The Big Breach (40 page)

`Tomlinson, come here,' the tattoed officer who had first christened me `Basildon' barked from the exit door. I stood up and made my way to him, leaving my tray on the table. `All right, Basildon, you've been put on the book, so we have to cuff you to take you down the wing.' Expertly, he grabbed my wrist, handcuffing me to his own wrist, and another burly, bearded screw did the same with the other wrist. As they conveyed me out into the damp air of a foggy London evening for the short walk to the neighbouring block, I wanted to ask what `the book' was, but decided to play the grey man and kept quiet. As we passed 20-foot wire fences topped with barbed wire, illuminated by the depressing yellow of sodium strip lighting, the guards must have guessed my thoughts. `Sorry about this, Basildon, but we `ave to do it, you're on the book, you see. Do you know what that means?'

`No ...' I replied, guessing it was something bad.

`Well it means the Governor's decided that you're a Category A prisoner, as opposed to a B, a C or a D, and that means that you are a highly dangerous threat to the state. It's a bit ridiculous making a bloke like you an A-cat, if you ask me,' the tattoo explained.

`But who the fuck ever asks us?' the beard laughed.

The cells in C-wing were arranged on three landings around a central atrium, with metal mesh nets across each storey to prevent suicide or murder attempts, and I was assigned cell 32. The wing had just been refurbished and the paintwork on the cast iron stairs was still bright. `Make yourself at home,' grinned the guards, as they unlocked my handcuffs in the cell. `You're lucky being on the book, you won't have to share with some other cunt.' They slammed the door behind me, leaving me on my own for the first time. My new home was tiny, about 11 feet by 7 feet, with two bunks against one wall, a barred window overlooking an exercise yard and a sink and open lavatory against the other wall.

I made myself as comfortable as possible by unpacking the few clothes and books reception had allowed me to keep, and storing them neatly in the small wall-cupboard. My plastic knife, fork and spoon, issued to me in reception, went on the narrow windowsill. The previous occupants had been heavy smokers and the floor was littered with the butts of roll-up cigarettes. There was a mop and bucket in the corner, so I cleaned them up as best I could. Then I had my first wash for three days and made up the top bunk using the clean but frayed bedding. After three nights in a police cell, sheets and a pillow were a blissful luxury and I slept well.

We were unlocked just before 9 a.m. the following day. Not sure what to do next, I watched for a few minutes from my door. The other prisoners were scrambling down the metal stairs to the kitchens on the ground floor, so I joined the rush to queue for a fried breakfast, served on a metal platter, which we took back to our cells to eat. I muddled through the routine of the rest of the day as best I could. Nobody explained the myriad little rules and vocabulary of prison; it was just a matter of watching and learning. We were unlocked again at 10 a.m. for daily exercise, a one-hour walk around the prison yard which my cell overlooked. It was a chance to get a look at my fellow prisoners as they traipsed in small groups around the yard or huddled against the surrounding fences to smoke rollups. Some were laughing and joking, others were looking morose and depressed. Some of the prisoners had heard on the radio that I had been remanded to Brixton and came over to talk. None could believe that I had been nicked for a writing a book. `It's a bleedin' liberty, that is, `commented one shaven-headed cockney, his forearms covered in the livid scars of suicide attempts.

As the day progressed, I picked up the terminology of prison. I learnt that `association' was a one-hour free period per day when we were allowed out of our cells to take a shower in the landing shower-blocks, watch television or just chat with the other prisoners. `Canteen' was not a cooking pot as it had been in the army, but the weekly opportunity we were given to buy fruit, sweets or tobacco from the prison shop. It was necessary to ask permission from the screw in charge of my landing, a cheerful cigar-smoking, whisky-reeking Indian, before moving to another landing. I discovered that we could attend various workshops and courses for up to two hours a day. There was a broad choice and I put my name down to learn to play a musical instrument and started to think that maybe my time might not be too unpleasant.

