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specific-gravity meters, floating them to measure just the right amount of raw sugar for the next brew. He did not share their outrage. ‘What difference does it make that the DEA works with traffickers? One way or another we all walked into their world, eyes open. Whether it’s drugs or peanuts makes no difference. It’s like the alpha monkeys say, “Come, climb up our tree, you’re welcome. Even more welcome when we push you off!” The vice or virtues of narcotics has nothing to do with it.’ Martyn had been a respected member of the Anarchist’s Society in Britain.
    Fortunately I was called away from this never-ending debate by Kupla who wanted me to settle with the prison tailor. My court suit was ready. At THB250 it was a good buy. The alternative was to select a prison uniform from a tub of never-washed brown shorts and T-shirts that smelled like gangrenous bandages. I was due in court the following week.
    Kupla was from a once-large family of Chiang Rai traffickers. Chiang Rai was central to the narcotics Wild West of Thailand. Two of Kupla’s brothers had been shot dead following business disputes and a third was now serving a life sentence. These days Kupla spoke with a curvy American accent, having spent six years in US federal prisons. Ten years earlier he had stepped off a plane in San Francisco with two kilos of heroin to find his one contact had recently been arrested. After three days he had made new friends: undercover FBI agents. Kupla had spent his time in half a dozen prisons in as many states since leaving the dispersal jail in Oregon. He returned to Thailand with a fat international address book and his experiences had encouraged him to expand his small family business. His first new venture led to arrest with five kilos in Bangkok. Yet his enthusiasm had not dimmed. The immediate obstacle was an almost certain life sentence, due to be given sometime in the next three years. Kupla was Thai, experienced and not without contacts. As close to a real player as I would find here yet without any solution to the forty years he would see in prison before release. He dismissed any ideas of escape from Klong Prem as hopeless. I would later come to know of his life sentence as well as his ambition to buy a transfer to a small country prison from where day release could be granted for a reasonable fee. There would be many things I would later come to know, including the fact that Kupla still waits in Bangkwang prison.

3
    After just one month in the Cure I saw that not every prisoner in Klong Prem was resigned to his fate.
    Four Thais and a Singaporean had managed to control their dormitory long enough to cut their way out to try for the wall. Their attempt failed but alone deserved a silver medal for silencing the informers for nine hours. This is how they went:
    The escaping prisoners’ dormitory was as fully packed as the others of Bumbudt were. It held over one hundred, including some trusties. The rules were clear that any prisoner noticing an escape attempt had to call out. For trusties, a near-sacred duty. Many things in Klong Prem were tolerated as mischief: cash handling, the possession of radios or porn magazines. Even drug dealing and gambling were negotiable as long as kept in-house. Escapes, however, cut to the core of the prison’s existence. Mere attempts threatened the safety, incomes and careers of staff from tower guard to superintendent. For the guards the consequences of escapes were so fearsome that they saw any attempt as utter betrayal. Betrayal of the loyalty they had earned for allowing some prisoners to eat well and run small businesses. The guards’ cut in this commerce was not seen as a bribe. More of a tribute, a token of respect; a share of the food at the table. For any prisoner to endanger this fine co-operation would be madness or treachery. Any officer would sooner answer to the chief for beating a prisoner to death while drunk than to account for fleeing prisoners.
    As it