Heaven

by Jeffrey Archer

  7.25 am

  I’m standing by the door waiting for Linda to arrive. I prepare her a coffee; one sweetener and a teaspoonful of milk in her pig mug. The five doctors all have their own mugs.

  Linda has worked in the Prison Service for over ten years. She has three grown-up children, two sons and a daughter. She was married to a ‘nurse tutor’, Terry, who tragically died of skin cancer a couple of years ago at the age of fifty-three. She works long hours and the prisoners look on her much as I viewed my prep-school matron – a combination of mother, nurse and confidante. She has no time for shirkers, but couldn’t be more sympathetic if you are genuinely ill.

  8.15 am

  After sick parade, I carry out my rounds to the different parts of the prison to let staff know who will be off work today, before going to breakfast. I ask John (lifer) what meat is in the sausage.

  ‘It’s always beef,’ he replies, ‘because there are so many Muslims in prisons nowadays, they never serve pork sausages.’

  10.00 am

  The hospital has a visit from a man called Alan, who’s come to conduct a course on drug and alcohol abuse. He moves from prison to prison, advising and helping anyone who seeks his counsel. There are 150 such officers posted around the country, paid for by the taxpayer out of the NHS and the Home Office budgets.

  Alan is saddened by how few prisoners take advantage of the service he offers. In Bradford alone, he estimates that 40 per cent of inmates below the age of thirty are on drugs, and another 30 per cent are addicted to alcohol. He shows me the reams of Home Office forms to be filled in every time he sees a prisoner. By the end of the morning, only two inmates out of 211 have bothered to turn up and see him.

  11.00 am

  I have a special visit from Sir Brian Mawhinney MP, an old friend whose constituency is about twenty miles south of NSC. As a former cabinet minister and Shadow Home Secretary, he has many questions about prisons, and as I have not entered the Palace of Westminster for the past six months, there are questions I’m equally keen for him to answer.

  Brian stays for an hour, and after we stop going over past triumphs, we discuss present disasters. He fears that the Simon Burns scenario is realistic, a long time in the wilderness for the Conservatives, but ‘Events, dear boy events, are still our biggest hope.’ Brian runs over time, and I miss lunch — no complaints.

  4.00 pm

  Mr Hart passes on a message from my solicitors that my appeal papers have not been lodged at court. Panic. I passed them over to the security officer six weeks ago. Mr Hart calls Mr Hocking, who confirms that they were sent out on 29 October. Who’s to blame?

  5.00 pm

  Canteen. Now that I’m enhanced, I have an extra £15 of my own money added to my account each week. With my hospital orderly pay of £11.70, it adds up to £26.70 a week. So I can now enjoy Cussons soap, SR toothpaste, Head and Shoulders shampoo, and even the occasional packet of McVitie’s chocolate biscuits.

  6.00 pm

  I attend a rock concert tonight, performed by the ‘Cons and Pros.’ The standard is high, particularly Gordon (GBH) on the guitar, who sadly for the band will be released tomorrow.

  8.00 pm

  Doug returns from his second day at work. He has driven to Birmingham and Northampton in one day. He is exhausted, and fed up with his room-mate, who leaves the radio on all night. I’m in bed asleep by ten-thirty. You will discover the relevance of this tomorrow.

  DAY 147

  WEDNESDAY 12 DECEMBER 2001

  2.08 am

  The night security officer opens my door and shines his torch in my eyes. I don’t get back to sleep for over an hour.

  5.16 am

  He does it again, so I get up and start writing.

  8.07 am

  On my journey around the prison this morning handing out ‘off-work’ slips, I have to drop into the farm. It’s freezing and a lot of the inmates are claiming to have colds. I bump into the farm manager, Mr Donnelly, a charming man who I came to know from my days at the SMU when he sat on the labour board. He introduces me to Blossom, a beautiful creature.

  Blossom weighs in at twenty-six stone, and has a broken nose and four stubby, fat hairy legs. She is lucky to be alive. Blossom is the prisoners’ favourite pig, so when her turn came for slaughter, the inmates hid her in a haystack. When Mr Donnelly was unable to find Blossom that morning she was granted a week’s reprieve. Blossom reappeared the next day, but mysteriously disappeared again when the lorry turned up the following week. Once again Mr Donnelly searched for her, and once again he failed to find her. The inmates knew that it couldn’t be long before Blossom’s hiding place was discovered, so they put in an application to the governor to buy her, so that she could spend the rest of her days at NSC in peace. Mr Donnelly was so moved by the prisoners’ concern that he lifted the death penalty and allowed Blossom to retire. The happy pet now roams around the farm, behaving literally like a pig in clover. (See below.)

  Blossom and his friend Blossom

  8.30 am

  On my way back to the hospital after breakfast, I sense something different, and realize that Peter (lifer, arson) is not on the road sweeping the leaves as he does every morning. A security officer explains that Peter is out on a town leave in Boston; the first occasion he’s left prison in thirty-one years. I’ll try to have a word with him as soon as he returns, so that I can capture his first impressions of freedom.

