Purgatory: A Prison Diary Volume 2 (6 page)

‘What are the other methods?’ I ask.

‘You can arrange to have gear thrown over the wall at a
designated time so it can be picked up by a gardener or a litter collector.
Helps to supplement their seven pounds a week wages,’ Jason explains. ‘But home
leave or town visits are still the most common source of drugs coming in. A
clever courier can earn some extra cash prior to being released.’

‘Mind you,’ adds Jimmy, ‘if you’re caught bringing gear in,
not only do you lose all your privileges, but you can be transferred to an
A-cat with time added to your sentence.’

‘What about by post?’ I ask.

‘Sending in a ballpoint pen is a common method,’ Jason says.
‘You half fill the tube with heroin and leave the bottom half full of ink, so
that when the screws remove the little cap on the bottom they can only see the
ink. They could break the tube in half, but that might mean having to replace
as many as a hundred biros a week. But the most common approach still involves
brown envelopes and underneath stamps.’

‘Envelopes?’
I ask.

‘Down the side of most large brown envelopes is a flap. If
you lift it carefully you can place a line of heroin along the inside and
carefully seal it back up again. When it comes in the post it looks like junk
mail or a circular, but it could be hiding up to a hundred quid’s worth of
skag.’

‘One prisoner went over the top recently,’ says Jimmy. ‘He’d
been enhanced and put on the special wing. One of our privileges is that we can
hang curtains in our cell. When his selected curtains arrived, prison staff
found the seams were weighed down with heroin. The inmate was immediately
locked up in segregation and lost all his privileges.’

‘And did he also get time added to his sentence?’

‘No,’ Jason replies. ‘He claimed that the curtains were sent
in by his co-defendant from the original trial in an attempt to stitch him up.’
I like the use of the words ‘stitch him up’ in this context. ‘Not only did he
get away with it,’ continues Jimmy, ‘but the co-defendant ended up being
sentenced to five years. Both men were as guilty as sin, but neither of them
ended up in jail for the crime they had committed,’ Jimmy adds. Not the first
time I’ve heard that.

‘But you can also have your privileges taken away and time added
if you’re caught taking drugs,’ Jason reminds me.

True’ says Jimmy, ‘but there are even ways around that. In
1994 the government brought in mandatory drug testing to catch prisoners who
were taking illegal substances. But if you’re on heroin, all you have to do is
purchase a tube of smoker’s toothpaste from the canteen and swallow a mouthful
soon after you’ve taken the drug.’

‘How does that help?’ I ask.

‘If they ask for a urine sample’ explains Darren, ‘smoker’s
toothpaste will cloud it, and they have to wait another twenty-four hours
before testing you again. By the time they conduct a second test, a couple of
gallons of water will have cleared any trace of heroin out of your system. You
may be up all night peeing, but you don’t lose your privileges or have time
added.’

‘But that’s not possible with cannabis?’ I ask.

‘No, cannabis remains in your bloodstream for at least a
month. But
it’s
still big business whatever the risk,
and you can be fairly certain that the dealers never touch any drugs themselves.
They all have their mules and their sellers. They end up only taking a small
cut, and are rarely caught.’

‘And some of them even manage to make more money inside
prison than they did outside’ adds Jason.

The call for tea is bellowed down the corridor by an
officer. I close my notepad, thank Jason for the slippers and wash bag, not to
mention the tutorial, and return to my cell.

Supper: vegetarian pie and two potatoes. If I become
enhanced, I will be allowed to have my own plate plus a mug or cup sent in, not
to mention curtains.

Write for just over an hour.

Watch Sue Barker and Roger Black sum up the World Athletics
Championship, which has been a disaster for Britain.
One gold
for Jonathan Edwards in the triple jump and a bronze for Dean Macey in the
decathlon.
The worst result for Britain since the games began in 1983,
and that was following such a successful Olympics in Sydney. I’m almost able to
convince myself that I’m glad I was prevented from attending.

Read through my letters.
Just over a
hundred today.

