Heaven Read online

  DAY 204

  THURSDAY 7 FEBRUARY 2002

  9.00 am

  Mr Berlyn strides in at a brisk pace. After a few minutes ensconced with sister in her office, he emerges to tell me that the Home Office has issued an ‘overcrowding’ draft, as all the prisons in the north of England are fully occupied. Result: we will be getting ten new inmates today, and will be ‘surplus to our manifest’ of 213. Here at NSC we are already seeing those overcrowding statistics translated into reality.

  Mr Berlyn has directed that two inmates will have to be billeted in the hospital overnight. I fear I will be experiencing a lot of this during the next few weeks, and I may without warning have to share heaven with some other sinners. However, as six inmates are being released tomorrow, this might be only temporary.

  12.07 pm

  Linda and Gail charge out of the hospital carrying an oxygen cylinder and two first-aid boxes. All I’m told is that a staff member has fallen off a ladder. On the intercom it’s announced that all security officers must report to the south block immediately. It’s like being back in an A-cat where this was a daily occurrence. Prisoners tell me that in Nottingham ambulances were more common than Black Marias.

  A few minutes later Linda and Gail return with a shaven-headed officer covered in blood. It seems that he leaned back while climbing a ladder and overbalanced, landing on the concrete below. No prisoner was involved.

  I quickly discover that a small head wound can spurt so much blood that it appears far worse than it is. When Linda has finished cleaning up her patient and I’ve given him a cup of tea (only the English), he’s smiling and making light of the whole episode. But Linda still wants to dispatch him to the Pilgrim Hospital for stitches to the scalp wound, and both she as hospital sister, and Mr Hocking, head of security, have to fill in countless forms, showing that no prisoner was responsible.

  6.00 pm

  I read another chapter of Street Drugs, this time to learn more about crack cocaine, its properties and its consequences. It’s quite difficult not to accept the argument that some young people, having experimented with one drug and got a kick out of it, might wish to progress to another, simply to discover if the sensation is even more exciting.

  10.00 pm

  Only one of the extra two inmates allocated to spend the night in the hospital appears at my door, a blanket and sheet under his arm. It seems they found a bed for the other arrival. He’s very quiet, despite the fact that he’s being released tomorrow. He slips into bed and simply says, ‘Goodnight, Jeff.’

  Am I that frightening?

  DAY 205

  FRIDAY 8 FEBRUARY 2002

  5.30 am

  ‘What do you think you’re doing, you fucking dickhead?’

  I’m about to explain to my overnight companion that I write for a couple of hours every morning, but when I turn to face him, I realize he’s still fast asleep. It’s the first occasion someone’s sworn in front of me for a long time, even in their sleep, and it brings back memories of Belmarsh and Wayland. I continue writing until seven, when I have to wake him.

  ‘Morning, Jeff,’ he says.

  By the time I emerged from the bathroom, he’s disappeared – his sheets and pillowcases folded neatly at the end of the bed. By now he’ll be in reception, signing his discharge papers, and by eight-thirty will be on his way, a free man.22

  2.00 pm

  Our two new inductees today are somewhat unusual, and not just because they’re both lifers (we now have 23 lifers out of 210 occupants). The first one tells me that he’s been in jail for twenty-three years and he’s only thirty-nine. The second one limps into the hospital and spends a considerable time with sister behind closed doors.

  Later, when I take his blood pressure and check his weight, he tells me that he’s already served fourteen years, and two years ago he contracted encephalitis. Once I’ve filled in his chart and handed it to Linda, I look up encephalitis in the medical dictionary. Poor fellow. Life imprisonment he may deserve, encephalitis he does not.

  DAY 206

  SATURDAY 9 FEBRUARY 2002

  2.00 pm

  Mary and James visit me today, and it’s far from being a social event. Mary even has a written agenda. I do adore her.

  On the domestic front, she has purchased a small Victorian mirror for the hall, and seeks my approval. She goes on to tell me that Baroness Nicholson has written saying that she wants to end the feud, claiming that she never intended anyone to think that I had misappropriated any funds in the first place. In which case, how did I end up in a cell three paces by five, banged up for fourteen hours a day at Wayland, if the police and Prison Service misunderstood her?23

  As for the prejudice of Mr Justice Potts, it remains to be seen whether Godfrey Barker is still willing to make a witness statement. He has confirmed, on many occasions, in the presence of several witnesses, that Potts, at a dinner party he and his wife attended, railed against me for some considerable time.

  4.00 pm

  When my name is called over the tannoy to report to reception, I assume that James has left something for me at the gate. I’ve been expecting a dozen West Wing tapes that will first have to go to the library before I can take them out. My gift turns out to be eight tapes, twelve CDs and three DVDs, not from James, but from an anonymous member of the public, so I can’t even write to thank them.

  Someone else has sent seven books of first-class stamps and a packet of stamped envelopes, after hearing how many letters I’m receiving every day. Mr Garley, the duty officer, explains that I can’t have the stamps (could be exchanged for drugs), but I can have the stamped envelopes (prison logic). Shouldn’t the rule be universal to all prisons? At Belmarsh, a category A prison, stamps are permitted. I make no comment. It’s not Mr Garley’s fault, and he can’t do anything about it.

  DAY 207

  SUNDAY 10 FEBRUARY 2002

  7.21 am

  Gail is angry. She’s recently bought a smart new dark green Peugeot, which she parks outside the hospital. Yesterday, one of the prisoners put matchsticks in her locks, so that when she tried to open the door, she pushed the matchstick further in and jammed the lock.

  4.00 pm

  Club Hospital meets for tea and biscuits. One of our new members, who has only been with us for a month, will be released tomorrow. He was charged with road rage and sentenced to three months. He will have spent six weeks in prison. I’ve watched him carefully at our get-togethers and as he goes about his business around the prison. He is well educated, well mannered and looks quite incapable of swatting a fly.

  He tells the group that he stopped his car to go to the aid of a woman who was being attacked, but for his troubles, got punched to the ground by what turned out to be her boyfriend. The two of them then drove off. He returned home, but was later arrested for road rage as the woman bore witness that he attacked her. Had he gone to the police station first and reported them for assault, the other man would now be in jail, not him. He has lost his job with the pharmaceutical company he’s been with for twenty-one years, and is worried about getting another one now he has a criminal record. His wife has stuck by him, and she hopes that one of his old firm’s rivals will want to take advantage of his expertise.24 This brings me onto the subject of wives.

  Of the seven married Club members present today, two of their wives have had to sell their homes and move to smaller houses in another area; two have had to go out to work full time while trying to bring up children (three in one case, two in the other), and the other two have received divorce petitions while in jail. I’m the seventh.

  I make no excuse for the crimes committed, but I feel it bears repeating that it’s often the wives who suffer even more than the husbands – for them there is no rehabilitation programme.

  DAY 208

  MONDAY 11 FEBRUARY 2002

  9.00 am

  One of the prisoners waiting to be seen by Dr Walling this morning is a regular attendee. Today he somehow managed to get a nail stuck in hi