Hell Read online

  When I leave them to continue my walkabout, I observe that we are penned in at both ends of the room by a floor-to-ceiling steel-mesh sheet. Everyone nods and smiles as I pass, and some prisoners stop me and want to talk about their upcoming trials, while others who are sending out cards need to know how to spell Christine or Suzanne. Most of them are friendly and address me as Lord Jeff, yet another first. I try to look cheerful. When I remember that if my appeal fails the minimum time I will have to serve is two years, I can’t imagine how anyone with a life sentence can possibly cope.

  ‘It’s just a way of life,’ says Jack, a forty-eight-year-old who has spent the last twenty-two years in and out of different prisons. ‘My problem,’ he adds, ‘is I’m no longer qualified to do anything when I get out.’

  The last person who told me that was a Conservative Member of Parliament a few days before the last election. He lost.

  Jack invites me to visit his cell on the ground floor. I’m surprised to find three beds in a room not much larger than mine. I thought he was about to comment on how lucky I was to have a single cell, but no, he simply indicates a large drawing attached to the wall.

  ‘What do you think that is, Jeff?’ he demands.

  ‘No idea,’ I reply. ‘Does it tell you how many days, months or years you still have to go before you’re released?’

  ‘No,’ Jack responds. He then points below the washbasin where a small army of ants are congregating. I’m a bit slow and still haven’t put two and two together. ‘Each night,’ Jack goes on to explain, ‘the three of us organize ant races, and that’s the track. A sort of ants’ Ascot,’ he adds with a laugh.

  ‘But what’s the stake?’ I enquire, aware that no one is allowed to have any money inside a prison.

  ‘On Saturday night, the one who’s won the most races during the week gets to choose which bed they’ll sleep in for the next seven days.’

  I stare at the three beds. On one side of the room, up against the wall, is a single bed while on the other side are bunk beds.

  ‘Which does the winner choose?’

  ‘You’re fuckin’ * dumb, Jeff. The top one, of course; that way you’re farthest away from the ants, and can be sure of a night’s sleep.’

  ‘What do the ants get?’ I ask.

  ‘If they win, they stay alive until the next race.’

  ‘And if they lose?’

  ‘We put them into tomorrow’s soup.’ I think it was a joke.

  Another bell sounds and the officers immediately corral us back into our cells and slam the doors shut. They will not be unlocked again until eight tomorrow morning.

  A senior officer stops me as I am returning to my cell to tell me that the Governor wants a word. I follow him, but have to halt every few yards as he unlocks and locks countless iron-barred gates before I’m shown into a comfortable room with a sofa, two easy chairs and pictures on the wall.

  Mr Peel, the Governor of Block Three, rises and shakes my hand before motioning me to an easy chair. He asks me how I am settling in. I assure him that the medical wing isn’t something I’d want to experience ever again. Block Three, I admit, although dreadful, is a slight improvement.

  Mr Peel nods, as if he’s heard it all before. He then explains that there are five Governors at Belmarsh, and he’s the one responsible for arranging my visit to Grantchester to attend my mother’s funeral. He goes on to confirm that everything is in place, but I must be ready to leave at seven o’clock tomorrow morning. I’m about to ask why seven o’clock when the service isn’t until eleven, and the journey to Grantchester usually takes about an hour, when he rises from his place and adds, ‘I’ll see you again just as soon as you’ve returned from Cambridge.’

  Mr Peel says goodnight but doesn’t shake hands a second time. I leave his office and try to find the way back to my cell. As I’m unescorted, I lose my way. An officer quickly comes to my rescue and guides me back on the straight and narrow, obviously confident that I wasn’t trying to escape. I couldn’t find my way in, let alone out, I want to tell him.

  9.00 pm

  Once locked back up in my tiny room, I return to The Moon’s a Balloon and read about David Niven’s first experience of sex, and laugh, yes laugh, for the first time in days. At eleven, I turn off my light. Two West Indians on the same floor are shouting through their cell windows, but I can neither follow nor understand what they are saying.* They go on hollering at each other like a married couple who ought to get divorced.

  I have no idea what time it was when I fell asleep.

  Day 3

  Saturday 21 July 2001

  4.07 am

  I wake a few minutes after four, but as I am not due to be picked up until seven I decide to write for a couple of hours. I find I’m writing more slowly now that there are so few distractions in my life.

  6.00 am

  An officer unlocks my cell door and introduces himself as George. He asks me if I would like to have a shower. My towel has been hanging over the end of my bed all night and is still damp, but at least they’ve supplied me with a Bic razor so that I can set about getting rid of two days’ growth. I consider cutting my throat, but the thought of failure and the idea of having to return to the hospital wing is enough to put anyone off. The experience of that medical wing must deter most prisoners from harming themselves, because it’s not the easy option. If you are sent back to the top floor you’d better be ill, or you will be by the time they’ve finished with you.

  I go off to have my shower. I’m getting quite good at anticipating when to press the button so that the flow of water doesn’t stop.

  7.00 am

  ‘Are you ready?’ George asks politely.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘except that my black tie has been confiscated along with my cufflinks.’

  George’s fellow officer hands me a black tie, and a pair of cufflinks materialize. I can only assume that they had anticipated my problem. I point out to George that his black tie is smarter than mine.

  ‘Possibly, but mine’s a clip-on,’ he says, ‘otherwise I’d happily lend it to you.’

  ‘A clip-on?’ I repeat in mock disdain.

  ‘Prison regulations,’ he explains. ‘No officer ever wears a tie as it puts him at risk of being strangled.’

  I learn something new every few minutes.

  The two of them escort me to the front hall, but not before we’ve passed through seven double-bolted floor-to-ceiling barred gates. When we reach the reception area, I am once again strip-searched. The officers carry out this exercise as humanely as possible, though it’s still humiliating.

  I am then taken out into the yard to find a white Transit van awaiting me. Once inside, I’m asked to sit in the seat farthest from the door. George sits next to the door, while his colleague slips into the spare seat directly behind him. The tiny windows are covered with bars and blacked out; I can see out, though no one can see in. I tell George that the press are going to be very frustrated.

  ‘There were a lot of them hanging round earlier this morning waiting for you,’ he tells me, ‘but a high-security van left about an hour ago at full speed and they all chased after it. They’ll be halfway to Nottingham before they realize you’re not inside.’

  The electric gates slide open once again, this time to let me out. I know the journey to Cambridge like the clichéd ‘back of my hand’ because I’ve made it once, sometimes twice, a week for the past twenty years. But this time I am taken on a route that I never knew existed, and presume it can only be for security reasons. I once remember John Major’s driver telling me that he knew twenty-two different routes from Chequers to No. 10, and another twenty back to Huntingdon, and none of them was the most direct.

  I find it a little stifling in the back of the van. There is no contact with the driver in the front, or the policeman sitting beside him, because they are sealed off, almost as if they’re in a separate vehicle. I sense that George and his colleague are a little nervous – I can’t imagine why, because I have no