Free Heaven: A Prison Diary by Jeffrey Archer

the south block now.’ We all go
off in search of the duty officer, who approves the move. I spend the next two
hours, assisted by Alan (selling stolen goods), transferring all my possessions
from the north block to the south, while Clive moves into a little single room
at the other end of the corridor.
    I am now lodged
in a room twenty-one by sixteen feet. Most prisoners assume I’ve paid Clive
some vast sum of money to move out and make way for me, whereas the truth is
that Clive wanted out. There is only one disadvantage. There always has to be a
disadvantage. My new abode is next to the TV room, but as that’s turned off at
eleven each night, and I rarely leave Doug in the hospital before 10.30 pm, I
don’t think it will be a real problem.
    I now have an
interesting job, a better room, edible food and £8.50 a week. What more could a
man ask for?

DAY 109 - SUNDAY 4 NOVEMBER 2001
6.19 am
    Write for two
hours before I join Doug at the hospital. We watch David Frost, whose guests
include Northern Ireland’s Chief Constable of the Police Service Sir Ronnie
Flanagan. While discussing the morning papers, Sir Ronnie says that it’s an
infringement of my privacy that the tabloid press are taking pictures of me while I’m in jail. The pictures are fine, but the
articles border on the farcical.
    A security officer later points out that two tabloids have
by-lines attributed to women, and there hasn’t been a female journalist or
photographer seen by anyone at NSC during the past three weeks.
12 noon
    Over lunch I
sit opposite an inmate called Andy, who is a rare phenomenon in any jail as he
previously served ten years – as a prison officer. He is now doing a seven-year
sentence, having pleaded guilty to smuggling drugs into prison for an inmate.
Andy tells me that the only reason he did so was because the inmate in question
was threatening to have his daughter beaten up. She was married to an
ex-prisoner.
    ‘Did you fall
for that one, Jeffrey?’ I hear you ask. Yes, I did.
    The police
presented irrefutable evidence to the jury showing that Andy’s daughter had
been threatened, and asked the judge to take this into consideration when he
passed sentence. Although Andy claims he didn’t know what was in the packages,
the final one he smuggled in, a box of Cadbury’s Quality Street, contained four
grams of pure heroin.
    Had it been
cannabis, he might have been sentenced to a year or eighteen months. If he
hadn’t confessed, he might have got away with a suspension. He tells me that he
knew he would eventually be caught, and once he was called in for questioning,
he wanted to get the whole thing off his chest.
    Andy was
initially sent to HMP Gartree (B... cat), with a new identity and a different
offence on his charge sheet. He had to be moved the moment he was recognized by
an old lag. From there he went to Swalesdale, where he lasted twenty-four
hours. He was then moved on to Elmsley, a sex offenders’ prison, where he lived
on the same landing as Roy Whiting, who was convicted of the murder of Sarah
Payne. Once he’d earned his D-cat, Andy came to NSC, where he’ll complete his
sentence.
    The only other
comment he makes, which I’ve heard repeated again and again and therefore
consider worthy of mention, is, ‘sex offenders live in far better conditions
than any other prisoners.’

DAY 110 - MONDAY 5 NOVEMBER 2001
8.28 am
    When I was an
MP I often heard the sentiment expressed that life should mean life. I am
reminded of this because we have a lifers’ board meeting at SMU today.
    There are nine
lifers at NSC and you can be fairly confident that if they’ve reached a D-cat,
they won’t consider absconding. In truth, they’re all fairly harmless. Two of
them go out each day to work in an old people’s home, one in a library in
Boston and another for the local Oxfam shop.
    Linda, their
probation officer, joins us for coffee during the morning break. She adds to
the research I’ve pieced together over the past