Purgatory Read online

  4.00 pm

  Sergio joins me in my cell to tell me the latest on the emerald hunt before continuing with his tutorial. The majority of emeralds mined in Colombia come from one mountain that has been owned by the same family for generations. Most of the stones that come out of Colombia are exported to Japan, but Sergio is hoping, when he returns to Bogota, to start diverting some of these gems to Europe. He is becoming more ambitious every day.

  He also informs me that trading in emeralds is every bit as dangerous as dealing in drugs. Every day eight helicopters fly back and forth from the mountain to Bogota airport with four armed guards on each and another twenty private police waiting for them on the runway. On the mountain there are 300 workers and 100 armed guards. A peasant (his description) can earn as much as $50,000 a year if, and he repeats if, he is lucky enough to dig up any high-quality gems.

  ‘But what about theft?’ I ask. How do they deal with that?’ ‘One or two of the workers are stupid enough to consider stealing the odd stone, but they quickly discover that there is no judge or jury on the mountain.’

  ‘So how do they dispense justice?’

  ‘Instantly,’ he replies. ‘One of the guards shoots the culprit in front of the other workers, who then bury him.’

  ‘But you could swallow a stone, and then sell it in Bogota, where you’ve already told me that twenty thousand emeralds change hands in the marketplace every day.’

  ‘True,’ Sergio replies. ‘But you will still be caught, because the family has over a hundred spotters in the market, night and day. If a dealer ever traded with a thief, they would immediately be cut off from their source of supply. And in time the thief will have to return to the mountain if he hopes to go on trading. In any case, the workers know they will have a far higher standard of living than their fellow countrymen as long as they remain employed on the mountain.’

  ‘But they could take the gems abroad and make a fortune?’ ‘Most peasants,’ says Sergio, ‘have never travelled further than the next village, and none of them speaks anything but mountain Spanish, which even I can’t understand. Even the owner of the mountain can still only converse in his native tongue and would never consider leaving Colombia. It is only because of my four years in an English jail,’ continues Sergio, ‘that it’s now possible for me to act as a go-between and consider the export business. And you now also have an advantage, Jeffrey, because your rivals cannot easily buy or sell paintings from Colombia.’ I raise an eyebrow. ‘I am being deported in four weeks’ time, and can never return to Britain unless I am willing to risk completing the remaining four years of my sentence.’ ‘An enterprising dealer could always fly to Bogota.’ ‘Not wise,’ says Sergio. ‘Fair-haired, blue-eyed people are not welcome in Bogota, and especially not on the mountain.’ He goes on to explain: ‘It would be assumed that you are an American, and your chances of making it back to the airport would be about as good as a peasant caught stealing.’ No wonder it’s a closed market.

  My tutorial comes to an end when an officer bellows, ‘Lock up.’ I run out of Sergio’s cell to return to the real world, because I need the five minutes to join the queue and change my sheets, pillowcase, towels and gym kit. Don’t forget it’s Wednesday, and if you don’t get to the laundry room before they close, you have to wait another week.

  8.00 pm

  When I get back to my cell I find a biography of Oscar Wilde by Sheridan Morley awaiting me on my bed. I had asked Steve (conspiracy to murder, chief librarian) to reserve this book for me. Nothing like a personal delivery service.

  I become so engrossed in Wilde’s life that I miss the Ten O’clock News. I have reached Oscar’s first trial by the time I put the book down. I must save the second trial for tomorrow night.

  Not a bad day, but please don’t think, even for one moment, that it’s therefore been a good one.

  DAY 43 - THURSDAY 30 AUGUST 2001

  8.45 am

  I arrive for my pottery class to find it’s been cancelled because the teacher hasn’t turned up. Shaun tells me this is a regular occurrence, and he seems to be the only person who is disappointed because he was hoping to finish a painting. It gives me another couple of hours to write, while the other prisoners are happy to go off to the gym or their cells while still being paid PS1.40.

