Hell (25 page)

Tony is being
considered for parole at the present time, but doesn’t get on well with his probation
officer. He claims she doesn’t appreciate his sense of
humour
.
He warns me to make sure I treat whoever they allocate to my case with respect,
because this single individual can be the deciding factor as to whether you
should be released or remain locked up in prison.

‘So what will
you do once you are released?’ I ask.

He smiles and
extracts a file secreted at the back of his cupboard. ‘I’m going to sell
agricultural equipment to the Senegalese.’

He produces
sheet after sheet of financial forecasts on Senegal’s agricultural
requirements, along with grants the British government will advance to help
subsidize that particular industry.

‘I wouldn’t be
surprised if you make a fourth fortune,’ I tell him after studying the papers.

‘Only women
will stop me,’ he says. ‘I do love them so.’

‘Lock-up,’ is
bellowed from the ground floor. I thank Tony for his company, leave his office,
and return to my cell.

I check over my
script for the day and then spend a couple of hours reading my mail. If people
go on sending me Bibles and prayer books, I’ll be able to open a religious
bookshop.

I try to find
out the close-of-play cricket score, but have to settle for
Any Questions
.

Ken Clarke is
very forthright about the iniquity of my sentence, which is brave, remembering
he’s standing for the leadership of the Tory Party.

Still no rap
music, so for two nights running I sleep soundly.

Woke several times
during the night, not caused by any noise, but simply because I drank too much
water yesterday. Cup a Soup (chicken, 22p), Oxo (9p) and a bottle of Highland
Spring (69p). Still, I don’t have to go that far for the lavatory.

The Alsatians
wake me again just after six.

Write for two
hours.

On a Saturday
morning, you are not only allowed to leave your cell, but you also get a cooked
breakfast.
Egg, beans and chips.
I still avoid the
chips. Tony selects two fried eggs and the most recently heated beans for me.
They taste good.

Association.
I seek out Fletch to check over the script I
wrote yesterday on drugs. He verifies everything William Keane has told me, and
then
adds
, ‘Have you heard of China White?’

‘No,’ I reply,
wondering if it’s Wedgwood or Royal
Doulton
.

‘China White
was a shipment of pure heroin from the Golden Triangle that turned up in
Glasgow a couple of years ago. It was so pure [97 per cent] that fifteen
registered addicts died within days of injecting it, and then the stuff began
to spread, south killing
users
right across the
country. All prison governors sent out official warnings to inmates, telling
them to weaken any dosage of heroin they had recently been supplied with. Come
to my cell and I’ll show you some literature on the subject.’

Back in his
cell, Fletch checks through some papers in a file marked DRUGS. He then hands
over several pamphlets and postcards that are given to all suspected drug
takers the day they enter prison. It was the first time I’d seen any of this
material. They include
The Detox
Handbook, A User’s Guide to Getting off Opiates
(second edition),
The Methadone Handbook
(fifth edition),
Cannabis
(ninth edition), a pamphlet on
HIV,

Hepatitis B and
C, along with six
coloured
cards: Injecting and
Infections (illustrated):

1)
Cannabis
– marijuana, puff, blow, draw,
weed, shit, hash,
spliff
, tackle, wacky, ganja.

2)
Acid and magic mushrooms
–
mushies
,
shrooms
(LSD).

3)
Amphetamines
– speed,
wizz
, uppers,
billy
,
amph
,
sulphate
.

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
fiftyeight
prisoners on our
spur and eleven of them are, or have been, on heroin and
fortyone
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 cellmate 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-
offact
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.

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
writing 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
.

Peter remains
with me for three more circuits of the yard before he returns to his friends –
three other prisoners with sentences of six weeks or less. I continue walking
and notice that Billy and Colin have been replaced by Paul and Del Boy. I spot
Fletch standing in the far corner. He likes corners, because from such a
vantage point he can view his private domain. It becomes clear he has a
protection
rota
working on my behalf, and I feel sure
the officers loitering on the far side of the yard are only too aware of what
he’s up to.

I pass William
Keane leaning against the wire fence chatting to his brother. He jumps up and
runs across to join me. Paul and Del Boy immediately take a pace forward, and
only relax when I put my arm round William’s shoulder. After all, I haven’t let
anyone know which one of those sitting round the perimeter is the cause of
problem.