Later the Chief Prison Officer said he would try to get me another interview, but I told him not to bother; it would be exactly the same, and I didn’t need the mental strain of false hope.
A few weeks later I was given the job of helping an officer with the inmates’ workshop time sheets. When we were on our own he said, ‘I wish you weren’t on the A-Book. I could give you this job; it would be a bit of extra money for you. You could work up to being in charge of the workshop.’ He paused and grinned. ‘We could have a coffee together and a bit of the wife’s cake.’
In the outside world that would be nothing. But after three and a half years in prison on the A-Book it seemed everything. I could think of nothing I’d like better than to sit down with a nice bloke and share some of his wife’s cake over a coffee, without a camera watching my every movement.
‘That would be lovely,’ was all I said.
He said he would have a word with someone because there was no logic in keeping me on the A-Book. I didn’t hold my breath, which is just as well because I didn’t hear anything for about twelve months. Then one day the maximum-security wing’s Prison Officer called out, ‘Charlie, I want to talk to you!’
I walked over, wondering what stroke they’d pulled now. But he was grinning; maybe he’d picked a winner and won a few quid.
‘Charlie,’ he beamed. ‘You’re off the A-List. I’ve got the papers. You’re a normal prisoner.’
He shook my hand. ‘I’m so pleased,’ he said.
I was delighted, of course I was. And relieved. But I couldn’t resist a sarcastic jibe. ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘But I wonder if you can tell me how the Home Office can decide overnight that I’m no longer a threat to society when I’m no different from when I came in?’
The P.O., I must admit, was sympathetic and understanding. ‘Don’t ask me, Charlie. They make the decisions.’
Perhaps the workshop officer had put in a good word, for within a couple of weeks I got the job in there working out the timesheets. I did them every Friday and I felt amazing; it sounds so little, so unimportant and menial, but it was a huge triumph in my life. No longer did I have to go to work with someone escorting me, opening and locking doors all the time.
I was still an inmate, deprived of my liberty. And I was only halfway through my sentence. But for the first time I felt normal, a member of the human race, if still an imprisoned one.
Now I began to enjoy my visits. It was a long haul from London, involving train, boat and taxi, and I was grateful to my parents, Dolly and the kids for making the effort. Those two hours every fortnight were a highlight of my existence and I treasured them. Sadly, though, my cell always seemed lonelier than ever after I’d said my goodbyes and was sitting there thinking over what had been said. After one particular visit by Dolly and Nancy I was feeling more depressed than ever when I heard some news that sent me into a wild panic.
An Isle of Wight ferry had overturned outside Portsmouth harbour. A TV news report said that a woman and a little girl were among those missing. My world seemed to stop. The time of the tragedy fitted in with when Dolly and Nancy would have been on board. I was inconsolable, convinced they had drowned, and it was all my fault for being the reason for their visit. I begged the prison authorities to make inquiries to find out if that woman and little girl were Dolly and Nancy. Things had not been perfect with Dolly and me, and, yes, I had been thinking of leaving her to live with another woman. But in times of extreme crisis you push these things to the back of your mind: she was still my wife, and we had had some marvellous times together, and she was the mother of my lovely children; I couldn’t bear the thought of her and my darling Nancy ending their lives so horribly. I waited and hoped and prayed, then finally, hours later, someone came and told me that Dolly and Nancy were safe.
They had not been on that fateful ferry. They had missed it – just.
I thanked the prison officer for telling me and added, ‘Thank God.’ I couldn’t trust myself to say more: the feeling of relief was so exquisitely warm and spine-tingling that it coursed through my entire body and tightened in my throat, leaving me choked with emotion.
Not all the people who came to see us were family and friends. We had visits from an American judge – and even half a dozen monks. The judge was travelling all over Europe inspecting the jails and when he visited Albany he asked to speak to me. Of course I was delighted to talk to someone like that and was introduced to him in a little room the authorities made available. He was in his late fifties and informally dressed in a lounge suit. He arranged two cups of tea and we started talking.
At first I felt a little strange talking to a judge, but after a while I relaxed and started to enjoy telling him what life was like for me in prison. He asked about my case and I explained that I was serving a sentence for something I didn’t do. I don’t know whether he believed me, because prisons are full of people who claim they are innocent, but he seemed genuinely interested and sympathetic. He echoed my own thoughts when he said that the laws in Britain are antiquated. They can say one thing and mean another, and can be bent and twisted by clever lawyers to suit their case. In America, the judge was quick to point out, the laws are not so wishy-washy; they are black and white and it is clear what is meant. I didn’t want to make a big thing of my case but, since he asked me about it, I went into some detail. He listened then said that if I’d been in America I could have pleaded the Fifth Amendment, i.e. I could have refused to give evidence against the twins because 1 did not want to implicate myself.
I amused the judge when I told him that the conversation we were having could not happen with a British judge. They were not living in the real world, I said, and 1 made him laugh when I recounted the story of a judge who made the headlines by asking in the middle of a major High Court case, ‘Who are these Beatles?’
