Heaven

DAY 155 THURSDAY 20 DECEMBER 2001

7.30 am

Record numbers report sick with near freezing conditions outside.

11.00 am

The last inmate to see the doctor is a patient called Robinson. He’s shaking and trying in vain to keep warm. I’ve been in prison long enough now to spot a heroin addict at thirty paces. While he waits for his appointment, Robinson confides that he’s desperately trying to kick the habit, and has put himself on a compulsory urine test every morning. He’s thirty-two years old, and has been in and out of prison for the past fourteen years.

‘I’m lucky to be alive,’ he says. ‘After I got nicked this time, I took the rap and let me mate get off in exchange for a promise he’d send me ten quid a week while I’m inside.’

The ‘friend’ died a few weeks later after injecting himself from a contaminated batch of heroin.

‘If the deal had been the other way round,’ Robinson suggests, ‘I’d be the dead man.’

12.30 pm

Over lunch I discuss the drug problem in prisons with the two gym orderlies, both of whom abhor the habit. I am shocked – can I still be shocked? – when Jim (burglary, antiques only) tells me that 30 per cent of the inmates at NSC are on heroin. But more depressing still, when Jim was here eight years ago for a previous offence, he says only a handful of the inmates were on drugs. What will it be like in ten years’ time?

1.00 pm

As I walk back from lunch, I see Brian and John, the CSV Red Cross workers, heading towards me. They’ve both been taken off the job and confined to the prison while an enquiry is being conducted. Maria, who runs the Red Cross shop in Boston, has been accused of smuggling contraband (twelve paperbacks) into the prison. Apparently she should have informed the gate staff of her request to have the books autographed by me. Brian tells me they left her in tears, and I am bound to say that what started out as a simple goodwill gesture has ended in turmoil; the Red Cross have been removed as participants in the CSV scheme, and Brian and John have lost their jobs. I resolve to find out if there is more to it – prison has taught me not to automatically take something on trust – and if there isn’t, to try to right this injustice.

8.00 pm

Carl suggests we watch Midnight Express, a sure way of reminding ourselves just how lucky we all are. And to think Turkey wants to be a full member of the European Union.