Hell (8 page)

Once the man had died, he climbed on the bed
and raped his wife, who was still tied up next to her dead lover. At the last
moment he came all over the dead man’s face. He then climbed off the bed, and
stared at his hysterical wife. He waited for some time before inserting the
carving knife deep into her vagina. He then pulled the blade slowly up through
her body
.

During the trial, he told the jury that he’d
killed her to prove how much he loved her. He was sentenced to life with no
prospect of parole
.

‘Just remember
to avoid him at any cost,’ says Vincent. ‘He’d slit your throat for a
halfounce
of tobacco, and as he’s going to spend the rest
of his life in here, nothing can be added to his sentence whatever he gets up
to.’

I feel sure
he’s just the sort of fellow
Mr
Justice Potts was
hoping I’d bump into.

The hooter
blasts out, the unsubtle indication that our forty-five minutes is up. We are
called in, block by block, so that we can return to our individual cells in
smaller groups.

As I’m on Block
Three, I have to hang around and wait to be called. When they call Two, I
notice that the double murderer is striding purposefully towards me. I bow my
head hoping he won’t notice, but when I look up again, I see he’s staring
directly at me and still heading in my direction. I look towards the four
officers standing by the gate who stiffen, while the
group of
black men up against the fence stare
impassively on. The double murderer
comes to a halt a few paces in front of me.

‘Can I speak to
you?’ he asks.

‘Yes, of
course,’ I reply, trying to sound as if we were casual acquaintances at a
garden party.

‘It’s just that
I would like to say how much I enjoy your books, particularly
The Prodigal Daughter
. I’ve been in here
for eleven years and I’ve read everything you’ve written. I just wanted to let
you know.’ I’m speechless. ‘And by the way,’ he adds, ‘if you want that bitch
of a secretary bumped off, I’ll be happy to arrange it for you.’

I really
thought I was going to be sick as I watched him disappear through the gate.

Thank God, into
another block.

I’m only locked
up for a couple of hours before the bell goes for supper. I pick up my tray and
grab a tin of fruit that was donated by James – my first Listener – the night
before he was transferred to
Whitemoor
. When I join
the hotplate queue, I ask Vincent if he has a tin opener. He points to an
opener attached to the wall on the far side of the room, ‘But you’re not
allowed to open anything before you’ve collected your grub.’ I notice that he’s
holding a tin of
Shipham’s
Spam.

‘I’ll swap you
half my tin of fruit for half your Spam.’

‘Agreed,’ he
says. ‘I’ll bring it up to your cell as soon as I’ve collected my meal.’

Once again I
can’t find anything at the hotplate that looks even vaguely edible, and settle
for a couple of potatoes.

‘You ought to
go for the vegetarian option,’ says a voice.

I look round to
see Pat. ‘Mary won’t be pleased when she finds out you’re not eating, and let’s
face it, the vegetarian option is one of the few things they can’t make a
complete mess of.’ I take Pat’s advice and select a vegetable fritter. As we
pass the end of the counter, another plastic bag containing tomorrow’s
breakfast is handed to me. ‘By the way,’ says Pat pointing to the man who has
just served me, ‘that’s Peter the press, he’ll wash and iron that shirt for
you.’

‘Thank you,
Pat,’ I say, and turning back to Peter
add
, ‘My
children are coming to visit tomorrow and I want to look my best for them.’

‘I’ll make you
look as if you’ve just stepped out of
Savile
Row,’
Peter says. ‘I’ll stop by your cell and pick up the shirt once I’ve finished
serving breakfast.’