After we’d talked for an hour or so, the American thanked me for agreeing to see him. But I said it had been my pleasure: apart from being highly intelligent, the judge’s views were refreshingly democratic, and his opinions had had a striking effect on me. I went back to my cell feeling pleasantly high on having had a conversation of real substance with a humane gentleman who felt genuine compassion for people who had fallen foul of the law.
The judge left the prison that day, but the monks who came to visit stayed a week to see what it was like to be a prisoner. They ate the same food as we did and slept in two cells on opposite sides of the wing. I had a chat with one of them, a charming young man in his middle twenties, and told him I admired him for what he was doing. ‘At least you know how we feel,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘but only up to a point.’
I looked puzzled.
‘If I wake up at two in the morning and decide I don’t like being caged any more, all I have to do is ring a bell and ask to be let out. You can’t do that.’
I smiled. How right he was.
I wondered later whether anyone thought of searching the monks when they came in. I decided that someone probably did: no one is trusted in jail. They would probably frisk the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Chapter Thirteen
During Christmas 1972 they told me I was being moved on again. Someone somewhere, some faceless civil servant who had never met me, had decided that one year in the hard, high-security island prison had changed me, that I’d learned from the tough oppression and constant vigilance, and that the threat I’d posed had passed, and I was ready for some rehabilitation to prepare me for my return to the outside world.
The establishment they chose for this worthy exercise was Maidstone Jail in Kent. I welcomed the move; it was a more relaxed prison, and would cut out travelling problems for my visitors. Chatting in unnatural surroundings, conscious all the time of prying eyes and cocked ears, is bad enough, but it is even worse when your loved ones and friends are whacked out by a five-hour trek over land and sea. Maidstone, in contrast to Albany, was a comfortable hour’s drive from London.
Quickly,
my world became brighter. I was given a job in the kitchen in charge of the hotplate, took French lessons, organized volleyball competitions, kept in shape in the gym and generally made the most of prison life. But, like everyone else, I lived for my visits and when Dolly and Nancy arrived, and Nancy ran to me and I took her on my knee and held her close, it hit home to me how much I’d missed.
Spring came to Maidstone and I started counting the months to my release. I had kept my nose clean from the moment my sentence began and I worked out that, with full remission, I would be a free man in January 1975. The thought was warm and comforting. But it led me on to think about Dolly and the children, and what our life would be like. I was far from happy. I had to face facts: Dolly and I had gone from bad to worse and it was unlikely to be any better on my release. I was going to need a lot of help to adjust and Dolly, neurotic and unstable, was not the supportive kind. I had to be careful not to stick my head in the sand and pretend our problems didn’t exist. Having been unjustly robbed of precious years I wanted to come out and make the most of life with someone who cared about me. I had two years to think it through and to work out what I really wanted to do with the rest of my life. I was determined there would be no more mistakes.
It was not long before Diana came into my mind again. She had rarely been out of my thoughts, but her lack of contact had made me think that, sadly, the relationship was dead. What was she doing? Where was she working? Had she left her husband? Was she happy? The questions filled my head night after night, and I decided it might be a good idea, with my release date looming nearer, to ask a departing inmate to try to track her down. Yes, I know it was a wild, crazy idea. But after five years in prison wild, crazy plans seem perfectly logical and sensible. I began keeping my ear to the ground for Leicester-bound inmates.
On 2 May 1973 George Ince appeared at Chelmsford Crown Court accused of murdering Muriel Patience at the Barn Restaurant in Braintree, Essex, the previous November. Seven days later the jury returned saying they could not agree and a retrial was ordered. It began on 14 May, still at Chelmsford but with a different judge – Mr Justice Everleigh. As the second trial got under way, the newspapers started running stories of a ‘mystery witness’. I knew immediately who it was but when Dolly visited me I didn’t say a word; nor did she. Then the papers started referring to a Doris Gray – the name to which Dolly had changed by deed poll three years before – and I knew for certain I was right. The mystery woman, it seemed, was going into the witness box to say that George Ince could not have been at the Barn Restaurant in the early hours of 5 November because all that night he had been in bed with her. Reading that, I went cold. My stomach knotted in fury, and I paced up and down my cell, my mind running hot with vivid, masochistic imaginings of the man walking into my home, talking and playing with my children before climbing into bed with the woman who was still my wife.
Suddenly my brighter, more hopeful world was shrouded in a gigantic black cloud of despair. I fought to control my self-torture, but agonizing thoughts kept invading my mind. How often had Ince been to the house? Had little Nancy been encouraged to call him Daddy? Did he walk about the house half-naked like I’d done? Did she…did she see or hear her mother moaning in ecstasy as Ince made love to her in my bed?
It was a terrible, terrible experience and I was impotent in my frustration, unable to vent rage on anything except my cell wall. And then I was told Dolly was coming to see me.
The prison promptly ordered six extra officers to be present at the meeting. After more than five years, they still didn’t know me; they had no idea how I thought or how I reacted to situations.
‘Nice,’ was all I said to her as she sat down.
She started gabbling on nervously about it. I cut her short. ‘All I want you to tell me,’ I said curtly, ‘is whether Ince has got something on you to make you give evidence. Or did it happen? Were you with him?’
