Hell Read online

  7.00 pm

  I’m washing my plastic plate in the basin when there’s a knock on the door. The cell door is pulled open by an officer to reveal the massive frame of Fletch standing in the doorway. I had quite forgotten he was coming to read something to me.

  I smile. ‘Welcome,’ I say, like the spider to the fly. The first thing I notice is that he’s clutching a small green notebook, not unlike the type we used to write our essays in at school. After a brief chat about which prison I’m likely to be sent to, and his opinion of Mr Leader, the Deputy Governor, he turns to the real purpose of his visit.

  ‘I wonder if I might be allowed to read something to you?’ he asks.

  ‘Of course,’ I reply, not sure if it’s to be an essay, a poem, or even the first chapter of a novel. I settle on the bed while Fletch sits in the plastic chair (prisoners are only allowed one chair per cell). He places the little lined book on my desk, opens it at the first page, and begins to read.

  If I had the descriptive powers of Greene and the narrative drive of Hemingway, I still could not do justice to the emotions I went through during the next twenty minutes; revulsion, anger, sympathy, incredulity, and finally inadequacy. Fletch turns another page, tears welling up in his eyes, as he forces himself to resurrect the demons of his past. By the time he comes to the last page, this giant of a man is a quivering wreck, and of all the emotions I can summon up to express my true feelings, anger prevails. When Fletch closes the little green book, we both remain silent for some time.

  Once I’m calm enough to speak, I thank him for the confidence he has shown in allowing me to share such a terrible secret.

  ‘I’ve never allowed anyone in Belmarsh to read this,’ he says, tapping the little green book. ‘But perhaps now you can appreciate why I won’t be appealing against my sentence. I don’t need the whole world to know what I’ve been through,’ he adds in a whisper, ‘so it will go with me to my grave.’ I nod my understanding and promise to keep his confidence.

  10.00 pm

  I can’t sleep. What Fletch has read to me could not have been made up. It’s so dreadful that it has to be true. I sleep for a few minutes and then wake again. Fletch has tried to put the past behind him by devoting his time and energy to being a Listener, helping others, by sharing his room with a bullied prisoner, a drug addict, or someone likely to be a victim of sexual abuse.

  I fall asleep. I wake again. It’s pitch black outside my little cell window and I begin to feel that Fletch could give an even greater service if his story were more widely known, and the truth exposed. Then people like me who have led such naive and sheltered lives could surely have the blinkers lifted from their eyes.

  I decide as soon as they let me out of my cell, that I will tell him that I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to suggest that he could do far more good by revealing what actually happened to him than by remaining silent. In all, I think I’ve woken five or six times during the night, my thoughts always returning to Fletch. But one comment he made above all others burns in my mind, Fifty per cent of prisoners in Belmarsh can tell you variations of the same story. Jeffrey, my case is not unique.

  I decide I must use whatever persuasive powers I possess to get him to agree to publish, without reservation, everything in that little green book.

  Day 19

  Monday 6 August 2001

  5.17 am

  I’ve spent a sleepless night. I rise early and write for two hours. When I’ve finished, I pace around my cell, aware that if only I had held onto Fletch’s little green notebook I could have spent the time considering his words in greater detail.

  8.00 am

  I know I’ve eaten a bowl of Corn Pops from my Variety pack, because I can see the little empty box in the waste-paper bin, but I can’t remember when. I go on pacing.

  9.00 am

  An officer opens the cell door. I rush down to the ground floor, only to discover that Fletch is always let out at eight so that he can go straight to the workshops and have everything set up and ready before the other prisoners arrive. Because of the length of his sentence, it’s a real job for him. He’s the works manager, and can earn up to forty pounds a week. I could go along to the workshops, but with seventy or eighty other prisoners hanging around, I wouldn’t be able to hold a private conversation with him. Tony tells me Fletch will be back for dinner at twelve, when he’ll have an hour off before returning to the workshops at one. I’ll have to wait.

  When I return to my cell, I find a letter has been pushed under my door. It’s from Billy Little (murder). He apologizes for being offhand with me during Association the previous evening. August is always a bad month for him, he explains, and he’s not very good company for a number of reasons:

  I last saw my son in August 1998, my favourite gran died in August, the heinous act of murder that I committed took place on August 22, 1998. As you can imagine, I have a lot on my mind.

  I can’t begin to imagine, which I admit when I reply to his letter. He continues…

  During this period, I tend to spend a long time inside myself. This could give an impression to those who don’t know me of being ignorant and unapproachable. For this I apologise.

  By this time tomorrow, you’ll be sunning it up by the pool, or that’s how Springhill will feel in comparison to Hellmarsh. In a way, you’ve been lucky to have spent only a short period here, a period in which you’ve brought the normal inertia of prison to life.

  Over the last three weeks you will have felt the resentment of other prisoners who feel strongly that equality should be practised even in prisons. You no doubt recall the Gilbert and Sullivan quote from The Gondoliers – when everybody is somebody, then nobody is anybody.

  I think what I’m trying to say is that your status, friendliness and willingness to help and advise others has not gone unnoticed by those who are destined to spend a great deal longer incarcerated.

  For this I thank you, and for your inspiration to press me to think more seriously about my writing. I would like to take you up on your offer to keep in touch, and in particular to check over my first novel.

  I’ll be resident here for another month or two, or three, before they move me onto a first stage lifer main centre [Billy has been at Belmarsh for two years and seven months] I’ll let you know my address once I’ve settled. My number is at the bottom of this letter.

  You are Primus Inter Pares

  Yours,

  Billy (BX7974)

  I sit down at my table and reply immediately.

  12 noon

  When Fletch arrives back from the workshops, he finds me waiting by his cell door. He steps inside and invites me to join him.* I ask if I might be allowed to borrow his notebook so that I can consider more carefully the piece he read to me the previous evening. He hesitates for a moment, then goes to a shelf above his bed, burrows around and extracts the little green notebook. He hands it over without comment.

  I grab an apple for lunch and return to my cell. Reading Fletch’s story is no less painful. I go over it three times before pacing up and down. My problem will be getting him to agree to publish his words in this diary.

  3.37 pm

  Mr Bentley opens my cell door to let me know that the Deputy Governor wishes to see me. As I am escorted to Mr Leader’s office, I can only wonder what bad news he will have to impart this time. Am I to be sent to Parkhurst or Brixton, or have they settled on Dartmoor? When the Deputy Governor’s door is opened, I am greeted with a warm smile. Mr Leader’s demeanour and manner are completely different from our last meeting. He is welcoming and friendly, which leads me to hope that he is the bearer of better news.

  He tells me that he has just heard from the Home Office that I will not be going to Camphill on the Isle of Wight or Elmer in Kent, but Wayland. I frown. I’ve never heard of Wayland.

  ‘It’s in Norfolk,’ he tells me. ‘C-cat and very relaxed. I’ve already spoken to the Governor,’ he adds, ‘and only one other member of my staff is aware of your destinati