But the authorities had other ideas. That evening, during evening association, two screws came to my cell and escorted me down to the Governor's office on the ground floor. They stood behind me as the Governor, a surly Scot, addressed me disparagingly from behind his heavy metal desk. `Tomlinson, as you know, we've made you a Category A prisoner. If that decision is confirmed by the Home Office, then you'll have to move from Brixton jail. We're not equipped to deal with the likes of you in here ...'

I was confirmed as Category A early the next day, Wednesday, 5 November. Two screws came to my cell, strip-searched me, ordered me to change into a prison-issue tracksuit and handcuffed me. `Where am I going?' I asked.

`We can't tell you that, Basildon, we'd have to kill you if we did.' I did my best to smile at their joke, though it was one I had heard many times in the past few days.

I spent two long hours waiting in a holding cell in reception until at last the door was opened and my escorts ordered me to stand up to refit my handcuffs. `Sorry about the delay, there was a problem with the escort helicopter,' one of them explained.

I presumed he was joking, but later I learned that helicopter escort was standard for all A-cat prison transfers. They led me out into the grey autumnal afternoon, to a waiting van - this time from HM Prison Service rather than Group 4 Security.

`In yer get,' the screw ordered, pushing me up the steps and into one of a row of tiny cells barely big enough to sit down in, and closed the door on me, trapping my left arm which was still cuffed to his wrist. When he was sure I was secure, my wrist was released and the door swiftly bolted. A few minutes later, the van's engine rumbled into life and we started to move. Through the tiny porthole of darkened and reinforced glass I watched the South Circular Road unfold eastwards, but gradually lost my bearings as we headed into unfamiliar parts of east London.

13. MAXIMUM SECURITY

WEDNESDAY, 5 NOVEMBER 1997

HMP BELMARSH

`
W
elcome to HMP Belmarsh,' grinned my escort as he opened the cubicle and slapped handcuffs on my left wrist. `You'll like it here ... not,' he chuckled, dragging me out of the vehicle into a grim prison courtyard and through a heavily guarded gate to reception. The process was more elaborate than at Brixton, with strip-searches and X-rays between every stage. More of my possessions were deemed illicit, including a white shirt and a pair of black trousers. `They're too close to an officer's uniform,' the screw told me curtly. My diary went because it contained a map of the London Underground which `might be helpful if you escaped'. There was little of the good-natured banter of Brixton and most of the process was done in intimidating silence. At last, they ordered me to sign my personal file and, with me holding a bin liner of my remaining possessions in one hand, escorted me down a labyrinth of bleak and cold corridors to cell 19, Spur 1, Houseblock 4.

HMP Belmarsh was opened in 1991 to house approximately 900 prisoners and is one of only five prisons in Britain equipped to house maximum-security Category A prisoners. Most A-cat's are there on remand, awaiting trial at the secure court complex linked to the prison by tunnel. If convicted they are sent to one of the `longtermer' A-cat prisons such as Durham, Parkhurst on the Isle of White, or Long Sutton in the Midlands. Belmarsh is also a local jail for south-east London, so it houses some convicted petty offenders serving short sentences. Because of the harshness of the regime and its elaborate security, it is also used to house troublesome prisoners as punishment for misdemeanours committed in more comfortable jails. The prison is built on reclaimed marshland which was deemed unsuitable for normal housing because of the infestations of rats and mosquitoes. The four houseblocks are arranged at the corners of a large quadrangle, along whose sides are all the other areas needed for a functioning prison: reception, visiting-rooms, chapel, gym, hospital, kitchens and workshops. Each houseblock is a secure unit in its own right. A command and control room, known as the `bubble', controls the only entrance, consisting of two heavy doors, electronically linked so that both can never be open at the same time. Each door has a video-intercom and the controlling officer in the bubble can only release it if he recognises the requesting officer. Inside the houseblock, three spurs lead via video-locked doors from a small central atrium containing the hotplate area where meals are served. There are also exits via walk-through metal detectors and video-locked doors to secure areas for A-cat legal and social visits and out to the exercise yard.

