Purgatory: A Prison Diary Volume 2 (14 page)

I wake, depressed about two matters. When I phoned Mary last
night, she told me that the Red Cross
have
asked KPMG
to audit the Simple Truth campaign, because some of their larger donors have
been making waves and they want to dose the subject once and for all. Tony
Morton-Hooper wrote to the police, pointing out that this internal audit has
nothing to do with my involvement with the campaign. Mary and Tony are doing
everything they can to get the police to admit that the whole enquiry is a
farce and that Ms Nicholson’s accusations were made without a shred of
evidence. Despite their efforts I have a feeling the police will not close
their enquiry until they’ve considered his report, so it could now be months
before my D-cat is reinstated.

I’m also depressed because the Tory party seems to have
broken out into civil war, with Margaret Thatcher saying it will be a disaster
if Ken Clarke wins, and John Major declaring that if IDS becomes leader well be
in Opposition for another decade.

Six years so far.

I write for two hours.

After breakfast, Darren picks up my laundry, and warns me
that the tumble dryer is still not functioning.

Banged up for another two hours because the
staff are
having their fortnightly training session in the
gym. I’m told their activities range from first-aid lessons to self-defence
(secure and protect), from checking through the latest Home Office regulations
to any race relations problems, plus fire training, HIV reports and likely
suicide candidates. One good thing about all this is that the tax payer is
saved having to fund my pottery class (£1.20).

I watch Nassar Hussain lose the toss for the fourteenth time
in a row. I must ask Mary what the odds are against that

I walk out into the exercise yard just before the gates are
closed at five past eleven. Jimmy points to Mario (not his real name) who is
walking a few paces ahead of us. I hope you can recall Mario’s scam. While
working on the hotplate he stole almost all the cheese. He then made Welsh
rarebit, at a phone-card for two, using an iron as the toaster. Mario was
caught creaming off nearly half a million a year from his fashionable London
restaurant without bothering to pay any tax on his windfall. Although I have
never frequented Mario’s establishment, I know it by reputation. There can be
no doubt of the restaurant’s success, because it was one of those rare places
that do not accept credit cards – only cash or cheques.

While we stroll round the yard – Mario’s not into power
walking – he explains that approximately half of his income was in cash, the
rest cheques or accounts. However, the taxman had no way of finding out what
actual percentage was cash, until two tax inspectors visited the restaurant as
diners. From careful observation they concluded that nearly half the customers
were paying cash, whereas Mario’s tax return showed a mere 10 per cent settled
the bill this way. But how could they prove it? The inspectors paid cash
themselves and requested a receipt. What they couldn’t know was that Mario
declared all the bills where the customer asked for a receipt, which he then
entered in his books. Bills for which no receipts were given were destroyed and
the cash then pocketed.

The taxmen couldn’t become regular customers (their masters
wouldn’t allow such an extravagance) and were therefore unable to prove any
wrongdoing. That was until a young, newly qualified accountant joined the
Inland Revenue and came up with an ingenious idea as to how to ensnare Mario. The
fresh-faced youth found out which laundry the restaurant used and over the next
three months had the tablecloths and napkins counted. There were 40 per cent
more tablecloths than bills and 38 per cent more napkins than customers.

Mario was arrested and charged with falsifying his accounts.
He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years. He will be returning to his
restaurant later this year having, in answer to customers’ enquiries, taken a
‘sabbatical’ in his native Florence.

They’ve got it all wrong, Jeffrey,’ Mario says. The likes of
you and me shouldn’t be in jail mixing with all this riff-raff. They should
have fined me a million pounds, not paid out thirty-five thousand to
accommodate me for a year. My regulars are livid with the police, the courts
and the Inland Revenue.’ His final words are, ‘By the way, Jeffrey, do you like
buck rarebit?’

Lunch.
Among the many things Mario
briefed me on was how to select the best daily dish from the weekly menu. You
must only choose dishes that are made with fresh ingredients grown on the
premises and not bought in. As from next week there will be variations from my
usual vegetarian fare.

