However, I am relieved to observe that two inmates remain behind to have a private conversation with Leah.
6.00 pm
Kit change. Once a week you report to the laundry room for a change of sheets, pillowcases, towels and gym kit. I now have six towels and include four of them in my weekly change. They are all replaced, despite each prisoner only being allowed two. However, they won’t replace my second pillowcase because you’re allowed only one. I can’t understand the logic of that.
You’re meant to wash your own personal belongings, but I have already handed over that responsibility to Darren, who is the enhanced wing’s laundry orderly. He picks up my bag of washing every Thursday, and returns it later that evening. He asks for no recompense. I must confess that the idea of washing my underpants in a sink shared with someone else’s dirty cutlery isn’t appealing.
6.30 pm
Supper. Unworthy of mention.
7.00 pm
Exercise. I walk round the perimeter of the yard with Darren and another inmate called Steve. Steve was convicted of conspiracy to murder. He is an accountant by profession, well spoken, intelligent and interesting company. His story turns out to be a fascinating one. He was a senior partner in a small successful firm of accountants. He fell in love with one of the other partners, who was already married to a colleague. One night, on his way home from work, Steve stopped at a pub he regularly frequented. He knew the barman well and told him that given half a chance he’d kill the bastard (meaning his girlfriend’s husband). Steve thought nothing more of it until he received a phone call from the barman saying that for the right price it could be arranged. The phone call was being taped by the police, as were several others that followed. It was later revealed in court that the barman was already in trouble with the police and reported Steve in the hope that it would help have the charges against him dropped. It seems the key sentence that mattered was, ‘Are you certain you want to go ahead with it?’ which was repeated by the barman several times. ‘Yes,’ Steve always replied.
Steve and his girlfriend were arrested, pleaded guilty and were sentenced to seven years. She currently resides at High-point, while he has gone from A- to B- to C-cat status in a couple of years (record time), and is now living on the enhanced wing at Wayland with D-cat status. He doesn’t want to move to an open prison because Wayland is near his home. He is also the prison’s chief librarian. I have a feeling that you’ll be hearing more about Steve in the future.
On the circuit round the perimeter we are joined by the prisoner I shared a cell with on my first night, Chris (stabbing with a Stanley knife). He tells me that the News of the World have been in touch with his mother and will be printing a story on Sunday. He tries to assure me that he has had no contact with them and his mother has said nothing.
‘Then it will only be three pages,’ I tell him.
When I return to my cell, Jules is looking worried. He’s also heard that Chris will be featured in the News of ike World this Sunday. Chris told him that a lot of his friends and associates don’t even know he’s in jail, and he doesn’t want them to find out. He attends education classes twice a day and wants the chance to start a new life once he’s been released. I just don’t have the heart to tell him that the News of the World have absolutely no interest in his future.
10.00 pm
We watch the news. Still more August storms. At 10.30 Jules switches channels to Ally McBeal while I try unsuccessfully to sleep. I’m not sure which is more distracting, the TV in our cell, or the rap music emanating from the other side of the block.
DAY 29 – THURSDAY 16 AUGUST 2001
5.50 am
I wake from a dream in which I had been using the most foul language when talking to Mary. I can’t explain it. I write for a couple of hours.
8.00 am
I plug in Jules’s radio so that I can hear Mary’s interview with John Humphrys. I shave while the news is on, and become more and more nervous. It’s always the same. I am very anxious when William screens one of the documentaries he’s been working on, or James is running the 800 metres, and especially whenever Mary has to give a talk that lay people might expect to understand. She’s first on after the news and handles all of John Humphrys’ questions in that quiet academic way that could only impress an intelligent listener. But I can tell, even after her first reply, just how nervous she is. Once Mary has dealt with the Kurds and Baroness Nicholson, Humphrys moves on to the subject of how I’m getting on in jail. That was when Mary should have said, ‘My agreement with you, Mr Humphrys, was to discuss only matters arising from the Kurds.’ Once Mary failed to point this out, he moved on to the trial, the appeal and the sentence. I had warned her that he would. He has no interest in keeping to any agreement made between her and the producer. And that’s why he is such a sharp interviewer, as I know from past experience.
9.30 am
I call Mary, who feels she was dreadful and complains that John Humphrys broke the BBC’s agreement and once the piece was over she told him so. What does he care? She then tells me that the CEO of the Red Cross, Sir Nicholas Young, was interviewed later, and was uncompromising when it came to any suggestion that one penny raised for the Kurds in the UK had not been accounted for. He went on to point out that I had nothing to do with either the collecting or distribution of any monies. I suggest to Mary that perhaps the time has come to sue Baroness Nicholson. Mary tells me that the lawyer’s first priority is to have my D-cat reinstated so I can be moved to an open prison before we issue the writ. Good thinking.
‘Don’t waste any more of your units’ she says. ‘See you tomorrow.’
9.50 am
Disaster. Darren reappears with my washing. All fresh and clean, but the dryer has broken down for the first time in living memory. I take the wet clothes back to my cell and hang the T-shirts on the end of the bed, my underwear from an open cupboard door and my socks over the single chair. The sun is shining, but not many of its rays are reaching through the bars and into my cell.
10.00 am
Today is the first day of the fourth test match against Australia, and Hussain is back as captain. He said that although we’ve lost the Ashes (3-0), English pride is now at stake. I write for an hour and then turn on the television at eleven to see who won the toss. It’s been raining all morning. Of course it has; the match is at Headingley (Leeds). I switch off the television and return to my script.
11.40 am
I’ve been writing for over an hour when the cell door is unlocked. The governor would like a word. I go to the interview room and find Mr Cariton-Boyce and Mr Tinkler waiting for me.
Mr Cariton-Boyce looks embarrassed when he tries to explain why I can’t have any writing pads and pens or Alan Clark’s Diaries. I make a small protest but only so it’s on the record. He then goes on to tell me that I will not be moving to C block after all. They’ve had a re-think, and I’ll be joining the adults on the enhanced spur, but – and there is always a but in prison – as no one is being released until 29 August, I’ll have to stay put until then.
I thank him, and ask if my room-mate Jules can be moved to a single cell, as I fear it can’t be too long before the News of the World will do to him exactly what they’ve done to every other prisoner who has shared a cell with me. This shy, thoughtful man will end up being described as a drug baron, and he doesn’t have any way of fighting back.
Governor CarltonrBoyce nods. Promises are never made in prison, but he does go as far as saying,’ The next thing on my agenda is cell dispersal, because we have eight more prisoners coming in tomorrow.’ I thank him and leave, aware that’s about the biggest hint I’ll get.
12 noon
Lunch. Dale passes me two little sealed boxes, rather than the usual single portion, and winks. I was down on today’s menu for number three – vegetable stew – but when I get back to my cell, I discover the other box contains