Of all this, though, I knew nothing as I dropped my bag in the corner of the cell just after 2 p.m. and sat down on the stained mattress to survey my new home. It was grim and grubby, though slightly bigger than the cell in Brixton. The heavy steel door, slammed ominously shut behind me, had a small solid perspex window at eye height, covered by a sliding hatch which could only be opened from the outside. A small and heavily barred window overlooked an exercise yard, in which a few prisoners were aimlessly walking, surrounded by 20-foot-high fencing bridged with anti-helicopter cables. Down one wall a metal bed was bolted immovably to the floor, a sturdy cupboard was fixed above it, opposite was a small bolted-down metal table and bench, and in the corner was a filthy toilet with a broken lid. Unlike Brixton, the toilet was situated to give some privacy if a screw were suddenly to open the sliding inspection hatch; but just to ensure that there was no hiding place, there was a smaller additional window over it so that he could inspect you if he wished. Between the toilet and the door was a porcelain sink which looked like it had not been cleaned for months, above it a scratched unbreakable plastic shaving mirror and a buzzer to summon the screws in an emergency. The lugubrious mustard-painted walls were smeared with gobs of butter, splattered mosquitoes, stains of dried snot and blobs of toothpaste which previous occupants had used to stick up posters. There was graffiti scribbled in blue biro above the bed. `Methadone strips the life out of you,' somebody had scrawled in a shaky hand. Another message was more hopeful: `Remember, no matter how long you are doing, you'll get out in the end ...' Under the cupboard was a simple Spanish prayer. High up on all four walls were patterns of crosses and Arabic words, put there by a Muslim occupant as prayer aids. Scribbled above the toilet in large, childish letters was a slogan in Turkish. In such filth, I did not feel like unpacking my belongings. I lay down on the bare mattress listening to the muffled activity of prison life. Inmates hollered to each other between cells, sometimes laughing, sometimes abusive. The sharp clacks of a game of pool rose from the floor of the spur, punctuated by exclamations in a foreign language. From the cell next door came the sound of a manically stirred hot drink, then a contented whistled rendition of Monty Python's `Always Look on the Bright Side of Life'. Every half-hour the flap covering my door hatch was slapped open, a pair of beady eyes examined me for a second, then the flap slammed shut again. Just before 6 p.m., the level of activity started to increase and the heavy clunking of keys signalled that we were being unlocked. My flap slapped open, eyes checked me, the heavy bolt clunked and the door cracked open. Peering out, the other prisoners I saw rushing to join the dinner queue on the first-floor landing and I grabbed my plastic mug and cutlery to join them.

Locked back in the cell to eat alone and in silence from a metal platter, I found that the meal was not as bad as I feared it would be. Stew, two vegetables and rice, a stodgy pudding and custard, a big pile of buttered bread, a mug of hot water to make tea or coffee, an apple and a small bag containing cereal and milk for the next morning's breakfast. We were briefly unlocked half an hour later to kick the trays out for the cleaners to collect, then a few hours later an urn of hot water was dragged around to fill our mugs. It was Guy Fawkes night, and I lay on the bed sipping cocoa listening to the firework celebrations from the nearby housing estates.

`Oi you, you next door, pass this doon,' a hoarse Geordie voice called out. I sat up, wondering if the call was directed at me. There was a sharp rattle on the heating pipe which ran the length of the landing, passing through each cell. `Oi you ... new boy next door, grab this and pass it down.' Paper rustled nearby and I looked over the end of my bed, in a tiny gap between the metal pipe and the reinforced concrete of the dividing wall, to see a sliver of carefully folded newspaper. I pulled it through into my own cell. `Make sure you pass it doon,' ordered the disembodied voice impatiently. Curiosity got the better of me and I unravelled the package revealing small crystals of a hard white substance, LSD or maybe crack. I wrapped it up, stepped over to the other side of the cell where there was also a small gap and pushed it through. It was ripped from my fingers eagerly. Ten minutes later, as the drugs took their effect, the bangs and thumps of the nearby fireworks were joined by the sound of my other neighbour as he sung along raucously to an Oasis concert blaring from his radio.