A Prison Diary

by Jeffrey Archer

  Enter the Secretary of State for Health.

  William looks around the room at the fifty or so workers packing their little plastic bags. ‘I can tell you every one in this room who’s on drugs, even the gear they’re on, and it often only takes a glance. And you’d be surprised how many of your friends “on the out”, even one or two of those who have been condemning you recently, are among them.’

  ‘Taking cannabis can hardly be described as a major crime,’ I suggest. ‘My bet is it will be decriminalized in the not too distant future.’

  ‘I’m not talking about cannabis, Jeffrey. The biggest crisis the government is facing today is the rapid growth of heroin addicts. I can name three lords, two Members of Parliament, and two television personalities who are on Class A drugs. I know because a member of my family has been supplying them for years.’ He names all of them. Two I already knew about, but the other five come as a surprise. ‘In theory they should all be in jail along with you,’ he adds. Check on all the young criminals coming into prison and you’ll begin to understand it’s a problem that few people, especially the politicians, seem willing to face up to. ‘On your own spur alone,’ he continues, ‘five of the lifers are on heroin, and still getting the skag delivered to them every week.’

  ‘How do they manage that?’ I ask.

  ‘Mainly during visits,’ he says, ‘mouth, backside, ears, even secreted in a woman’s hair. Because of the Human Rights Act, prison searches are fairly cursory.’

  ‘But this is a Double A Category high-security prison,’ I remind him.

  ‘That’s not a problem if you’re desperate enough, and there’s nothing more desperate than a heroin addict, even when he’s locked up in the segregation block.’

  ‘But how?’ I press him.

  ‘Don’t forget that most A-cats are also remand prisons, and so have prisoners coming in and out every day. If the new young criminals didn’t already know, it wouldn’t take them long to discover the economics of supply and demand, especially when such large sums of money are involved. A gram of heroin [a joey] may be worth forty pounds on the street, but in here it can be split up into five bags and sold for a couple of hundred. At those prices, some prisoners are willing to risk swallowing a bag of heroin just before they’re taken down; then they simply have to wait to retrieve it; after all, there’s a toilet in every cell. And,’ he adds, ‘my brother Rory can swallow a lump of heroin the size of a small eraser – five hundred pounds in value – hold it in his throat and still carry on a conversation. As soon as he’s safely back in his cell, he coughs it up.’

  ‘But despite your brother’s unusual skill,’ I point out, ‘if, as you suggest, sixty per cent of inmates are on drugs, you’ll need more than the odd prisoner who’s willing to swallow a packet of heroin to satisfy the demand.’

  ‘True,’ said William, ‘so stay alert during visits, Jeffrey, and you’ll notice how much transferring of drugs is done by kissing. And whenever you see a baby dangling on its mother’s knee, you can be sure the little offspring’s nappy will be full of drugs. That’s how the visitor gets it into prison. The kissing is how it’s transferred from visitor to inmate. And there are still a dozen or more ways of getting the gear in, depending on which prison you’re sent to. If you ever spot someone coming into jail wearing an Adidas tracksuit, look carefully at the three stripes. If you unstitch just one of them, you can fill it with five hundred pounds’ worth of heroin.’

  My only thought is that I have an Adidas tracksuit in my cell.

  ‘My brother Michael,’ continues William, ‘discovered that in some prisons Waterstone’s have the book franchise, so a friend of his would select an obscure title, fill the spine with drugs, and then ask Waterstone’s to donate the book to the prison library. Once it had been placed on the shelf, Michael would take it out. Amazing how much heroin you can get into the spine of James Joyce’s Ulysses. But in my last nick,’ William continues, ‘the Sun’s page-three girl was the most popular method of getting the skag in, until the screws caught on.’

  ‘The page-three girl?’

  ‘You do know what a page-three girl is, don’t you, Jeffrey?’ I nod. ‘Most A- and B-cat prisons allow an inmate to order a morning paper from the local newsagent,’ continues William, ‘and because you’re locked up for twenty-two hours a day, they even deliver them to your cell. One enterprising dealer “on the out” supplied the entire prison’s needs, by sprinkling any orders all over the page-three girl in the Sun. He would then cut out another copy of the same photograph and seal it carefully over her twin, making a thin bag of heroin. He ended up supplying a grand’s worth of heroin a day to one prison, with an officer unwittingly delivering his wares to the customer direct. He was making far more with his built-in customers than he could ever hope to make “on the out”.’