  9.00 am

  The new inductees report to the doctor for their medical check-up. I now feel I’m settling into a routine as hospital orderly.

  12 noon

  Call Mary to assure her that the courts have now located my papers, and to wish her luck with our Christmas party tomorrow night. She will also be attending Denis and Margaret Thatcher’s fiftieth wedding anniversary at the East India Club earlier in the evening. She promises to call me and let me know how they both went. No, I remind her, I can only call you.

  4.08 pm

  An announcement over the tannoy instructs me to report to reception. I arrive to be told by Sergeant Major Daff that I have been sent two Christmas cakes — one from Mrs Gerald Scarfe, better known as Jane Asher, with a card, from which I reproduce only the final sentence:

  I’m baking you a cake for Christmas with a hacksaw and file inside.

  See you soon, love Jane

  – and one from a ladies’ group in Middleton. As no prisoner is allowed to receive any foodstuffs in case they contain alcohol or drugs, Mr Daff agrees that one can go to the local retirement home, and the other to the special needs children. So it’s all right for the children to be stoned out of their minds and the old-age pensioners to be drugged up to the eyeballs, but not me.

  ‘It’s Home Office regulations,’ explains Mr Daff.

  5.00 pm

  I spot Peter (lifer, arson) coming up the drive. He looks in a bit of a daze, so I invite him to join me in the hospital for coffee and biscuits. We chat for nearly an hour.

  The biggest shock for Peter on leaving prison for the first time in over thirty years was the number of ‘coffin dodgers’ (old people) that were on the streets of Boston doing their Christmas shopping. In 1969, the life expectancy for a man was sixty-eight years and for a woman seventy-three; it’s now seventy-six and eighty-one respectively. Peter also considered many of the young women dressed ‘very tarty’, but he did admit that he couldn’t stop staring at them. Peter, who is six foot four inches tall and weighs eighteen stone, was surprised that he no longer stands out in a crowd, as he would have done thirty-one years ago. When he visited Safeways supermarket, it was the first time he’d seen a trolley; in the past he had only been served at a counter and used a shopping basket. And as for money, he knows of course about decimalization, but when he last purchased something from a shop there were 240 pennies in a pound, half-crowns, ten shilling notes and the guinea was still of blessed memory.

  Peter was totally baffled by pelican crossings and was frightened to walk across one. However the experience
he most disliked was having to use a changing room to try on clothes behind a curtain, while members of the public walked past him – particularly female assistants who didn’t mind drawing back the curtain to see how he was getting on. He was amazed that he could try on a shirt and then not have to purchase it.

  I suspect that the process of rehabilitation — accompanied town visits (six in all), unaccompanied town visits, weekend home visits, week visits, CSV work, followed by a job in the community — will take him at least another three to four years, by which time Peter will qualify for his old-age pension. I can only wonder if he will ever rejoin the real world and not simply be moved from one institution to another.

  10.00 pm

  I listen to the ten o’clock news. Roy Whiting has been given life imprisonment for the murder of Sarah Payne. Once the sentence has been passed, we discover that Whiting had already been convicted some years ago for abducting a child, and sexually abusing a minor. His sentence on that occasion? Four years.

  DAY 148

  THURSDAY 13 DECEMBER 2001

  6.00 am

  Orderlies are the prison’s school prefects. They’re given their jobs because they can be trusted. In return, they’re expected to work for these privileges, such as eating together in a small group, and in my case having a single room with a television.

  There are over a dozen orderlies in all. Yesterday both reception orderlies were sacked, leaving two much sought-after vacancies.

  Martin, the senior of the two reception orderlies, was due to be discharged this morning, two months early, on tag (HCD). The only restriction was that he must remain in his place of residence between the hours of 7 pm and 7 am. Martin had already completed the ‘paper chase’, which had to be carried out the day before release. Unfortunately, before departing this morning he decided to take with him a brand-new prison-issue denim top and jeans, and several shirts. A blue and white striped prison shirt apparently sells at around a hundred pounds on the outside, especially if it has the letters NSC on the pocket.

  When the theft was discovered, he was immediately sacked and, more sadly, so was the other orderly, Barry, whose only crime was that he wouldn’t grass on Martin. It’s rough justice when the only way to keep your job is to grass on your mate when you know what the consequences will be for that person – not to mention how the other inmates will treat you in the future. We will find out the punishment tomorrow when both men will be up in front of the governor.

  2.00 pm

  I am disappointed to receive a letter from William Payne, the governor of Spring Hill, turning down my application for transfer. His reasons for rejecting me are shown in his letter reproduced here. (See opposite.) I feel I should point out that the last five inmates from NSC who have applied to Spring Hill have all been accepted. It’s not worth appealing, because I’ve long given up expecting any justice whenever the Home Office is involved.

  3.00 pm

  Six new inductees: four on short sentences ranging from three weeks to nine months, and two lifers who, for the past sixteen years, have been banged up for twenty-two hours a day. They are walking around the perimeters of the prison (no walls) in a daze, and can’t understand why they’re not being ordered back to their cells. Linda tells me that lifers often report at the end of the first week with foot-sores and colds, and take far longer to adapt to open conditions.