I read the morning papers. Margaret and John have placed
their cutlasses back in their sheaths and both have fallen silent – for the
time being. The
press are
describing the leadership
contest as the most acrimonious in living memory, and one from which the party
may never recover. Reading this page a couple of years after the event will
give us all the benefit of hindsight. Is it possible that the party that
governed for the longest period of time during the twentieth century will not
hold office in the twenty-first? Or will Tony Blair suddenly look fallible?

Gym.
It’s the over-fifties’
spinning session – nothing to do with politics. Don’t kid yourself –
it’s
agony. Forty-five minutes with an instructor shouting,
‘On the straight’, ‘Up the slope’, Hill climbing’, Taster, faster. I fall off
the bike at four o’clock and Darren almost carries me back to my cell.

Australia
are
208 for 1 and looking
as if they could score 700. I leave the cricket to get some loo paper from the
store. This must be collected between 8.15-8.30 am or 5.30-6.00 pm; one roll
per person, per week. As I come out of the store room, I notice my name is
chalked up on the blackboard to see the SO. I go straight to Mr Meanwell’s
office. He has several registered letters for me, including one from some
ladies in Northampton, who have sent me a lavender cake.

‘I’m afraid you’re not allowed to have it until you move
prisons or have completed your sentence,’ Mr Meanwell explains.

‘Why not?’
I ask.

‘It could be laced with alcohol or drugs,’ he tells me.

As I leave the SO’s office, I spot a new prisoner with his
right arm in a sling. I go over to have a chat: injuries usually mean stories.
Was he in a fight? Was he hit by a prison officer? Did he fall or was he
pushed? It turns out to be an attempted suicide. He shows me his wrist which
displays three long, jagged scars forming
a triangle which
have
been sewn up like a rough tear in a Turkish carpet. I stare for
about a second at the crude, mauve scars before I have to turn away. Later, I’m
relieved to discover that Jimmy reacted in the same way, though he tells me
that if you really want to kill yourself, you don’t cut across the artery. ‘You
only do that when you’re looking for sympathy,’ he adds, ‘because the screws
will always get there in time. But one long slash up the arm will sever the
artery, and youH die long before they can reach you.’

‘Nevertheless,’ I say, ‘that’s some cry for help.’ ‘Yes, his
father had a heart attack last week, and he’s just arrived back from the
funeral.’

‘How many suicides have there been at Wayland while you’ve
been here?’ I ask Jimmy.

There was one about six weeks ago,’ he replies. ‘You’ll
always know when one takes place because we’re banged up for the rest of the
day. No one is allowed to leave their cell until the body has been removed from
the prison. Then an initial report has to be written, and because so many
officers become involved, including the governor, it never takes less than
three hours. This prison’s pretty good,’ he adds. ‘We only get about one
suicide a year. In Norwich, where I began my sentence, it was far higher, more
like one a month. We even had a prisoner sitting up on the roof with a noose
round his neck, saying he’d jump unless the governor dealt with his complaint.’

‘Did he jump?’

‘No, they gave in and agreed to let him attend his mother’s
funeral.’

‘But why didn’t they agree to that in the first place?’

‘Because last time they let him out, he flattened a screw
with one punch and tried to escape.’

‘So the governor gave in?’

‘No, the governor refused to see him, but he did allow the
prisoner to attend the funeral, double-cuffed.’

‘Double-cuffed?’

‘First they cross the prisoner’s wrists before handcuffing
him. Then they handcuff him to two officers with two separate pairs of
handcuffs, one on either side.’

Thank God they didn’t do that to me when I attended my
mother’s funeral.

It’s an irony that an hour later, when going through my
mail, I find a razor-blade paper attached to the top of one of my letters, with
the message ‘Just in case you’ve had enough.’ The blade itself had been removed
by an officer.

Exercise.
Shaun (forgery) has begun
to work on an outline drawing of the montage. His first model is Dale (wounding
with intent), who is standing on the grass in the sun, arms folded – not a
natural model (see plate section). Dale scowls as we pass him, while a few of
the other prisoners shout obscenities.