I move on and
collect a Thermos flask of hot water from another prisoner, half for a Cup a Soup,
half for shaving. As I climb the yellow iron steps back to Cell 29 on the
second floor, I overhear Mark, the Arsenal supporter, having a word with
Mr
Tuck, the officer on duty. He’s pointing out, very
courteously, that there are no ethnic representatives among those selected to
be Listeners, tea-boys or servers behind the hotplate, despite the fact that
they make up over 50 per cent of the prison population.
Mr
Tuck, who strikes me as a fair man, nods his agreement, and says he’ll have a
word with the Governor.
Whether he did or not, I have no
way
of knowing.*

When I arrive
back on the second floor Vincent is already waiting for me. I pour half my
fruit into his bowl, while he cuts his Spam into two, forking over the larger
portion, which I place on the plate next to my vegetable fritter and two
potatoes. He also gives me a white T-shirt, which I’m wearing as I write these
words.

The cell doors
are left open for about ten minutes during which time Peter the press arrives
and takes away my dirty white shirt, a pair of pants and socks. ‘I’ll have them
back to you first thing tomorrow, squire,’ he promises, and is gone before I
can thank him and ask what he would like in return.

My final
visitor for the day is Kevin, my Listener, who tells me there’s a
rumour
that I’m going to be moved to Block One tomorrow,
where the regime is a little bit more relaxed and not quite as noisy. I’m sorry
to learn this as I’m beginning to make a few friends – Kevin, James, Pat,
Vincent, Peter and Mark – and am starting to get the hang of how Block Three
works. Kevin sits on the end of the bed and chats as James had warned me he
would; but I welcome the company, not to mention the
fact
that while
a Listener is in the room, the door has to be left open.

Kevin had a
visit this afternoon from his wife and children. He tells me his
fourteenyear
-old
is
now taller
than he is, and his nine-year-old can’t understand why he doesn’t come home at
night.

Mr
Gilford, the duty officer, hovers at my cell door, a
hint that even though Kevin is a Listener, it’s perhaps time for him to move
on. I ask
Mr
Gilford if I can empty the remains of my
meal in the dustbin at the end of the landing – only one bite taken from the
fritter. He nods. The moment I return, the cell door is slammed shut.

I sit on the
end of the bed and begin to go through my letters. Just over a hundred in the
first
post,
and not one of them condemning me. Amazing
how the British people do not reflect the views of the press –

I’ve kept every
letter just in case my lawyers want to inspect them: three Members of
Parliament, David Faber, John Gummer and Peter Lilley, and two members of the
Lords, Bertie Denham and Robin
Ferrers
, are among
those early writers. One former minister not only says how sorry he is to learn
that I’m in jail, but adds that
Mr
Justice Potts’s
summing-up was a travesty of justice, and the sentence inexplicable.

I begin to make
a mental list of my real friends.

I seem to have
settled back into my usual sleep pattern. I wake around 5.30 am, rise at six,
and begin my first two-hour writing session just as I would if I were in the
tranquillity
of my own home. I continue to write
uninterrupted until eight.

I make
extensive notes on what has taken place during the day, and then the following
morning I pen the full script, which usually comes to about three thousand
words. I also scribble a note whenever I overhear a casual remark, or a piece
of information that might be forgotten only moments later.

I am just about
to shave – a process I now take some considerable time over, not just because I
have time, but also because I don’t want to be cut to ribbons by my prison
razor – when there is a bang on the cell door. My tiny window is flicked open
and
Ms
Newsome shouts, ‘Archer, you’re being moved to
House Block One, get your things ready.’

I should have
realized by now that such a warning would be followed by at least a
twohour
wait, but inexperience causes me to abandon any
attempt to shave and quickly gather together my belongings. My only concern is
that my children may be visiting me this afternoon and I wouldn’t want them to
see me unshaven.

I gather
everything together and, as if I were returning home at the end of a holiday, I
find I have far more possessions than I started out with. By the time I have
stuffed everything into my large HM Prisons plastic bag, I begin to feel
apprehensive about moving off Beirut to the lifers’ wing.

My cell door is
thrown open again, and I join a dozen or so prisoners who are also being
transferred to Block One. I recognize one or two of them from the exercise
yard. They can’t resist a chorus of ‘Good morning, Jeff’,

‘How was your
breakfast, my
Lord?’,
and ‘We must be off to the posh
block if you’re coming with us.’