‘Do you want someone to get thirty years, like the twins?’ she said.
I ignored the fact she had avoided the question.
‘I don’t want anyone to go down for anything,’ I said. ‘I just want to know, Dolly.’
She opened her mouth again, but I shut her up. ‘I just want to know, Dolly.’
She was quiet for a few seconds. Then she looked down. ‘He was with me,’ she said softly.
I didn’t say anything. Silence was a massive wall between us. Then, deciding attack was the best form of defence, she started to get hysterical.
‘What do you expect?’ she screeched loudly. ‘You’ve been away all these years!’
‘That’s not the reason,’ I said, still calm. ‘It happened before, I know.’
‘Not like you think.’ she snapped. Then she started blaming me. ‘It’s your fault. You went away. What do you expect me to do, sit indoors all my life?’
‘I didn’t expect you to take him home. I didn’t expect you to screw him in front of Nancy.’
Anyway, he was with me. And I am going to give evidence. How can I let a guy go away for thirty years?’
I took in what she said. I didn’t like what I’d heard, but I felt she had no choice. ‘Quite right,’ I said finally, amazed at my tight self-control. ‘If that’s the truth, go and give evidence.’
I meant what I said. I knew Ince could get thirty years and I didn’t want to see that happen to an innocent man. Not even Ince. ‘I don’t like it,’ I added. ‘But you have to do it.
With it all out in the open Dolly started running off at the mouth. ‘I couldn’t help it…all the problems I’ve had…It’s been one thing after another…I had to do something…you don’t know what it’s like…’
‘Don’t make excuses,’ I broke in. ‘You’ve done it. You’ve probably been doing it for years. The thing I can’t stand is that you’ve let him in our house with Nancy there. With me here and him there it’s blowing the kid’s brain.’
She didn’t say anything. There wasn’t much she could say. We talked about it a bit more, then I said I wanted to be alone to think what I was going to do about her now.
It didn’t take me long. Dolly hadn’t reached her Poplar love-nest before I decided that I didn’t want to know; our marriage had run into stormy waters long before and it was now lying smashed to pieces on the rocks. Divorce was going to be painful for Gary and Nancy, but that was the price that would have to be paid.
Dolly did give evidence and George Ince walked out of Chelmsford Crown Court a free man. I hated the idea of seeing Dolly again but I had to because of the children: we needed to talk about what was going to happen to them after the divorce. On her next visit I told her we were finished, but she refused to accept it.
‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Everything is going to be all right now. It’s over between George and me. We’ll go away when you come home. It’ll be nice.’
‘What?’ I said incredulously. ‘We’re not going away anywhere. I don’t want to know. It’s over. End of story.’
But still she couldn’t believe I meant it. ‘I got twenty thousand from a newspaper for my story of my affair with George. I can put some of it away till you get home. We can go away somewhere.’
‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I don’t need holidays or anything else with you. I don’t want to know about that money. Give Gary some and keep the rest. As far as you and I are concerned, we talk about the kids and that’s it.’
Over the next few months, she kept trying to make me change my mind. Once she brought a friend with her, who said I really should forgive Dolly and make an effort to patch things up.
‘I don’t really want to discuss it any more,’ I said.
‘The thing with George is over,’ she told me. ‘Dolly isn’t seeing him any more.’
By then Ince had been arrested on a charge involving a gold bullion robbery and was in Brixton awaiting trial. News travels fast on the prison grapevine and during the next few days I heard that Dolly had visited him. So much for it being finished, I thought.
Dolly’s friend c
ame again. ‘I know what you’re going to say,’ she began.
‘Well, did she see him?’ I cut in brusquely, not wanting to waste time on it.
‘Yes,’ the woman replied. ‘But it was the last time.’
‘Do me a favour,’ I said. ‘Tell her to come and see me. I want this over. Now.’
The following week Dolly arrived with Nancy and Gary. She looked dreadful: thin, with bags under her eyes, untidy make-up and her hair a mess.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked. I meant it. I’d never seen her look like that.
‘Why should I look well?’ she replied defensively. ‘All the problems I’ve had.’
I almost choked. ‘You’ve had problems!’
She talked rubbish for about two minutes. I looked at Nancy, then Gary. I felt for them, but I couldn’t stand it any longer.
‘Do me a favour,’ I said quietly. ‘Get out of here. Now. And start divorce proceedings. I can’t do it from in here.’
We sat there glaring at each other. Nancy and Gary were quiet. They didn’t know what to say; I suppose they were frightened.
Finally Dolly said, I will do that.’ And she took Nancy’s hand and half-dragged her out of the hall, leaving Gary sitting there with his eyes full of tears.
I put my hand on his. ‘I’m sorry about that, Gary.’
‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you said it.’
We sat there for a few seconds, not knowing what to say. My heart went out to him.
Finally I said, ‘You’d better go. She’ll leave without you.’
‘I don’t care,’ he said. ‘I don’t care any more.’
We sat there and finished the visit. When Gary left he found his mother waiting in the car for him. The journey back to London must have been awful.
That was the last time Dolly visited me.
Me and My Brothers Page 20