  10.45 am

  I hear a cry of ‘library’ bellowed down the corridor and, as I’ve just come to the end of another chapter of Oscar Wilde, decide to take a break and return Arts and Artists. I now know my way around the library and go straight to the art shelves. I select a book entitled Legendary Gemsby Eric Bruton and add a novel by Robert Goddard.

  When I return to my cell I find my laundry is waiting in a neat pile, washed and dried. I look up to see Darren standing on my chair, clipping up a new curtain rail.

  ‘Let me warn you’ he says as he climbs back down off the chair, ‘you can’t hang yourself from a prison curtain rail.’

  ‘I hadn’t given the idea much thought, but why not?’ I ask, opening my notebook.

  ‘Because it just clips on, so if you attached a noose to the rail and then jumped off the chair, you’d land on the floor wrapped up in your curtain.’

  ‘So how can I hang myself?’ I demand.

  ‘You should have done it at your remand prison’ Darren replies.

  ‘I’m not sure I understand.’

  ‘Most remand prisons are of a Victorian vintage, and have high-level barred windows making the job that much easier.’

  ‘But I was only there for a few days.’

  There are more hangings in the first few days in jail than at any other time.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Often the psychological impact of entering prison for the first time causes deep depression, and that’s when a prisoner sees suicide as the only way out.’

  ‘So it’s less common once you’ve been transferred?’

  ‘Yes, but I knew a prisoner who still found an original way to kill himself.’ I continue to scribble away. He was in a cell with a one-up and one-down, and when his room-mate went to work and he was left alone for the rest of the morning he stood the bed up on its end, so that the rail was about seven feet from the ground. He used his belt as a noose, and attached it to the top railing. He then climbed on top, placed his hands in the back of his jeans, rolled off the bed and hanged himself. On the table they found a letter from his girlfriend saying she couldn’t wait for three years. If you want to kill yourself, you can always find a way,’ Darren adds matter of factly. ‘Each year the Prison Service publishes statistics on how many inmates commit suicide. There were ninety-two in 2001’ says Darren, just before he leaves to continue his rounds. ‘However, what they don’t tell you is how many people die, or commit suicide within six months of being released.’ I slowly unpack my washing and stack it on the narrow shelves while I consider what Darren has just told me.

  2.00 pm

  After lunch I pick up Legendary Gems and turn to the chapter on emeralds. Everything Sergio has told me during the past ten days is verified by the author, which gives me more confidence in Sergio. However, two crucial questions remain: does Sergio have the right contacts and can he replace the middlemen? I am pleased to see that Laurence Graff warrants three mentions in the diamond chapter.

  To date I haven’t mentioned Laurence Graff (of Graff’s of Bond Street, Madison Avenue and Monte Carlo), but I’m rather hoping he will agree to value the gem for me. Laurence and I first met at a charity function many years ago when I was the auctioneer. Since then he and his wife, Anne-Marie, have told me many stories about the diamond trade which have found their way into my books. It was Laurence who gave me the idea for the short story ‘Cheap at Half the Price’.

  3.00 pm

  Jimmy rushes into my cell with a large grin on his face. He scowls at Darren’s new curtain rail, immediately aware of who must have supplied it.

  ‘I am the bearer of glad tidings,’ he says. ‘A prisoner on our spur will be leaving tomorrow morning,
a week earlier than originally planned. He keeps the cleanest cell on the block. He’s even decorated it, and best news of all, it’s on the quiet side of the spur, so you’d better have a word with Meanwell before someone else grabs it.’

  I’m just about to go off in search of Mr Meanwell, when Jimmy adds, ‘He’s off today, but he’s back on tomorrow morning at 7.30, and don’t forget you’ve got the special needs group at 8.45, so you’d better see him straight after breakfast.’ Darren walks in, livid to find Jimmy sitting on the end of my bed. He’s obviously picked up the same piece of information and had hoped to be the first to impart it.

