The Big Breach (45 page)

`Shut up, you bastard,' I replied with a smile. `Onion-head, you got any tobacco?'

`What's up, Rich?' jeered Dobson. `You tekkin' up smokin', it's that bad is it?'

I dumped the phone card, Twixes and custard creams on Onion-head's bed. `I'll swap you all that for an ounce of tobacco and five Rizlas.' Onion-head's eyes lit up - it was a good swap - and he handed me the remains of a pouch of Golden Virginia with a few papers.

Back in the cell after breakfast I asked Stonley if he would like a smoke. He glared at me suspiciously. It was perhaps the first time anybody had offered him anything since coming into prison. I produced the pouch and papers, and pushed them over to him. `They're yours, I don't smoke.'

He studied them suspiciously for a few seconds, like a stray cat who has been given a tempting morsel by a stranger, then pounced, expertly crafting a rollie and lighting up. As soon as the cell was nicely full of smoke, I got up and pushed the `room service' bell to call a screw. It was supposed only to be used in emergencies and I risked getting a day down the block for its abuse. Mr Richards arrived a few minutes later to investigate. `Tomlinson, what do you want?' he asked impatiently through the perspex window.

`Mr Richards, you never told me Stonley was a smoker.'

Mr Richards looked at me quizzically. `So what?' he asked.

`Prison regulation 12a,' I replied, `A non-smoking prisoner cannot be forced to share a cell with a smoking prisoner against his wishes.'

Mr Richards glared back at me for a moment. `Tomlinson, I'll `ave you one day,' he replied, exasperated. But he knew he was beaten. Most prisoners didn't know about the rule, but my study of the prison regulation book during associations had paid off. `OK, get your stuff, cell 8 on the first landing is free.' Mr Richards held the door open while I bundled my stuff back together and escorted me up to my new home, a single cell.

Early in January, Belmarsh received a visit from the `Health and Safety at Work' inspection teams. When we were unlocked to queue for lunch the spur and hotplate area had been plastered with signs warning us of dangers. By the stairs was a neat sign announcing, `Caution: Steep Stairs'. Around the hotplate notices warned us, `Caution: Hot Surfaces'. It was absurd to pretend that these presented serious hazards to our wellbeing, when we were cooped up in such confines with some of the most violent men in the country. `What a bleedin' liberty,' laughed Onion-head, scornfully eyeing the warning on the stairs. `They lock up an ordinary, decent armed robber like me with dangerous, book-writing ex-secret agents like you,' he said to me, `and then they warn us about steep bleedin' stairs.' With a quick glance around to ensure no screws were watching, he drew heavily on his roll-up until the tip glowed red, and lit the corner of the sign. As flames leapt up the paper laying long, black soot streaks up the wall, Onion-head chuckled mischievously, `That's that fixed then, eh? They should put up another sign saying ``Caution: Inflammable Signs''.'

Shortly after the next computer workshop session a few additional notices appeared, written on identical paper with the same typeface. Above each toilet appeared the notice, `Caution: this toilet is fucking filthy'. On the wall behind Mr Richards' desk appeared another, `Caution: this screw is bloody thick'. It took Mr Richards a few days to notice and then we never saw any more of the `Health and Safety at Work' notices.

Even though Belmarsh was a maximum security prison and elaborate precautions were taken to prevent prisoners smuggling contraband on to the spurs, there was still a fair amount of drugs about. For several prisoners, especially those facing long sentences, getting high was their only relief from the numbing boredom and lack of challenge in prison life. Drugs were smuggled in by two routes. One was by a crooked screw who had been recruited by a former inmate. The other was via the visiting-rooms. Now that I was a B-cat prisoner, I could attend open visits and saw for myself how it was done.

