‘I’ll send round my man to see you, your Lordship,’ Pat says with a grin. ‘He’ll take care of you.’
I thank Pat, not quite sure if he’s teasing me. Once I’ve completed another press-button shower – I’ve almost mastered it – and dried myself, I return to my cell to have breakfast. Breakfast was handed to me last night in a plastic bag, only moments after I’d rejected the evening meal. I extract a very hard-boiled egg from the bag, before disposing of the rest of its contents in the plastic bucket under the sink. While eating the egg – white only, avoiding the yolk – I stare out of my window and watch the planes as they descend at regular, sixty-second intervals into City Airport. A pigeon joins me on the ledge, but he’s on the outside. I retrieve a piece of stale bread from the bucket under the washbasin, break it into small crumbs and drop them on the sill. He rejects my offering, coos and flies away.
9.30 am
The cell is unlocked again, this time for Association, and the duty officer asks me if I want to attend a church service. Not being utterly convinced there is a God I rarely go to church in Grantchester, despite the fact that my wife was for many years the choir-mistress. However, on this occasion it will mean a long walk and forty-five minutes in a far larger room than my cell, so without hesitation I thank God and say yes.
‘RC or Church of England?’ the officer enquires.
‘C of E,’ I reply.
‘Then you’ll be on the second shift. I’ll call you around 10.30 straight after Association.’
10.00 am
During Association, prison officers watch to see if you become part of a clique or gang, and how you behave while in a group, or if you’re simply a loner. I’m about to leave my cell, only to find a queue of prisoners waiting at my door. Most of them want autographs so they can prove to their partners or girlfriends that they were on the same block as the notorious Jeffrey Archer.
When I’ve finished what can only be described as a signing session not unlike the ones I usually carry out at Hatchard’s, I’m joined by my new Listener, Kevin. He confirms that James was shipped out to Whitemoor early this morning.
‘So what do you need, Jeffrey? Can I call you Jeffrey?’
‘Of course. What do I need?’ I repeat. ‘How about a bowl of cornflakes with some real milk, two eggs, sunny side up, bacon, mushrooms and a cup of hot chocolate.’
Kevin laughs. ‘I can sort out some Weetabix, skimmed milk, fresh bread. Anything else?’
‘A decent razor, some shampoo, a bar of soap and a change of towels?’
‘That may take a little longer,’ he admits.
As everyone knows what I’m in for, I ask the inevitable question.
‘I was part of the Dome jewellery raid, wasn’t I,’ he says as if everybody was.
What a sentence to deliver to an author. ‘How did you become involved?’ I asked.
‘Debt,’ he explains, ‘and a measure of bad luck.’
Nick Purnell’s words rang in my ears. Don’t believe anything you’re told in prison, and never reveal to your fellow inmates any details of your own case. ‘Debt?’ I repeat.
‘Yeah, I owed a man thirteen hundred pounds, and although I hadn’t spoken to him for over a year, he suddenly calls up out of the blue and demands to see me.’ I don’t interrupt the flow. ‘We met up at a pub in Brighton where he told me he needed a speedboat and driver for a couple of hours and if I was willing to do it, I could forget the debt.’
‘When did he expect you to carry out the job?’ I ask.
‘The next morning,’ Kevin replied. ‘I told him I couldn’t consider it because I’d already got another job lined up.’
‘What job?’ I asked.
‘Well, my dad and I’ve got a couple of boats that we fish off the coast, and they were both booked for the rest of the week. “Then I want my money,” the man demanded, so I wasn’t left with a lot of choice. You see, I was skint at the time, and anyway, he had a reputation as a bit of a hard man, and all he wanted me to do was transport four men from one side of the river to the other. The whole exercise wouldn’t take more than ten minutes.’
‘One thousand three hundred pounds for ten minutes’ work? You must have realized that there was a catch?’
‘I was suspicious, but had no idea what they were really up to.’
‘So what happened next?’
‘I took the boat as instructed up to Bow Creek, moored it near the jetty a few hundred yards from the Dome and waited. Suddenly all hell broke loose. Three police boats converged on me, and within minutes I was surrounded by a dozen armed officers shouting at me to lie down on the deck with my hands above my head. One of them said, “Blimey it’s not him,” and I later discovered that I’d been brought in at the last minute to replace someone who had let the gang down.’
‘But by then you must have known what they were up to?’
‘Nope,’ he replied, ‘I’m thirty-five years old, and this is my first offence. I’m not a criminal, and after what my family and I have been put through, I can tell you I won’t be coming back to prison again.’
I can’t explain why I wanted to believe him. It might have been his courteous manner, or the way he talked about his wife and fourteen-year-old son. And he was certainly going to pay dearly for a foolish mistake; one that he would regret for the rest of his life. [15]
‘Archer, Collins, Davies, Edwards,’ booms the voice of Mr King, an officer not given to subtlety as he continues to bellow out names until he comes to Watts, before adding, ‘C of E, now.’
‘I think we’ll have to continue this conversation at some other time,’ I suggest. ‘Our Lord calls and if he doesn’t, Mr King certainly does.’ I then join the other prisoners who are waiting on the middle landing to be escorted to the morning service.
11.00 am
A crocodile of prisoners proceeds slowly along the polished linoleum floor until we’re stopped for another body search before entering the chapel. Why would they search us before going into a place of worship? We file into a large hall where each worshipper is handed a Bible. I take my place in the second row next to a young black man who has his head bowed. I glance around at what appears to be a full house.
The Chaplain, David (his name is written in bold letters on a label attached to his well-worn jacket), takes his place at the front of the chapel and calls for silence. He is a man of about forty-five, stockily built, with a pronounced limp and a stern smile. He stares down at his congregation of murderers, rapists, burglars and wife-beaters. Not surprisingly, it takes him a couple of minutes to bring such a flock to order.
While he goes about his task, I continue to look around the room. It’s square in shape, and I would guess measures about twenty paces by twenty. The outer walls are red brick and the room holds about two hundred plastic chairs, in rows of twenty. On the four walls there are paintings of Christ and his Disciples, Christ being carried to the tomb after being taken down from the Cross, the Virgin Mother with an angel, the Raising of Lazarus, and Christ calming the storm.
Directly behind the Chaplain is a rock band – their leader is a pretty, dark-haired girl who has a guitar slung over her shoulder. She is accompanied by five Gospel singers, all of whom have tiny microphones pinned to their lapels. In front of the group is a man seated with his back to the congregation. He is working a slide projector that flashes up on a white sheet hung in front of him the words of the first hymn.