother with any small talk.

‘How would you like to make fifty grand a week while you’re still in prison?’

‘What do you have in mind?’ I ask innocently, because he doesn’t look like a publisher.

‘I’ve got a lorry-load of drugs stuck on the Belgian border waiting to come into this country, but I’m a little short of cash at the moment. Put up fifty grand and you’ll have a hundred by this time next week.’ I quicken my pace and try to lose him, but within seconds he’s caught me up. There would be no risk for you,’ he adds, slightly out of breath. ‘We take all the risk. In any case, no one could pin it on you, not while you’re still in jail.’

I stop in my tracks and turn to face him. ‘I hate drugs, and I detest even more those people who peddle them. If you ever try to speak to me again, I will repeat this conversation, first to my solicitor and then to the governor. And don’t imagine you can threaten me, because they would be only too happy to move me out of here, and my bet is your sentence would be doubled. Do I make myself clear?’

I have never seen a more frightened man in my life. What he didn’t know was that I was even more terrified than he was. I couldn’t forget the punishment meted out in Belmarsh for being a grass - hot water mixed with sugar thrown in your face - or the man with the four razor-blade scars administered in the shower. I quickly leave the exercise yard and go back to my cell, pull the door closed, and sit on the end of the bed, shaking.

4.00 pm

When Jules returns, I’m still shaking. I go off in search of Dale.

‘I know that bastard’ says Dale. ‘Just leave him to me.’