Open visits took place in a large hall, filled with six rows of visiting-booths. There were 20 booths on each row, separated by low dividing partitions. Around the edge of the room was a raised gantry where the screws could observe the visits. We waited in a large, smoke-filled holding-cell for our turn to go forward, be briefly searched and to receive a coloured, lettered bib to wear. The colour and letter corresponded to a particular booth. When all the prisoners were seated, the visitors were permitted to enter. They had been checked for drugs with a sniffer dog, but it was not legal for the prison staff to search them physically. Wives and girlfriends of the prisoners defeated the dog without too much difficulty by wrapping the drugs in cling-film and secreting the package in their bodies. Prisoners were allowed to kiss their partners briefly at the beginning and end of the visit, and the package was transferred. We were searched on leaving the visits hall, but prisoners who were seen kissing suspiciously were searched more thoroughly, including inside their mouths. Smugglers therefore had no option but to swallow their package, which was potentially fatal should it burst. They later retrieved the package, as Ronnie explained, `from one orifice or the other'.

Prisoners were regularly tested for drugs. Those suspected of drug-taking were called up more often to give urine samples. I had my first mandatory test on 2 February. As I was preparing to go to work, a screw came to my cell. `No work for you today, Tomlinson. Drink that tea down fast and don't have a piss.' He escorted me down unfamiliar corridors to the drug testing centre, and put me in a holding-cell with couple of other prisoners. Amongst them was the Italian guy I had briefly met when first remanded to Brixton, his cockney English now fluent.

When my turn came I was asked to confirm that I was not on any medication. `No bad back, then?' the screw asked suspiciously. Most of the dope-using prisoners had permanent `bad backs' and queued every day to get a dose from the doctor of Brufen pain-reliever which masked traces of marijuana in their blood, rendering the test worthless. Indeed, Ronnie's bad back was so `bad' the doctor had ordered him to have an extra mattress in his cell. The screw lead me over to a urinal, gave me a small receptacle and told me to fill it. `Tomlinson, if you hear of any drug use, you'll give us a nod, won't you?' he asked lamely afterwards. `You'll have to do better than that to recruit me,' I laughed.

The probation service summoned me on 29 March, and I went to the legal visits rooms to find a young female officer waiting for me. `There is something very odd about your case,' she frowned. `Normally we have a first appointment with a prisoner three months before they are released, but we were only told about you by the Home Office two days ago and the Governor wants to talk to me about you after this meeting.' I suspected the meddlesome hand of MI6, but said nothing. She explained that I would be on probation for three months after my release, and during that time I could be reimprisoned for breaching any probation conditions. `But frankly, for somebody like you who is a first-time, non-violent offender, there won't be any conditions and we probably won't bother you much.' She made an appointment to see me three days before my release, and wished me luck for the rest of my sentence.

The mood on the spur varied from day to day, depending on which screws were on duty. If the good-natured and cheerful Mr Richards was in charge, associations were quiet and generally trouble-free. But when Mr Richards was on leave, senior screws from other spurs stood in and their different management style, or unfamiliarity with the foibles of a troublesome prisoner, could quickly antagonise the whole spur. In early April the atmosphere became so tense that even Mr Richards was losing his cool. First, a bottle of hooch was found brewing behind the washing machine and because nobody would own up association was cancelled for the day. Then the local newsagent went bankrupt and all the prisoners, myself included, lost the money paid in advance for the deliveries. Then we lost another association because most of the screws took leave to attend the funeral of a colleague who had hung himself. With missed associations and trivial annoyances, the spur was in a tetchy mood and there were some minor scuffles in the lunch queue. That afternoon association was late starting because a screw had fallen ill and a replacement could not be found immediately. We were late getting to the gym, so our session was shorter than usual. `Spur 1, in your cells, no shower, no water.' Mr Richards bellowed as soon as we were back, the timetable disruption forcing him to cut the ten minutes we normally had to get a shower and hot water. A cup of tea at every bang-up was an important part of the daily routine, and having it denied was demoralising.