Jules and I watch a modern version of Great Expectations
with Robert De Niro and Gwyneth Paltrow. If I hadn’t been in prison, I would
have walked out after fifteen minutes.

I begin to read Famous Trials selected by John Mortimer. I
start with Rattenbury and Stones, the problem of a younger man falling in love
with an older woman. Now that’s something I haven’t experienced. I fall asleep
around eleven.

Overslept.
After a night’s rain,
the sun is peeping through my four-bar window. I write for a couple of hours.

Breakfast: two Weetabix, one hard-boiled egg and a piece of
toast.

I’ve been writing for about an hour when the cell door is
opened; Mr Clarke tells me that as part of my induction I must attend a meeting
with a representative from the BoV (Board of Visitors). Everything has an
acronym nowadays.

Nine prisoners assemble in a waiting room opposite Mr
Newport’s office. There are eleven comfortable chairs set in a semicircle, and
a low table in the middle of the room. If there had been a few out-of-date
magazines scattered on the table, it could have passed for a GP’s waiting room.
We have to hang around for a few minutes before being joined by a man in his
late fifties, who looks like a retired solicitor or bank manager. He’s about
five foot nine with greying hair and a warm smile. He wears an open-neck shirt
and a pair of grey flannels. I suspect that the only other time he’s this
casually dressed is on a Sunday afternoon.

He introduces himself as Keith Flintcroft, and goes on to
explain that the Board is made up of sixteen local people appointed by the Home
Office. They are not paid, which gives them their independence.

‘We can see the governor or any officer on request, and
although we have no power, we do have considerable influence. Our main
purpose,’ he continues, ‘is to deal with prisoners’ complaints. However, our
authority ends when it comes to an order of the governor. For example, we
cannot stop a prisoner being placed in segregation, but we can make sure that
we are supplied with details of the offence within a period of seventy-two
hours. We can also read any written material on a prisoner with the exception
of their legal papers or medical records.’

Mr Flintcroft comes over as a thoroughly decent bloke, a man
who obviously believes in giving service to the local community. Just like so
many thousands of citizens up and down the country he expects little reward
other than the satisfaction of doing a worthwhile job. I believe that if he
felt a prisoner was getting a rough deal, he would, within the limits of his
power, try to do something about it.

He ends his ten-minute chat by saying, ‘You’ll find that we
spend a lot of our time roaming around the prison. You can’t miss us because we
wear these distinctive buff-coloured name badges. So feel free to come and talk
to us whenever you want to – in complete confidence. Now, are there any
questions?’

To my surprise, there are none. Why doesn’t anyone mention
the state of the cells on the induction wing compared with the rest of the
prison? Why, when there is a painter on each wing, who I observe working every
day, isn’t there one to spruce up the induction wing? Do they leave the wing in
a filthy condition so that when inmates are moved to another part of the prison
they’ll feel it’s an improvement, or is it that they just can’t cope with the
turnover of prisoners? Either way, I would like to tell Governor Kate Cawley
(I’ve discovered the governor’s name on a notice board, but haven’t yet come
across her) that it’s degrading, and a blip in an otherwise well-run prison.
Why
are
the induction prisoners locked up for such
long hours while the rest of the inmates are given far more freedom?
And why…
And then it hits me. I am the only person in that
room who hasn’t been through this process before, and the others either simply
don’t give a damn or can’t see the point of it. They are mostly hardened
criminals who just want to complete their sentence and have as easy a time as
possible before returning to a life of crime. They believe that the likes of Mr
Flintcroft will make absolutely no difference to their lives. I suspect that
the likes of Mr Flintcroft have, over the years, made a great deal of
difference to their lives, without their ever realizing or appreciating it.

Once Mr Flintcroft accepts that there are going to be no
questions, we all file out and return to our cells. I stop and thank him for
carrying out his thankless task.

Mr Chapman tells me I have a large parcel in reception,
which I can pick up after dinner (lunch).

Lunch: spam fritters, two potatoes and a glass of Evian.
HELP! I’m running out of Evian.

