Free 59 Minutes by Gordon Brown Page A

stayed on but most left or met messy ends.
    I had only one visitor in fourteen years.
    It was two years from the end of my stretch. With no
one returning calls, no one visiting or no one answering letters, I had been well
and truly cut off years ago.
    My status in the prison was worth shit and I had
received a regular stream of kickings – mainly from people I had crapped on as
I had risen up the scum pond. You would think that it would have stopped as the
years rolled by but there was always someone new that recognised me and took
delight in reminding me of what I had done to them.
    Visiting time had long since stopped being a hope and,
with freedom on the horizon, I should have been in a better place but I was so
depressed that I was almost revelling in my pain. When the guard told me I had
a visitor I laughed at him. I hadn’t had a visitor since day one. When Rachel
Score walked into the visiting room I laughed again. I could fathom no reason
for the visit.
    She sat opposite me in a dress that was three sizes
too small with five-inch stilettos that she struggled to walk in. Her face was
a cake of make up and her hair a badly cropped mush. I could still see what
Martin saw in her, but only just.
    She never said a word. She reached into her purse and
took out a battered envelope and handed it to me. Then she was gone. I rammed
the envelope into my pocket before a guard could see it and, back in my cell,
took it out.
    I opened it and inside there was a single sheet of
typed paper.
     
    ‘Hi Riko,
     
    I bet you didn’t expect to hear from me. I’m sorry I
had to do what I had to do but things are not quite as they seem. I’ve no doubt
that you are planning some sort of revenge on Dupree and I don’t blame you but,
if I were you, I would leave it. Dupree is an evil fucker and fourteen years in
prison is small change to what he could do to you if he wanted.
    When you get out why don’t you have a pint for old times
sake. I’ve left one behind the bar of our old haunt. If the pub is gone by the
time you get out I’ve asked Stevie to take care of things.
    Stay safe.
     
    Martin’
     
    The letter is in the diary next to you.
    Look at the time eleven
fifty eight and forty seconds. Time to
go. While I’m away, read the diary. It might help explain some things. I won’t
be long.
    See you soon.

Diary 2008
     
    Dear Reader
     
    Somehow Dear Reader sounds a bit naff but it will do.
What follows is a diary - of sorts. I have worked from the digital recordings
that I was given. As such the following is a transcription of conversations,
monologue and other assorted meanderings. It wasn’t the easiest task I have
ever performed and, at times some of the text may take a little license – all
in the interest of keeping the whole thing lucid.
    I’ve marked it all up in diary fashion, as the
recordings frequently referred to the dates. As such it seemed logical to
display it in this form.
    You are probably reading this and wondering what I am
gibbering on about but, hopefully, it will all make sense when you read the
‘diary’.
     
    Enjoy.
     
    Giles Taylor

Tuesday January 1 st 2008
     
    I don’t know why I’m using this
thing. It has taken me a week just to work out how it operates. It’s a digital
recorder and I’ve never used one before but, after fourteen years in prison, the
world is a scary place and I need some order in my life.
    It’s a tiny object and I’ve already
discovered that I can keep it in my top pocket and record conversations without
anybody knowing. I’m intending to keep an ‘aural’ record of the next few months
– if I can work the bloody thing.
    I was given it on Christmas day by the hostel and told
it might help if I use it to note down my thoughts. It had been left by a well
wisher and, as the new boy, I was trusted to use it and not hock it for drink
money. I think the idea is a pile of crap but in a world of iPods, broadband,
HD TV and SEO I’m like a polar bear in the Sahara – wrong