  ‘I think you’ll find my information was as welcome as your curtain rail,’ suggests Jimmy smugly.

  ‘Only if his lordship ends up getting David’s cell,’ says Darren, well aware that I am playing them against each other. Still, like two children, they find the challenge irresistible.

  7.00 pm

  After supper, Sergio reveals good news. Having visited the mountain, his brother has selected a 4-carat emerald at a cost of $10,000.

  ‘If my contact confirms that its shop value is twenty thousand, then I’ll buy it,’ I tell him. ‘If not…’ Sergio looks up and frowns. ‘Purchase the emerald,’ I continue, ‘and have it sent to London. I’ll need proper certification, but if my valuer says he can sell me a stone of the same quality at the same price or cheaper, it will all have been a waste of your time, and I’ll return the stone to Colombia at my expense.’

  ‘My whole reputation rests on this one stone?’ Sergio asks.

  ‘You’ve got it,’ I tell him.

  DAY 44 - FRIDAY 31 AUGUST 2001

  8.21 am

  Breakfast. I eat my cereal out of a china bowl, my toast on a plate and drink my milk from a mug. Mary has selected the plate and bowl from the Bridgewater collection and the beaker - a garish object covered in the American stars and stripes - was a gift Will brought back from the States.

  When I’ve finished my breakfast I fill my washbasin with hot water and Fairy Liquid, allowing my newly acquired treasures to soak while I go off in search of Mr Meanwell. The block’s senior officer has been off for two days, so was unaware that David had been released six days early, and that his cell on the enhanced wing has suddenly become available. He’ll let me know what he’s decided later today.

  I return to my cell and find a gathering of West Indians in the corridor. They’ve come to say farewell to a prisoner who is leaving this morning, having served six years of a nine-year sentence for armed robbery - his first offence.

  Most of you reading this will have already formed a picture of him in your mind, as I would have done only a couple of months ago. A young black thug who’s better off locked up, and who will probably beat up some other innocent person the moment he’s released and be back in prison within a year.

  In fact, he is thirty-two years old, five foot eight, slim and good-looking. He was the one who politely asked if he could read my newspapers every evening. And he has used his six years productively. First to pass his GCSEs (five) and two years later A levels in English and History.

  No sooner has he departed than Jules appears in the corridor carrying a plastic bag full of his worldly goods. He is taking over Steve’s cell. He tells me that the past week has not been a happy one because he’s had to share our old cell with a heroin addict who was injecting himself two, sometimes three times a day.

  8.45 am

  On Friday mornings the gym is taken over by the special needs group. They’re an enthusiastic bunch who, despite their problems, bring a range of skills and boundless energy to everything they do. Les performs well on the rowing machine (1,000m in ten minutes), while Robbie enjoys lifting weights and Paul prefers to run. But when it comes to the game of catchball that we always play at the end of any session, Robbie can catch anything that comes his way. He could, and would, happily field in the slips for England.

  All of them are chatterboxes, and demand answers to their endless questions. Do you have a father? Do you have a mother? Do you have any brothers or sisters? Are you married? Do you have any children? By the end of the hour’s session, I am physically and mentally exhausted, and full of admiration for their carer, Ann, who spends every waking moment with them.

  At the end of the session, I watch them leave, chatting, laughing and - I hope - happier. There, but for the grace of God…

  2.54 pm

  Mr Nutbourne opens the cell door. ‘You’re moving again, Jeffrey,’ he says. ‘You’ve been allocated David’s old cell on the enhanced spur.’ He winks.

  Thank you,’ I reply, and prepare for my ninth move in six weeks. The whole process takes less than an hour, because on this occasion I’m assisted by a local removal company: Darren, Sergio and Jimmy Ltd.

  My new cell is on the ground floor with the enhanced prisoners. Number seventeen is opposite Darren’s cell, who has Steve (conspiracy to murder and librarian) on one side, and Jimmy (Ecstasy courier, captain of everything) on the other. The officers describe it as the grown-up spur, and personally select who will be allowed to reside there. To have made it in three weeks is considered quite an achievement, although Darren managed it in four days.