Nothing worth watching on television, so I finish Graham
Greene’s The Man Within.

I remove the newly washed clothes from all over my bed,
where I had laid them out to dry. They are still wet so I hang them from every
other available space – cupboard doors, the sink, my chair, even the curtain
rail.

I fall asleep, still worrying about the KPMG report and how
long it will take for the police to agree that there is no case to answer. By
the time you read this, Wayland will be a thing of the past. But for now, it
remains purgatory.

I draw my newly acquired curtains to allow the rising sun to
enter my cell. I discovered during exercise yesterday evening that they used to
belong to Dennis (VAT fraud). No one knows how much of the 17.5 per cent he
retained for himself, but as he was sentenced to six years, we have to assume
it was several millions.

Dennis applied for parole after two and a half years, having
been a model prisoner. He heard nothing, so assumed that his request had been
turned down. Yesterday, at 8 am, they opened his cell door and told him to pack
his belongings. He was being released within the hour. The order had come from
the Home Office the week before but, as his probation officer was on leave, no
message had got through. Dennis had to borrow a phonecard – against prison
regulations – to ask his wife to come and pick him up. He caught her just as
she was leaving for work, otherwise he would have been standing outside the
gates all day. That is how I inherited the fine net curtains which now adorn my
cell, and when I leave they will be passed on to the new resident. I just hope
I’m given a little more notice.

Jimmy was also let out yesterday, but only for the day. He
has just a few weeks left to serve before his release date, so they allow him
out once a month on a town visit, from 9 am to 3 pm. This is part of the
rehabilitation programme for any D-cat prisoner. Jimmy has been a D-cat, but
resident in a C-cat prison, for over three months. He doesn’t want to move to
an open prison because he’s coming to the end of his sentence and his family
lives locally.

Yesterday Jimmy visited Dereham. He was accompanied by an
officer who, for reasons that will become clear, I shall not name. At lunchtime
the officer gave Jimmy a fiver to buy them both some fish and chips (Dereham
prices) while he went to the bank to cash a cheque. Jimmy collected the fish
and chips, strolled over to the National Westminster and waited outside for the
officer. When he didn’t appear, Jimmy began lunch without him. After the last
chip had been devoured, Jimmy began to worry about what had happened to his
guard. He went into the bank, but couldn’t see him, so ran out and quickly
headed towards Lloyds TSB, a hundred yards away. As he turned the corner, he
saw the officer running down the street towards him, an anxious look on his
face. The two men fell into each other’s arms laughing; Jimmy didn’t want to be
accused of trying to escape only six weeks before his release date, and the
officer would have been sacked for giving a prisoner money to assist in that
escape. Jimmy told me later that he’s never seen a more relieved man in his
life.

‘Where are my fish and chips?’ demanded the officer, once he
had recovered.

‘I had to eat them, guv,’ Jimmy explained, ‘otherwise yours
would have gone cold.’ He handed over fifty pence change.

After breakfast I go in search of Stan (embezzler, £21,000,
eighteen months), the spur painter. I ask him if he’d be kind enough to come
and look at my cell and see if he can recommend any way of brightening it up. I
tell him I hate the white door and the black square around the basin and the
black floor skirting.

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he says, ‘but I can’t promise
much. We only get colours that have been discontinued, or the ones no one else
wants.’

Pottery.
I fear this enterprise has
proved to be a mistake. I simply don’t have any talent with clay. I’m going to
ask Wendy if I can be transferred to the library or education. The Sun told its
readers yesterday that I had applied to take Dennis’s (of curtain fame) job in
the library. I didn’t even know he worked in the library, but now the Sun has
put the idea in my head, I’ll ask Steve (conspiring to murder, head librarian)
if there’s a vacancy. Meanwhile I go off to pottery and waste two hours talking
to Shaun (forgery). To be fair, it wasn’t a complete waste of time because he
brought me up to date on his progress with the book cover and the montage of
prisoners (see plate section). I also discover more about his crime.