Hell Read online

  ‘Yes, I’m going to buy old cars, patch them up, see that they get their MOT certificate and then sell them on the estates round here.’

  ‘Can you make an honest living doing that?’ I ask.

  ‘I hope so, Jeffrey,’ he says, ‘because I’m getting too old [thirty-five] for this game. In any case, there’s enough of my family costing the government a thousand pounds a week without me adding to the taxpayers’ burden. Mind you,’ he adds, ‘if they had let me out last week I might have ended up murdering someone.’ I stop in my tracks and Paul and Del Boy almost collide into the back of me. ‘My brother’s just told me’ – he points to the other side of the yard where a tall, dark-haired young man is leaning up against the fence – ‘that my sister Brinie was kidnapped last week and repeatedly raped, and as most of the family are in jail, there’s not a lot we can do about it.’ I’m speechless. ‘The bastard’s been arrested, so we must hope that the judge gets it right this time.’ He pauses. ‘But for his sake let’s hope he doesn’t end up in the same prison as one of my brothers. Mind you,’ he adds, ‘don’t bet on that, because the odds are quite short.’

  As we turn the corner, he points up to a tower block in the distance. ‘That’s where another of my brothers, Patrick, fell to his death.’ (Have you noticed that Mrs Keane has named all her sons after saints or kings?) ‘You’ll remember, that was the occasion when the whole family attended his funeral along with half the Metropolitan Police.’ He pauses. ‘They’re now saying he might have been pushed. I’ll find out more as soon as I get out of here, and if he was…’ What hope has this man of remaining on the outside? I ask myself. I found out a few months later when I met up with yet another brother.*

  When William slips off to rejoin his brother, I notice that Del Boy and Paul have been replaced by Tony and David. David (fifty-five, in possession of a gun) is overweight, out of shape and finding it difficult to keep up with me. The next person to join me is a young, bright, full-of-life West Indian, whose story I will not repeat, as it is the mirror image of Peter Fabri’s. He too has no intention of even going through an amber light once they release him from Belmarsh. However, he admits that he’s learnt a lot more about crime than he knew before he came into prison. He’s also been introduced to drugs in the cell he shares with two other inmates.

  ‘I’m clean, man,’ he says rubbing his hands together. ‘But one of the guys in my cell who’s due out next week has tried heroin for the first time. He’s hooked now, man, I tell you he’s hooked.’

  Are you still paying attention, Home Secretary?

  I pass the tearaways, who haven’t moved an inch for the past forty minutes and have to satisfy themselves with malevolent stares. I feel confident that they aren’t going to risk anything this time.

  At four o’clock, we’re called back in block by block. Several prisoners who are leaving next week including Peter (offered forty thousand to murder a witness), Denzil (come and see me when I’m a star), and Liam (do I need a barrister or should I represent myself?) come across to shake hands and wish me luck. I pray that they never see the inside of Belmarsh again.

  4.00 pm

  When I arrive back in my cell there’s another stack of letters waiting for me on my bed, three stacks to be accurate. I start reading. It’s turned out to be most helpful that the censor has to open every one. I’m particularly touched by a letter Freddie Forsyth sent to the Daily Telegraph about the length of my sentence, and the money I’ve raised for charity. The editor did not publish it.

  4.49 pm

  Last call for supper. Spur one is always let out first and called back last, because most of the inmates are lifers who will spend more time inside than anyone else on the block. It’s prison logic and works because the turnover on the other three spurs is between 10 per cent and 20 per cent a week, so no one thinks of complaining.

  I stroll down to the hotplate, but only so that my name can be ticked off, pick up a Thermos of hot water and return to my cell. I make myself a Cup a Soup (tomato, 22p) and eat a Mars Bar (31p) and a prison apple, as I continue to read today’s letters.

  6.00 pm

  I pick up Colin’s critique of Frank McCourt’s ’Tis. The improvement is marked since I read his first effort. He has now sorted out how much of the story he should reveal before he offers his critical opinion. This is obviously a man who once you tell him something is able to respond immediately. I then turn my attention to his poem.

  Education Belmarsh

  Open the labyrinths of time

  blow out the cobwebs

  and past life of crime

  full of knowledge held within

  the mind is truly a wonderful thing

  It can be educated, it can be evolved

  without education

  can the problems be solved?

  While locked away, there is plenty to see

  they entrap the body

  but your mind is still free

  to wonder the universe

  and grow like a tree

  So go to the library

  and pick up a book

  watch your mind grow

  while other cons look

  It’s not down to them

  to make you move

  so go ahead read

  and your mind will improve

  Colin Kitto, May 2001

  House Block 1, HMP Belmarsh

  This poem reveals a lot about the man, where he’s going, and where he’s come from. I feel sure that before he completes his sentence, he will have that degree from Ruskin College. And don’t forget, this is a man who couldn’t read or write before he came into prison.

  There is a polite knock on the door and I look up to see one of the officers peering through my little oblong window. He asks if I would be willing to sign autographs for his two daughters, Joanna and Stephanie. ‘They both enjoy your books,’ he explains, before adding, ‘though I must admit I’ve never read one.’

  He doesn’t unlock the cell door, just pushes two pieces of paper underneath. This puzzles me. I later learn that an officer cannot unlock a cell door if he is not on duty. Once he has retrieved them, he adds, ‘I’ll be off for the first part of next week, so if I don’t see you again, good luck with your appeal.’

  7.00 pm

  I begin reading a book of short stories that had been left on a table by the TV on the ground floor. It’s titled The Fallen and the author, John MacKenna, is someone I’ve not read before. He’s no storyteller, as so often the Irish are, but oh, don’t I wish I could write as lyrically as he does.

  10.50 pm

  I finish reading John MacKenna in one sitting (on the end of the bed) – what assured, confident prose, with an intimate feel for his countrymen and his country. I conclude that God gave the Irish the gift of language and threw in some potatoes as an afterthought.

  Day 18

  Sunday 5 August 2001

  6.00 am

  Another good night’s sleep.

  Yesterday I wrote for six hours, three sessions of two, read for three – including my letters – and slept for eight. Out there where you are, five hours’ sleep was always enough. In truth, the writing is an attempt to fill the day and night with nonstop activity. I feel sorry for the prisoners who have to occupy those same hours and cannot read or write.

  8.00 am

  Breakfast. Egg and beans on toast, two mornings in a row. I don’t grumble. I’ve always liked egg and beans.

  9.30 am

  I hear the officer on duty holler up from his desk, ‘RCs.’

  I press the buzzer which switches on a red light outside my door – known as room service – to indicate that I wish to attend chapel. No one comes to unlock the door. When they yell a second time, I press the buzzer again, but still no one responds. After they call a third time, I start banging on my door, but to no avail. Although I am not a Roman Catholic, after William Keane’s recommendation I would have liked to hear Father Kevin preach.

  10.03 am

  Mr Co