But I was not the only newsworthy felon making his first court appearance on that Friday.
As I was being led away, the defendants in the next case were being brought in. George Raworth and Charlie Hern didn’t take any particular notice of me but I did of them. They also wore matching orange boiler suits but were neither manacled nor chained. They were obviously not Category A prisoners.
The sight of them cheered me up no end.
The planned Nassau County Police raid of Raworth’s barn had obviously gone ahead as planned, in spite of the murders, and here was the proof that the two had been indicted, although what for I didn’t know. What would be the charge for cheating one’s way to a Triple Crown? Fraud, maybe.
No doubt I would find out eventually from Tony Andretti. Assuming that he would get me out of jail as Marty had promised.
Rikers Island was as foreboding a place as I had ever set foot in.
The atmosphere was hugely intimidating but that, I realised, was the intention.
Somehow British jails at least gave the impression that rehabilitation of offenders was the highest priority. Here, it appeared, it was the punishment and dehumanisation of the inmates.
I was subjected to yet another strip search and my lockup orange boilersuit was exchanged for one of a similar hue with CONVICT in large letters on the back, in spite of the fact that I hadn’t yet been convicted of anything.
But it was the assault on one’s senses that was the most extreme.
Everyone seemed to be shouting at once — either the prison officers barking orders, or the unseen unfortunates incarcerated behind the cell doors yelling for attention. And the smell of stale sweat and rancid body odour hung like a fog over everything. It was as much as I could do not to retch.
I was processed once more — name, address, photo, fingerprints — and then I was finally placed in a stifling cell in the solitary block.
The cell had two doors, one inside the other. The outer door was solid with only a small glass window while the inner one was made of vertical bars with a single horizontal slot across in the middle.
I was pushed forward into the cell and the inner door was closed and locked. I then had to put my hands out through the slot in this door to have the manacles removed. The outer door was then slammed shut with a loud clang.
I almost cried in despair.
My court appearance had been at eleven but the transport to Rikers had not departed the courthouse until the end of the day’s proceedings. Six others had made the journey with me in the prison van but, sadly, none of the six were George Raworth or Charlie Hern.
They must have secured bail, I thought. Lucky them.
I had no watch and there was no clock in the cell. Time dragged.
I’d been in a cell before but not one like this. If I stood up facing the door and put my arms out to each side, I could easily touch both walls at the same time. At the foot of the narrow bed was a stainless-steel toilet bowl, with no seat, and a small stainless-steel sink, complete with a single cold tap that only worked if you held it down.
I’d had my fill of stainless steel for one lifetime.
Opposite the cell door was a small window made of solid glass bricks. It let in the natural light but it was impossible to see through.
Time dragged some more and, presently, a tray of food was offered through the slit in the inner door. I took the tray and, to my surprise, the food wasn’t too bad, although it was only lukewarm and rather lacking in taste.
How I longed for a bowl of Bert Squab’s extra-hot chilli con carne at the track kitchen.
It took me all of two minutes to eat the meal and then I sat on the bed and tried not to think about anything much in particular. It was too depressing.
My job at the BHA suddenly seemed rather attractive, but anything would be better than this. What would Faye say if she knew where I was? She would certainly have given the prison guards what for about my treatment.
The square of light in the window slowly faded away to darkness.
It must be nearly nine o’clock, I thought. Another day gone.
I lay down on the bed and stared at the concrete ceiling. Amazingly, in spite of the constant bright electric light, I drifted off to sleep.
I was woken by the outer cell door being opened by two prison officers.
‘On your feet, Murphy,’ said one of them loudly. ‘Hands.’
I put my hands behind my back and out through the slot in the inner door. The manacles were reapplied to my wrists.
‘What’s happening?’ I asked.
‘You’re being transferred,’ he replied without any further explanation.
The two officers escorted me from the solitary wing back into the main part of the prison. Oh God, I thought, I’m going to have to share a cell. All those horrific stories of life in American jails came into my mind and a touch of panic came along with them.
But we didn’t go to any of the other cell blocks. Instead, we headed to the reception area where I had arrived earlier. A clock on the wall showed it was three in the morning.
‘Patrick Sean Murphy?’ asked another uniformed officer, consulting a clipboard.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Transfer to Sing Sing Prison.’
‘Now?’ I said. ‘But it’s the middle of the night.’
‘So?’
Clearly transfers between prisons at such an hour were not unusual.
Leg irons were reapplied and I hobbled my way out to the prison van, a blue truck with ‘New York State Department of Corrections’ painted along each side. I was locked into one of its internal cells and I could hear as the engine was started and we set off.
I didn’t get to Sing Sing.
Almost immediately we were clear of the Rikers Island prison gates, the cell door was opened.
‘Come on,’ said Tony, jangling a bunch of keys at me, ‘let’s get you out of those irons.’
I almost cried again, this time from relief.
‘You took your bloody time,’ I said.
36
How an hour can change a man’s life.
At three o’clock in the morning I had been in leg irons and manacles in one of the most intimidating places on earth yet, by four, I was stretched out in a luxurious leather armchair aboard a US government private jet, en route from LaGuardia Airport in New York to Andrews Base outside Washington, DC.
I had also swapped the prison-issue orange boilersuit for a check shirt, chinos and slip-on leather brogues that Tony had thoughtfully brought with him from my stash of clothes in his guest-room closet.
Tony clearly wasn’t eager to talk about the happenings in the grandstand on Wednesday evening. Twice he ignored my inquiry about ballistic tests on the bullet that had killed Steffi Dean. It was as if he was somehow embarrassed by it all.
So I asked him about the other events of the evening instead. ‘How was Diego Ríos found?’
‘The horse he was with never turned up at the paddock from the receiving barn.’
‘Debenture,’ I said.
‘Yes. That’s it. It seems George Raworth sent someone to find out where he was and they found Diego Ríos with a pitchfork through his heart, and the horse still in the stall. Needless to say, the race went ahead without Debenture.’
And I had wondered in the roof how the old horse was doing.
‘I’m surprised it went ahead at all.’
‘The others were at the gate before Ríos was found.’
‘Tell me about the raid on Raworth’s barn,’ I said.
‘It all went like clockwork,’ he replied, smiling broadly. ‘The Nassau County Police turned up with their search warrant and went straight to the barn drug store, as you had suggested. They bagged up everything including the cryo-flask. Raworth and his assistant…’