I report to reception and collect my parcel, or what’s left
of it. It originally consisted of two books: Alan Clark’s Diaries, and The
Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby, which has been sent in
by Anton, one of James’s closest friends. They’re accompanied by a long letter
about the latest bust-up with his girlfriend (I do love the young – only their
problems exist) and, from Alison, a dozen writing pads, two packets of
liquid-point pens and six books of first-class stamps. Mr Chapman explains that
I can keep the long letter from Anton, but everything else will be placed in my
box at reception and returned to me only when I’m transferred or released.

I have become so accustomed to prison life that I not only
remember to take my gym card, but also a towel and a bottle of water to my
afternoon gym session. The running machine still isn’t working, so I’m back to
ten minutes on the rower (1,837 metres – not very impressive) followed by a
light weight-training session and ten minutes on the bike, which I now know how
to turn on and, more importantly, turn off.

Everett (GBH) leaves his 240-pound bench press, and asks if
he can have a swig of my Evian. I nod, as I don’t think there’s much of an
alternative. A moment later his black weight-lifting partner – taller and wider
– strolls across and takes a swig without asking. By the time I’ve finished
stretching, the bottle is empty.

Once I’m back on my wing I try to take a shower, but the
door is locked. I look through the tiny window. It’s all steamed up, and two
prisoners are banging on the door trying to get out. I cannot believe that it
is prison policy to lock them in and me out. I hang around for about ten
minutes with a couple of other prisoners before an officer eventually appears.
I tell him I’d like to have a shower.

‘You’ve missed your chance.’

‘I didn’t have a chance,’ I tell him. It’s been locked for
the past ten minutes.’

‘I’ve only been away for a minute, maybe two,’ he says.

‘I’ve been standing here for nearly ten minutes,’ I politely
point out.

If I say
it’s
one minute, it’s one
minute,’ he says.

I return to my cell. I now feel cold and sweaty. I sit down
to write.

Supper.
A bowl of thick, oily soup
is all I can face. Back in my cell I pour myself half a mug of blackcurrant
juice. The only luxury left. At least I’m still losing weight.

Exercise: I walk around the perimeter fence with Jimmy and
Darren. Just their presence stops most inmates from giving me a hard time.

I finally manage a shower. I then put on a prison tracksuit,
grey and baggy, but comfortable. I decide to call Mary. There is a queue for
the phone as this is the most popular time of day. When it’s my turn, I dial
the Old Vicarage only to find that the line is engaged.

I spot Dale hanging around in the corridor, obviously
wanting to speak to me. He tells me that the money hasn’t arrived. I assure him
that if it isn’t in the morning post, I’ll chase it up. I try Mary again –
still engaged. I go back to my cell and prepare my desk for an evening session.
I check my watch. It’s 7.55 pm. I’ll only have one more chance.
Back to the phone.
I call Cambridge.
Still
engaged.
I return to my cell to find an officer standing by the door.
I’m banged up for another twelve hours.

I read through today’s script and then prepare outline notes
for the first session tomorrow, to the accompaniment of two West Indians
hollering at each other from cells on opposite sides of the wing. I remark to
Jules that they seem to be shouting even louder than usual. He resignedly
replies that there’s not a lot you can do about window warriors. I wonder.
Should I push my luck? I go over to the window and suggest in a polite but firm
voice that they don’t need to shout at each other. A black face appears at the
opposite window. I wait for the usual diatribe.

‘Sorry, Jeff,’ he says, and continues the conversation in a
normal voice. Well, you can only ask.

I wake, only to remember where I am.

Breakfast: when I go down to the hotplate to collect my
meal, Dale gives me a nod to indicate that the money has arrived.

Phone Mary to be told that she’s doing the
Today programme with John Humphrys tomorrow morning and will be visiting me on
Friday with Will.
As James is on holiday, she suggests that the third
place is taken by Jonathan Lloyd. He wants to discuss my new novel, Sons of
Fortune, and the progress of the diary. As I am allowed only one visit a
fortnight, this seems a sensible combination of business and pleasure, although
I will miss not seeing James.