  The cells are exactly the same size as in any other part of the prison, but the table on which I’m now working is far larger (four feet by two). I also have an extra cupboard for my possessions, which seem to grow as each day passes, not unlike when you’re on holiday.

  5.00 pm

  Once I’ve completed my move, I join Darren and Sergio for a walk in the exercise yard. I stop halfway round to watch Shaun sketching Dale. He is still proving to be a restless model, but despite this Shaun is producing a good likeness of him.

  6.00 pm

  After supper I call Mary (my new spur has a phone of its own, which any self-respecting estate agent would describe as ‘an added amenity’). She’s full of news, some good, some not so good. The police confirm that they will not be presenting their report on the Simple Truth until they’ve read the findings of the KPMG report. This won’t be handed in to the Red Cross for at least another two, perhaps three weeks. Mary tells me that the police reply to Tony Morton-Hooper’s letter was not unhelpful, and she hopes that once the KPMG report is finished, it will only be a matter of days before they move me to an open prison.

  I use the remainder of my twenty units catching up with all things domestic, particularly what is happening at the Old Vicarage. When the phonecard flicks out, indicating I have only thirty seconds left, I promise to call again on Sunday. Don’t forget, I no longer have an endless source of cards.

  As soon as I replace the receiver, Sergio takes over the phone. He has the advantage of being able to hold a conversation in a language no one else on the spur can eavesdrop on, but the disadvantage of needing at least five phonecards every time he dials home.

  6.50 pm

  When Sergio has finished his call, he joins me in my cell. Now that we’re on the same spur, it’s no longer necessary for me to try and pretend I’m learning Spanish - he’s just another prisoner from across the corridor.

  Sergio’s brother has selected four emeralds for consideration. He confirms they range in price from ten to fifteen thousand dollars. Once he has made the final choice, I will await a valuation from my expert. His brother claims that any one of the gems would retail on the London market at around $20,000. If this proves to be accurate, then I’ll be happy to purchase the selected gem and give it to Mary as her Christmas present. Ah, you’ve finally discovered why I’m going to all this trouble.

  8.15 pm

  To my delight, I discover that our spur is unlocked first and banged up last, giving us an extra few minutes at each end of the day. What I enjoy most about being below stairs is the silence, or near silence, compared with the floor above. No rap music, no window warriors and no conversations shouted from one end of the corridor to the other. There is actually a feeling of community on this spur.

  I don’t bother to turn on the TV
this evening as I am totally engrossed in Robert Goddard’s Caught in the Light. I fall asleep fully dressed. It’s been an exhausting day.

  DAY 45 - SATURDAY 1 SEPTEMBER 2001

  8.15 am

  The first day of a new month. After breakfast, I arrange with Locke (GBH), the spur painter, to have my new cell redecorated in his spare time. As the tariff has to be agreed in tobacco, and as I have no idea of the going rate, Darren (marijuana only) has agreed to act as my works manager for the transaction.

  Once Locke has inspected my cell, he announces it will first need an undercoat of white, which will take him two, two-hour sessions. Darren agrees the price on a daily basis. Tomorrow he will add a coat of cream, and on Monday the cell door, the window ledge and frame plus the square around the wash basin will be painted beige. As far as I can work out, the painter will receive one pound’s worth of Golden Virginia (his choice) a day.

  So the whole job will cost me PS3 - which, Darren assures me, is the going rate. The paint, however, will be supplied by Her Majesty’s tax payers. Please note that it was Margaret Thatcher who taught me never to say government; ‘Governments don’t pay taxes, Jeffrey, only tax payers do.’

  Locke asks me to vacate my cell while the undercoat is being rolled on because once my bed, table and small cupboard have been pulled away from the walls and left in the centre of the room, there will only be enough space for one person.