  One of the short-termers from Nottingham who’s been placed in the no-smoking spur on the south block that has mostly more mature CSV workers who only return to the prison at night — tells me with a wry smile that he couldn’t sleep last night because it was so quiet.

  6.00 pm

  A visit from Mr Hocking. I’m no longer to dispose of personal papers, letters, envelopes or notes in the dustbin outside the hospital, as a prisoner was caught rifling through the contents last night. In future I must hand them to a security officer, who will shred them. NSC does not want to repeat the Belmarsh debacle, where an officer stole a chapter of my book and tried to sell it to the Sun.

  8.00 pm

  I sit in my palace and hold court with Doug, Clive and Carl, or at least that’s how it feels after Belmarsh and Wayland.

  In London, Mary is hosting our Christmas party.

  DAY 149

  FRIDAY 14 DECEMBER 2001

  10.00 am

  Today is judgment day. Three prisoners are up in front of the governor. Inmates take a morbid interest in the outcome of any adjudication as it’s a yardstick for discovering what they can hope to get away with.

  Martin, the reception orderly who pleaded guilty to attempting to steal prison clothes on the day he was due to be released, has his tagging privileges removed, and seven days added to his sentence. So for the sake of a pair of jeans and a few prison shirts, Martin will remain at NSC until a couple of weeks before Easter, rather than spending Christmas at home with his wife and family. Added to this, the sixty-seven days will not be spent in the warmth of reception as an orderly, but on the farm in the deep mid-winter cleaning out the pig pens.

  Barry is next up. His crime was not grassing on Martin. Although Martin stated clearly at the adjudication that Barry was not party to the offence, he also loses his orderly job, and returns to the farm as a shepherd. For the governor to expect him to ‘grass’ on his friend (I even doubt if they were friends) seems to me a little rough.

  Finding competent replacements will not be easy. The rumour is that Peter (lifer, just had his first day out after thirty-one years) has been offered the job as the next step in his rehabilitation. Peter tells me that he doesn’t want to be an orderly, and is happy to continue sweeping up leaves.

  The third prisoner in front of the governor this morning is Ali, a man serving three months for theft. Ali has refused to work on the farm and locked himself in his room. For this act of defiance, he has four days added to his sentence. This may not sound excessive, and in normal circumstances I don’t think he could complain, as it’s the statutory sentence for refusing to work. However, the four days are Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and 27 December.

  Ali arrives in the hospital moments after the adjudication and bursts into tears. The governor decides that I should be punished as well, because Linda puts me in charge of him. It’s ten-forty and the governor wants Ali back on the farm by this afternoon. Fortunately, England are playing India. It’s the second day of the Test, and Ali knows his cricket. We settle down in the hospital ward to watch the final session of the day. Sachin Tendulkar is at the crease so Ali stops crying. By lunchtime (end of play in Madras), Tendulkar has scored 123 and Ali’s tears have turned to smiles.

  He’s back on the farm at one o’clock.

  3.00 pm

  Seven new prisoners in from Nottingham today, and as we only released three this morning, our numbers reach 211; our capacity is 220. The weekly turnover at NSC is about 20 per cent, and I’m told it always peaks at this time of year. I’m also informed by one of the lifers that there are more absconders over Christmas, many of whom give themselves up on Boxing Day evening. The governor’s attitude is simple; if they return to the gate and apologize, they have twenty-eight days added to their sentence; if they wait until they’re picked up by the police, then in addition to the added twenty-eight days, they’re shipped out to a B-cat the following morning.

  4.00 pm

  Linda asks me to take two blood samples down to the gate, so they can be sent to Pilgrim Hospital. On the three-hundred-yard walk, I become distracted by a new idea for how the twins discover their identity in Sons of Fortune. When I arrive at the gate, the blood samples are no longer in the plastic packet, and must have fallen out en route. I run for the first time in weeks. I don’t want to lose my job, and end up working on the farm. I see Jim (gym orderly) running towards me — he’s found the samples on the side of the path. I thank him between puffs — he’s saved me from my first reportable offence. Actually, I think I should confess at this stage that some weeks ago I picked up a penny from the path and have kept
the tiny coin in my jeans pocket, feeling a slight defiance in possessing cash. I put the samples back in their plastic packet and hand them in at the gate.

  Incidentally, the other gym orderly Bell is also the NSC goalkeeper. He used to be at Spring Hill, but asked for a transfer to be nearer his wife. NSC needed a goalkeeper, so the transfer only took four days. Thanks to this little piece of subterfuge we’re now on a winning streak. However, I have to report that the goalkeeper’s wife has run off with his best friend, which may account for Bell being sent off last week. We lost 5-0.

  DAY 150

  SATURDAY 15 DECEMBER 2001

  7.30 am

  I now have to work seven days a week, as there’s a surgery on Saturday and Sunday. It’s a small price to pay for all the other privileges of being hospital orderly.