`Mr Richards, yer a fat, fat bastard,' hollered Onion-head from the balcony, ducking into his cell before Mr Richards could identify him. A few prisoners tried to make a dash for the urn, but Mr Richards collared them and emptied the mugs of those who had succeeded in filling them. Other screws starting banging-up prisoners like me who had reluctantly gone into their cells, and the spur resounded with the clunking of the heavy locks and the slapping of the flaps. One irritated prisoner banged his metal waste-paper bin against the cell door and soon everybody joined in. I lost my temper too, and kicked my cell door so hard that I bruised my toe, making me madder still.

A few prisoners who had not yet gone into their cells were putting up a protest, Craggs the most vociferous. I heard Mr Richards hollering at Craggs, `In your cell, Craggs!' even his good humour tested to the limit.

`I'm havin' my fucking mug of water,' screamed back Craggs.

`Craggs, get in your cell NOW!'

The argument was hotting up and I hopped over to my flap. The screw had slammed it shut with such haste that it had bounced back open slightly and the spur floor was just visible. Mr Richards was standing in front of the hot water urn, blocking the furious Craggs. `Craggs, if you take one step closer, you're down the block.'

Craggs glared at Mr Richards and then rushed, leaping for his throat. Mr Richards just had time to press his belt alarm before the angry inmate was on top of him. Craggs' moment of vengeance and glory was short-lived. He was quickly overpowered by screws bursting in from the other spurs and was hauled off down to the segregation block, never to be seen again.

The tension of the day's events was too much for Mockalenny. That evening at unlock for dinner he emerged from his cell wearing nothing but his underpants, singing `God save our Princess Anne' to the tune of the British national anthem. He had painted his face with toothpaste for tribal war paint, had fashioned a head-band out of threads from his blanket and was brandishing a pool-cue like a spear. The screws allowed him get his dinner, still singing and waving his spear. When he had eaten his meal and we were all banged-up once more, he was escorted from the spur and we never saw him again either.

A few days before release, Mr Richards called me up for another probation visit. Making my way over to the legal visits rooms, I was expecting to see the pretty young officer again. But this time it was a senior male officer who didn't smile or shake hands in greeting. `Tomlinson, here's your probation conditions.' He handed me a two-page sheet. `You will not be allowed to leave the country after you are released and you will have to hand both your British and New Zealand passports to the Metropolitan police SB. You will not be allowed to speak to any journalists or any members of the media. If you do you will be immediately reimprisoned. Do you understand?' I nodded, though I found it difficult to believe that they could impose such Stalinist conditions. `And finally, you will not be allowed to use the internet or e-mail.'

`You're not serious,' I laughed. `Don't tell me, I am not allowed to use a telephone either, or read a newspaper, I suppose?'

The probation officer glared humourlessly at me, and didn't reply.

Dobson kept telling me that the last few days before release would be the longest of my life but they were little different from any of the others. Even when the remaining days of incarceration could be counted on my fingers, the intense feeling of anger at my imprisonment never left me. The manner in which MI6 had dismissed me, abused their powers to block my right to expose their malpractice with the argument that the courts were `not secure,' and then hypocritically and glibly used the same courts to sentence me still rankled deeply. Unable to come to terms with my fate like the other prisoners, even one day of incarceration was too much. All the six months of boring frustration had succeeded in doing was to increase my resolve to publish this book.

14. ON THE RUN

FRIDAY, 1 MAY 1998

LONDON

`Morning, Tomlinson, you're out and about early,' Mr Richards greeted me cheerfully as he pushed open my door at 7 a.m. He must have unlocked many other prisoners on their release days, but he still got pleasure from it. The previous evening I gave my spare food, magazines and books away, leaving only a few items to stuff into a bin liner while Mr Richards held the cell door open. He gave me a moment to bang up Dobson and Onion-head to say goodbye through their flaps.

`Good luck wi' yer book. If ye' need a hand smugglin' it into Britain, yer know who to call,' shouted Dobson, already up and reading at his desk.