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on Monday, as Beirut is only
the induction wing.
    ‘What’s the
difference?’ I ask.
    ‘If you’re
going to be here for a couple of weeks, they have to decide which block to put
you on while you’re waiting to be transferred to a D-cat. I think you’re going
to Block One,’ says James, ‘so you’ll be with the lifers.’
    ‘Lifers?’ I gasp. ‘But doesn’t that mean I’ll be locked up
all day and night?’
    ‘No, no,’ says
James. ‘The lifers have a much more relaxed regime than any other block,
because they keep their heads down and don’t want to be a nuisance. It’s the
young ones who are on remand or doing short sentences that cause most of the
trouble and therefore have to be locked up first.’
    It’s
fascinating to discover how much of prison life is the exact
opposite to what you would expect .
    James then
gives me the bad news. He’s going to be transferred to Whitemoor Prison tomorrow morning, so I won’t be seeing him again, but he has already
allocated another inmate called Kevin to be my Listener.
    ‘Kevin’s a good
guy,’ he assures me, ‘even if he talks too much. So if he goes on a bit, just
tell him to shut up.’
    Before James
leaves, I can’t resist asking him what he’s in for.
    ‘Smuggling
drugs from Holland,’ he replies matter-of-factly.
    ‘And you were
caught?’
    ‘Red-handed.’
    ‘How much were
the drugs worth?’
    ‘The police
claimed a street value of £3.3 million. I can only imagine it must have been
Harley Street,’ adds James with a wry smile.
    ‘How much did
you receive for doing the job?’
    ‘Five thousand pounds.’
    ‘And your sentence?’
    ‘Six years.’
    ‘And Kevin?’ I ask. ‘What’s he in for?’
    ‘Oh, he was on
that Dome jewellery caper, driving one of the getaway
boats – trouble was he didn’t get away.’ James pauses. ‘By the way,’ he says,
‘the staff tell me that you aren’t eating.’
    ‘Well, that’s
not quite accurate,’ I reply.
    ‘But I am
living on a diet of bottled water, KitKat and Smith’s
crisps, but as I’m only allowed to spend twelve pounds fifty a week, I’m
already running out of my meagre provisions.’
    ‘Don’t worry,’
he says. ‘You’ll be allowed another canteen list once they’ve transferred you
to a new wing, so fill yours in tonight and Kevin can hand it in first thing in
the morning.’
    I smile at the
man’s ingenuity and see why the prison officers have made him a Listener.
    They obviously,
like LBJ,* feel it’s better to have him pissing out of the tent, rather
than pissing in.
    James then
changes the subject to the leadership of the Conservative Party. He wants
Kenneth Clarke to be the next leader, and he’s disappointed that Michael
Portillo missed the cut by one vote, because he’s never heard of Iain Duncan
Smith.
    ‘Why Clarke?’ I ask.
    ‘His brother
was the Governor of Holloway, and has the reputation of being a fair and decent
man. Mr Clarke strikes me as the same sort of bloke.’
I have to agree with James, feeling that he’s summed up Ken rather well.
4.30 pm
    James leaves
when Mr Weedon appears by
the door, impatient to lock me back in. I’m beginning to learn the names of the
officers.
    I check my watch, it’s just after four thirty.
    Mr Weedon explains that as it’s a
Saturday and they’re short-staffed, they won’t be opening the door again until
nine o’clock the next morning. As the cell door slams shut, I reflect on the
fact that for the next seventeen hours I will be left alone in a room nine feet
by six.
6.00 pm
    I feel very
low. This is the worst period of the day. You think of your family and what you
might be doing at this time on a Saturday evening – James and I would have been
watching the Open Golf from Lytham & St Anne’s,
hoping against hope that Colin Montgomerie would at
last win a major. William might be reading a book by some obscure author I’d
never heard of. Mary would probably be in the folly at the bottom of the garden
working