  ‘But how did he get paid?’

  ‘Oh, Jeffrey, you’re so green. On every spur, on every block, in every prison, you’ll find a dealer who has a supplier on the outside and he’ll know your needs within hours of your being locked up.’

  ‘But that doesn’t answer my question.’

  ‘You make an order with your spur dealer,’ continues William, ‘say a gram of heroin a day. He then tells you the name and address of his supplier, and you select someone “on the out” to handle the payments. No standing orders, you understand, just cash. In your case you could have your supply delivered under the Scarfe cartoon in the Sunday Times.’ I laugh. ‘Or under the stamps on one of those large brown envelopes you receive every day. You’d be surprised how much cocaine you can deposit under four postage stamps. You watch the screws when the post arrives in the morning. They always run a thumb over the stamps, but you can get a lot more in via the envelope.’

  ‘But they always slit the envelopes open and look inside.’

  ‘I didn’t say inside,’ said William. ‘You may have noticed that down the right-hand side of most brown envelopes there’s a flap, which, if you lift carefully, you can fill with heroin and then seal back down again. I know a man who has Motor Magazine sent in every week, but it’s under the flap of the brown envelope that he’s getting his weekly fix.’

  ‘As soon as the buzzer goes, I’m going to have to run back to my cell and write all this down,’ I tell him.

  ‘How do you write your books?’ William enquires.

  ‘With a felt-tip pen.’

  ‘Lift the cap off the bottom and you can get about fifty pounds’ worth of crack cocaine stuffed in there, which is why the screws make you buy any writing implements direct from the canteen.’

  ‘Keep going,’ I say, having long ago given up sealing any plastic bags, but somehow William manages to do that job for me as well.

  ‘The most outrageous transfer I’ve ever seen was a twenty-seven-stone con who hid the drugs under the folds of his skin, because he knew no officer would want to check.’

  ‘But they must have machines to do the checking for them?’

  ‘Yes, they do, in fact vast sums have been spent on the most sophisticated machinery, but they only identify razor blades, guns, knives, even ammunition, but not organic substances. For that, they have to rely on dogs, and a nappy full of urine will put even the keenest bloodhound off the scent.’

  ‘So visits are the most common way of bringing in drugs?’

  ‘Yes, but don’t assume that lawyers, priests or prison officers are above being carriers, because when they turn up for legal and religious visits, or in the case of officers, for work, they are rarely searched. In some cases lawyers are paid their fees from drugs delivered to their clients. And when it comes to letters, if they’re legal documents, the envelope has to be opened in front of you, and the screws are not allowed to read the contents. And while you’re standing in front of a screw, he’s less likely to check under the stamps or the side flaps. By the way, there’s a legal shop in Fleet Street that is innocently supplying envelopes with the words LEGAL DOCUMENT, Strictly Private and Confidential printed on the to
p left-hand corner. Several drug dealers have a monthly supply of such envelopes, and the only time they ever see a court is when they are standing in the dock.’

  ‘You also mentioned priests?’

  ‘Yes, I knew a Sikh giani [priest] at Gartree who used to give his blessing once a week in a prisoner’s cell from where he supplied the entire Sikh community with drugs.’

  ‘How did he manage that?’

  ‘They were secreted in his turban. Did you know that a turban can be eighteen feet of material? You can tuck an awful lot of drugs in there.’ William pauses. ‘Though in his case, one of his flock grassed on him, and he ended up doing a seven-year bird.’

  ‘And prison officers?’

  ‘Screws are paid around three hundred pounds a week, and can pick up another thirteen pounds an hour overtime. Think about it. A half-dozen joeys of heroin and they can double their wages. I knew a member of the kitchen staff at my last prison who brought the stuff in once a week in his backpack.’

  ‘But he would have been liable to a random search at any time?’

