Purgatory Read online

  4.00 pm

  Sergio joins me in my cell to tell me the latest on the emerald hunt before continuing with his tutorial. The majority of emeralds mined in Colombia come from one mountain that has been owned by the same family for generations. Most of the stones that come out of Colombia are exported to Japan, but Sergio is hoping, when he returns to Bogota, to start diverting some of these gems to Europe. He is becoming more ambitious every day.

  He also informs me that trading in emeralds is every bit as dangerous as dealing in drugs. Every day eight helicopters fly back and forth from the mountain to Bogota airport with four armed guards on each and another twenty private police waiting for them on the runway. On the mountain there are 300 workers and 100 armed guards. A peasant (his description) can earn as much as $50,000 a year if, and he repeats if, he is lucky enough to dig up any high-quality gems.

  ‘But what about theft?’ I ask. How do they deal with that?’ ‘One or two of the workers are stupid enough to consider stealing the odd stone, but they quickly discover that there is no judge or jury on the mountain.’

  ‘So how do they dispense justice?’

  ‘Instantly,’ he replies. ‘One of the guards shoots the culprit in front of the other workers, who then bury him.’

  ‘But you could swallow a stone, and then sell it in Bogota, where you’ve already told me that twenty thousand emeralds change hands in the marketplace every day.’

  ‘True,’ Sergio replies. ‘But you will still be caught, because the family has over a hundred spotters in the market, night and day. If a dealer ever traded with a thief, they would immediately be cut off from their source of supply. And in time the thief will have to return to the mountain if he hopes to go on trading. In any case, the workers know they will have a far higher standard of living than their fellow countrymen as long as they remain employed on the mountain.’

  ‘But they could take the gems abroad and make a fortune?’ ‘Most peasants,’ says Sergio, ‘have never travelled further than the next village, and none of them speaks anything but mountain Spanish, which even I can’t understand. Even the owner of the mountain can still only converse in his native tongue and would never consider leaving Colombia. It is only because of my four years in an English jail,’ continues Sergio, ‘that it’s now possible for me to act as a go-between and consider the export business. And you now also have an advantage, Jeffrey, because your rivals cannot easily buy or sell paintings from Colombia.’ I raise an eyebrow. ‘I am being deported in four weeks’ time, and can never return to Britain unless I am willing to risk completing the remaining four years of my sentence.’ ‘An enterprising dealer could always fly to Bogota.’ ‘Not wise,’ says Sergio. ‘Fair-haired, blue-eyed people are not welcome in Bogota, and especially not on the mountain.’ He goes on to explain: ‘It would be assumed that you are an American, and your chances of making it back to the airport would be about as good as a peasant caught stealing.’ No wonder it’s a closed market.

  My tutorial comes to an end when an officer bellows, ‘Lock up.’ I run out of Sergio’s cell to return to the real world, because I need the five minutes to join the queue and change my sheets, pillowcase, towels and gym kit. Don’t forget it’s Wednesday, and if you don’t get to the laundry room before they close, you have to wait another week.

  8.00 pm

  When I get back to my cell I find a biography of Oscar Wilde by Sheridan Morley awaiting me on my bed. I had asked Steve (conspiracy to murder, chief librarian) to reserve this book for me. Nothing like a personal delivery service.

  I become so engrossed in Wilde’s life that I miss the Ten O’clock News. I have reached Oscar’s first trial by the time I put the book down. I must save the second trial for tomorrow night.

  Not a bad day, but please don’t think, even for one moment, that it’s therefore been a good one.

  DAY 43 - THURSDAY 30 AUGUST 2001

  8.45 am

  I arrive for my pottery class to find it’s been cancelled because the teacher hasn’t turned up. Shaun tells me this is a regular occurrence, and he seems to be the only person who is disappointed because he was hoping to finish a painting. It gives me another couple of hours to write, while the other prisoners are happy to go off to the gym or their cells while still being paid PS1.40.

  10.45 am

  I hear a cry of ‘library’ bellowed down the corridor and, as I’ve just come to the end of another chapter of Oscar Wilde, decide to take a break and return Arts and Artists. I now know my way around the library and go straight to the art shelves. I select a book entitled Legendary Gemsby Eric Bruton and add a novel by Robert Goddard.

  When I return to my cell I find my laundry is waiting in a neat pile, washed and dried. I look up to see Darren standing on my chair, clipping up a new curtain rail.

  ‘Let me warn you’ he says as he climbs back down off the chair, ‘you can’t hang yourself from a prison curtain rail.’

  ‘I hadn’t given the idea much thought, but why not?’ I ask, opening my notebook.

  ‘Because it just clips on, so if you attached a noose to the rail and then jumped off the chair, you’d land on the floor wrapped up in your curtain.’

  ‘So how can I hang myself?’ I demand.

  ‘You should have done it at your remand prison’ Darren replies.

  ‘I’m not sure I understand.’

  ‘Most remand prisons are of a Victorian vintage, and have high-level barred windows making the job that much easier.’

  ‘But I was only there for a few days.’

  There are more hangings in the first few days in jail than at any other time.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Often the psychological impact of entering prison for the first time causes deep depression, and that’s when a prisoner sees suicide as the only way out.’

  ‘So it’s less common once you’ve been transferred?’

  ‘Yes, but I knew a prisoner who still found an original way to kill himself.’ I continue to scribble away. He was in a cell with a one-up and one-down, and when his room-mate went to work and he was left alone for the rest of the morning he stood the bed up on its end, so that the rail was about seven feet from the ground. He used his belt as a noose, and attached it to the top railing. He then climbed on top, placed his hands in the back of his jeans, rolled off the bed and hanged himself. On the table they found a letter from his girlfriend saying she couldn’t wait for three years. If you want to kill yourself, you can always find a way,’ Darren adds matter of factly. ‘Each year the Prison Service publishes statistics on how many inmates commit suicide. There were ninety-two in 2001’ says Darren, just before he leaves to continue his rounds. ‘However, what they don’t tell you is how many people die, or commit suicide within six months of being released.’ I slowly unpack my washing and stack it on the narrow shelves while I consider what Darren has just told me.

  2.00 pm

  After lunch I pick up Legendary Gems and turn to the chapter on emeralds. Everything Sergio has told me during the past ten days is verified by the author, which gives me more confidence in Sergio. However, two crucial questions remain: does Sergio have the right contacts and can he replace the middlemen? I am pleased to see that Laurence Graff warrants three mentions in the diamond chapter.

  To date I haven’t mentioned Laurence Graff (of Graff’s of Bond Street, Madison Avenue and Monte Carlo), but I’m rather hoping he will agree to value the gem for me. Laurence and I first met at a charity function many years ago when I was the auctioneer. Since then he and his wife, Anne-Marie, have told me many stories about the diamond trade which have found their way into my books. It was Laurence who gave me the idea for the short story ‘Cheap at Half the Price’.

  3.00 pm

  Jimmy rushes into my cell with a large grin on his face. He scowls at Darren’s new curtain rail, immediately aware of who must have supplied it.

  ‘I am the bearer of glad tidings,’ he says. ‘A prisoner on our spur will be leaving tomorrow morning,