Kevin slips
into the back of the line to tell me that my white shirt has been washed and
pressed by Peter, and he’ll have it sent over to Block One this afternoon, but
I’ll have to make out a new provisions list, as each house block has its own
canteen.

The walk across
to my new cell via several long corridors is accompanied by the usual opening
and closing ceremony of
doublebarred
gates every few
yards, and when we finally arrive, we are herded into the inevitable waiting
room. I’ve never been much good at waiting. We’ve only been standing around for
a few minutes when a young officer,
Mr
Aveling
, opens the door and says, ‘Archer,
Mr
Loughnane
wants to see you
about reallocation.’ I’ve only just arrived.

‘They’re
letting you out,’ shouts one of the prisoners.

‘Ask if I can
share a cell with you, darling,’ shouts another.

‘Don’t pay more
than the going rate,’ offers a third.
Prison
humour
.

Mr
Aveling
escorts me across the
corridor to a large, more comfortable room by the standards I’ve become used to
during the past few days, and introduces me to
Mr
Loughnane
and
Mr
Gates. I take a
seat opposite them on the other side of the desk.

‘More
form-filling, I’m afraid,’ says
Mr
Loughnane
almost apologetically. ‘How are you settling in?’
he asks. I now accept this as the standard opening to any conversation with an
officer I haven’t met before.

‘I’m fine,
except for having to be locked up in such a confined space for so many hours.’

‘Were you at
public school?’
Mr
Gates asks.

‘Yes,’ I reply,
wondering why he asked this non sequitur.

‘It’s just that
we find public school boys settle in far more quickly than your average
prisoner.’ I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. ‘To be honest,’ he continues,
‘I’ve already filled in most of the boxes about whether you can read or write,
if you’re on any drugs and how often you’ve been to jail. I can also confirm
that you have been allocated Category D status, and will therefore be moved to
an open prison in the near future.’ Like ‘immediately’, ‘near future’ has a
different meaning in prison.
Mr
Loughnane
explains that first they have to locate a prison that has a vacancy, and once
that has been confirmed, there will be the added problem of transport.

I raise an
eyebrow.

‘That’s always
one of our biggest headaches,’
Mr
Loughnane
explains. ‘Group 4
organize
all the transport between
prisons, and we have to fit in with their timetable.’ He then asks, ‘Do you
know any Category D prisons you would like to be considered for?’

‘The only open
prison I’ve ever heard of is Ford,’ I tell him, ‘and the one piece of
information I’ve picked up from a former prisoner is that they have a good
library.’

‘Yes, they do,’
confirms
Mr
Gates checking the prisons handbook on
the table in front of him, as if it were a
Relais
Chateaux guide.

‘We’ll give
them a call later this morning and check if they have any spaces available.’

I thank them
both before being escorted back to the waiting room.

‘Have they
fixed you up with the riverside suite?’ asks one prisoner.

‘No,’ I reply,
‘but they did promise I wouldn’t have to share a cell with you.’

This feeble
effort is greeted by clapping and cheers, which I later learn was because I’d
stood up to a man who had blown his brother’s head off. I’m glad I was told
this later because, let me assure you, if I’d known at the time I would have
kept my mouth shut.

The door is
opened again, and this time
Mr
Aveling
tells me that the senior officer on the block wants to see me. This is greeted
by more jeers and applause. ‘Be careful, Jeff, he thinks you’re after his job.’

I’m led to an
even more comfortable room, with chairs, a desk and even pictures on the walls,
to be greeted by four officers, three men and one woman.
Mr
Marsland
, the most senior officer present, two pips
on his epaul
ettes,*
confirms the
rumour
that
as I won’t be staying long he has put me on the lifers’ spur. I was obviously
unable to mask my horror at the very idea, because he quickly reassures me.