  ‘True,’ William replied, ‘and they did regularly search his backpack, but not the shoulder straps.’

  ‘But if they get caught?’

  ‘They end up on the other side of the bars for a long stretch. We’ve got a couple in here right now, but they’ll shift them out to D-cats before it becomes common knowledge.’ He pauses. ‘For their own safety. But the championship,’ says William, like any good storyteller holding the best until last, ‘goes to Harry, the amateur referee from Devon.’ By now, William has a captive audience, as all the workers on our table have stopped depositing their wares into little plastic bags as they hang on his every word. ‘Harry,’ continues William, ‘used to visit his local prison once a week to referee a football match. His contact was the goalkeeper, and at the end of each game, both men would return to the changing room, take off their boots and put on trainers. They would then leave carrying the other person’s boots. There was enough heroin packed into the referee’s hollow studs for him to buy a country cottage after only a couple of seasons. And remember, every match has to be played at home. There are no away fixtures for prisoners. However, the silly man got greedy and started filling up the football as well. He’s currently serving a ten-year sentence in Bristol.’

  ‘So where does the dealer get his supplies from?’ I ask William as the hands of the clock edge nearer and nearer towards twelve, and I am fearful we may never meet again.

  ‘They’re picked up for him by mules.’

  ‘Mules?’

  ‘The dealer often recruits university students who are already hooked – probably by him. He’ll then send them on an all-expenses-paid holiday to Thailand, Pakistan or even Colombia and give them an extra thousand pounds if they can smuggle a kilo of heroin through customs.’

  ‘How big is a kilo?’

  ‘A bag of sugar.’

  ‘And what’s it worth?’

  ‘The dealer passes on that kilo for around £28,000–£35,000 to sellers, known as soldiers. The soldiers then add baking powder and brick dust until they have four kilos, which they sell on in grams or joeys* for forty pounds a time to their customers. A top soldier can make a profit of seventy to a hundred thousand pounds a month. And don’t forget, Jeff, it’s cash, so they won’t end up paying any tax, and with that kind of profit there are a lot of punters out there willing to take the risk. The heroin on sale at King’s Cross or Piccadilly,’ William continues, ‘will usually be about four to seven per cent pure. The heroin that the mule brings back from an all-expenses-paid holiday could be as high as 92 per cent pure. By the way,’ he adds, ‘if the soldiers didn’t dilute their wares – cut the smack – they’d kill off most of their customers within a week.’

  ‘How many heroin addicts are there in this country?’ I ask.

  ‘Around a quarter of a million,’ William replies, ‘so it’s big business.’

  ‘And how many of those…’

  A buzzer goes to alert the prison staff that the work period is over, and in a few moments we will be escorted back to our cells. William says, ‘It’s nice to have met you, Jeffrey. Give my regards to your wife – a truly remarkable woman. Sorry about the judge. Strange that he preferred to believe the word of someone who admitted in court to being a thief. But whatever you do, keep writing the books, because however long you live, there’s always going to be a Keane in jail.’

  William offers me one final piece of advice before we part. ‘I know you’ve been attending chapel on Sundays, but try the RCs this week. Father Kevin preaches a fine sermon, and you’ll like him.’

  I walk back to my cell, delighted to have missed education, having spent two hours being educated.

  On the route march back to my cell I’m joined by Ali (breach of trust, stole £28,000 from his employer, gave it all back), who has also received his movement order. He will be going to Springhill on Monday, a D-cat. He asks where I’m heading.

  ‘I can’t be sure,’ I tell him. ‘I’m down for the Isle of Wight sometime next week, but I’ve appealed against the move.’

  ‘Can’t blame you. By the way, did you notice how peaceful the workshop was this afternoon?’ Ali asks.

  ‘I didn’t see any difference from the last time I was there.’

  ‘No, the whole atmosphere changed the moment you walked into the room. The prison officers and even the inmates stop swearing, and a lot more work gets done.’

  ‘I can’t believe that.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ says Ali, ‘they all know you’re writing a book and you might mention them by name.’

  ‘Not yours,’ I remind him, ‘you’re still referred to as Ali. You’re only the second person who wants their identity kept a secret.’

