Free Purgatory: A Prison Diary Volume 2 by Jeffrey Archer Page B

boiling in order to ferment the brew, so
it’s almost impossible to get decent hooch in August.’ ‘What’s it taste like?’
    ‘Awful, but at least it’s guaranteed to get you drunk,’ says
Jimmy. ‘ Which kills off a few more hours of your sentence,
even if you wake up with one hell of a hangover. ’
    ‘If you’re desperate,’ Darren adds, ‘fresh orange juice is
still on the canteen list.’
    ‘How does that help?’
    ‘Just leave it on your window ledge in the sun for a few
days, and you’ll soon find out.’
    ‘But where can you hide the hooch once you’ve made it?’
    ‘We used to have the perfect hiding place,’ Darren pauses,
‘but unfortunately they discovered it.’
    Jimmy smiles as I wait for an explanation. ‘One Sunday
morning,’ Darren continues, ‘the number one brewer on our spur was found
roaming around inebriated. When breathalysed, he registered way above the
limit. The drug squad were called in, and every cell
on the spur was stripped bare, but no alcohol of any kind was discovered. His
hiding place would have remained a mystery if a small fire hadn’t broken out in
the kitchen. An officer grabbed the nearest fire extinguisher and pointed it in
the direction of the blaze, only to find that the flames leapt even higher. An
immediate halt was called by the chef who fortunately understood the effects of ethanol, otherwise the prison might have been razed to
the ground. A full enquiry was held, and three inmates were shipped out to
different B-cats the following morning, ‘on suspicion of producing hooch’.’
    ‘In fact,’ said Darren, ‘It wasn’t hooch they were guilty of
brewing. This particular strain of neat alcohol had been made by filtering
metal polish through six slices of bread into a plastic mug in the hope of
removing any impurities.’
    I feel sick, without even having to sample the brew.
    Jimmy goes on to point out that not only are some inmates
brighter than the officers, but they also have twenty-four hours every day to
think up such schemes, while the screws have to get on with their job.
    ‘But the best hooch I ever tasted,’ said Darren, ‘had a
secret ingredient’
    ‘And what was that, may I ask?’
    ‘Marmite. But once the screws
caught on to how much yeast it contained, they took it off the canteen list’ He
pauses. ‘So now we just steal the yeast from the kitchen.’
    ‘Damn,’ I said. ‘I like Marmite; it was on the Belmarsh
canteen list.’
    ‘I don’t think that’s a good enough reason, my lord, to be
transferred back to Belmarsh,’ says Darren. ‘Mind you,’ he adds, ‘perhaps I
should have a word with the governor, now it’s known that you are partial to
it’
    I kick him gently up the backside as an officer is passing
in the opposite direction.
    ‘Did you see that, Mr Chapman? Archer is bullying me.’ ‘I’ll
put him on report, and he’ll be back in Belmarsh by the end of the week,’ Mr
Chapman promises.
    We laugh as we continue on the perimeter circuit. However, I
point out how easy it is to make an accusation, and how long it takes to refute
it. It’s been a month since Emma Nicholson appeared on Newsnight insinuating
that I had stolen money intended for the Kurds, and it will probably be another
month before the police confirm there is no case to answer.
    ‘But just think about that for a minute, Jeffrey. If it
hadn’t been for that bitch Nicholson, you would never have met Jimmy and me,
who have not only added greatly to your knowledge of prison life, but enabled a
further volume to be written.’
7.30 pm
    One of the officers says there’s a package for me in the
office. I’m puzzled as I’ve already had my mail for today, and registered
letters are always opened in front of two officers, around eleven each morning.
When I walk in, he makes a point of closing the office door before he hands
over a copy of Alan Clark’s Diaries, a pad and a book of stamps. Someone else who considers the regulations damned