  Once we reach the apex that divides Blocks One and Two, we go our separate ways. I wish him well.

  As soon as I’m back in my cell, I grab a McVitie’s biscuit and pour out my last mug of water, leaving only a dribble in the bottom of the bottle. I’m about to discover if Del Boy is the man.

  I turn on the radio. England are all out for 185. I drown my sorrows in the last cup of water before starting on what I expect to be an extended writing session. I’m fearful of forgetting even a line of William Keane’s monologue.

  4.30 pm

  Supper. Vegetable pie and beans. I turn the radio back on to follow the cricket. Australia are 46 without loss, chasing a total of 185. Shall I continue writing, or be a masochist? I decide to go on listening for a few more minutes In the next over, Slater is bowled, and by the time the cell door is opened for Association two hours later, Australia are 105 for 7, with only Gilchrist among the recognized batsmen still left at the crease.

  7.00 pm

  Association. I go in search of Del Boy like a helpless addict desperate for a fix. I find him sitting on his bed, head bowed, looking mournful. He bends down and slowly pulls out from under his bed a large brown-paper bag, and like a conjuror, produces three bottles of Highland Spring and two packets of McVitie’s chocolate – I repeat, chocolate – biscuits. He is, unquestionably, the man.

  I cuddle him. ‘Get off me,’ he says pushing me away. ‘If anyone saw you doing that, I’d never be able to show my face in the East End again.’

  I laugh, thank him, and carry off his spoils to my cell.

  I pour myself a mug of water and am munching a chocolate biscuit when there’s a knock on the cell door. I look up to see my next-door neighbour, Richard, standing in the doorway. I feel his eyes boring into me. ‘The fuckin’ Mirror,’ he says almost in a shout, ‘have been round to our fuckin’ house and are pestering my fuckin’ mum.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I say ‘But why are they doing that?’

  ‘Just because I’m in the next fuckin’ cell to you,’ he says plaintively. I nod my understanding. ‘They say you’re going to describe me in your fuckin’ book as a vicious criminal and they fear for your fuckin’ safety. Do you think I’m fuckin’ vicious?’
/>   ‘You’ve given me no reason to believe so,’ I reply.

  ‘Well, now they’re threatening my fuckin’ mum, telling her that if she doesn’t supply a fuckin’ photo of me, they’ll make it worse.’

  ‘How?’ I asked.

  ‘By telling their fuckin’ readers what I did.’

  ‘I’m afraid you must phone your mother and explain to her that they’ll do that in any case. By the way, what are you in for?’

  ‘Murder,’ he replies. ‘But it wasn’t my fuckin’ fault.’

  ‘Why, what happened?’

  ‘I was out drinking with the boys at my fuckin’ local, and when we left the fuckin’ pub we came face to face with a bunch of fuckin’ Aussie backpackers who accused us of stealing their fuckin’ wallets. I promise you, Jeff, I’d never seen the fuckin’ bastards before in my life.’

  ‘So what happened next?’

  ‘Well, one of ’em had a fuckin’ knife, and when my mate punched him, he dropped the fuckin’ thing on the pavement. I grabbed it and when another of them came for me, I fuckin’ stabbed him. It was only fuckin’ self-defence.’

  ‘And he died from one stab?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ He hesitates. ‘The coroner said there were seven stab wounds, but I was so fuckin’ tanked up that I can’t remember a fuckin’ thing about it.’ He pauses. ‘So make sure you tell your fuckin’ readers that I’m not a vicious criminal.’*

  Once Richard returns to his cell, I go back over William Keane’s words, before turning to the latest round of letters, still running at over a hundred a day. When I’ve finished them, I start reading a new book, The Day after Tomorrow, recommended by Del Boy – somewhat ironic. It’s over seven hundred pages, a length that would normally put me off, but not in my present circumstances. I’ve only read a few pages, when there’s a knock on the cell door. It’s Paul (credit-card fraud). They’re transferring him tomorrow morning back to the drug-rehab centre in Norfolk, so we may never meet again. He shakes hands as if we were business associates, and then leaves without another word.