6.19 am Absconding is a D-cat phenomenon. It's almost impossible to escape from an A- or B... cat prison, and extremely difficult to do so even from a C-cat (Wayland, for example). In order for a prisoner to become eligible for D... cat status, he or she must be judged likely to complete their sentence without attempting to abscond. In practice, prisons are so overcrowded that C-cat establishments, which are desperate to empty their cells, often clear out prisoners who quite simply should not be sent to an open prison.

One intake of eleven such prisoners arrived from Lincoln last year and was down to seven before the final roll-call that night. I discovered today that because of the chronic shortage of staff, there are only five officers on duty at night, and two of them are on overtime, so absconding isn't too difficult.

Prisoners abscond for a hundred and one different reasons, but mainly because of outside family pressures: a wife who is having an affair, a partner who takes the children away or a death in the family that doesn't fulfil the criteria for compa.s.sionate leave. The true irony is that these prisoners are the ones mostly likely to be apprehended, because the first place they turn up at is the family abode and there waiting for them on the doorstep are a couple of local bobbies who then return them to closed conditions and a longer sentence.

Before I was sent to prison I would have said, 'Quite right, too, it's no more than they deserve.' However, after 106 days of an intense learning curve I now realize that each individual has to be judged on his own merits. I accept that they have to be punished, but it rarely falls neatly into black or white territory.

Then there's a completely different category of absconders foreigners. They simply wish to get back to their country, aware that the British police have neither the time nor the resources to go looking for them.

For every Ronnie Biggs there are a hundred Ronnie Smalls.

Mr New tells me about two absconders who are part of North Sea Camp folklore.

Some years ago Boston held a marathon in aid of a local cancer charity, and the selected route took the compet.i.tors across a public footpath running along the east side of the prison. One prisoner slipped out of the gym in his running kit, joined the pa.s.sing athletes and has never been seen since.

The second story concerns a prisoner who had to make a court appearance on a second charge, while serving a six-year sentence for a previous conviction. When the jury returned to deliver their verdict, his guards were waiting for him downstairs in the cells.

The jury delivered a verdict of not guilty on the second charge. The judge p.r.o.nounced, 'You are free to leave the court.' And that's exactly what he did.

The reason I raise this subject is because Potts, who's had a bad week, absconded yesterday following his suicide attempt. It turns out that the final straw concerned the custody of his children the subject he was going to raise with his solicitor.

8.15 am After the frantic rush of events following the arrival of fifteen new prisoners yesterday, today is comparatively quiet.

Allen (cannabis, six years) drops in to tell me that his weekend leave forms still haven't been processed, and it's this weekend. The duty officer Mr Hayes deals with it. Thomas (in charge of a gun that discharged) says his town visit form has not been authorized and asks how much longer he will have to wait to find out if he will be allowed out. Mr Hayes deals with it. Merry (embezzlement) arrives with still no word as to when Group 4 will be transporting him to Sudbury so that he can be nearer his family. Mr Hayes deals with it.

Mr Hayes is an unusual officer. He's not frightened of making decisions and standing by them. He also makes his own tea. When I asked him why, he simply replied, 'You're not here to serve me, but to complete your sentence. I don't need to be waited on.'

10.00 am Mr Hocking and I agree it would be better for the press to take a photograph and then go away, leaving his little band of security officers to get on with their job.

I walk out of the SMU building and deliberately stop to chat to Peter (lifer, arson), who is sweeping leaves from the path. He keeps his back to the cameras. Three minutes later I return to the building and, true to form, the photographers all disappear.

12 noon Major Willis comes to SMU to hand back his red induction folder. He tells me that he's sixty-four, first offence, GBH, sentence one year, and that he'll be released in March. He was a major in the army, and after retiring, fell in love with a young Nigerian girl (a prost.i.tute), whom he later married. She soon began to bully him, and to spend what little money he had. One day he could take no more, blew his top and stuck a kitchen knife in her. She reported him to the police. He will end up doing ten months (if he gets his tag), six of them at NSC.

He's puzzled as to why I got four years.

2.30 pm A quiet afternoon. A fleeting visit from Mr Berlyn to check that I'm wearing a prison shirt as the press keep reporting that mine isn't regulation issue. He checks the blue and white HMP label, and leaves, satisfied.

9.00 pm Fall asleep in front of the TV. Doug says I snore. I'm writing five hours a day, on top of a thirty-four-hour week, and I'm not even going to the gym.

DAY 108 - SAt.u.r.dAY 3 NOVEMBER 2001.

I've written several times about the boredom of weekends, but something takes place today that turns the normal torpor into frantic activity.

8.50 am The photographers have returned. They either missed getting a good shot yesterday, or work for the Sundays who want a 'today pic'. I agree with the deputy governor, Mr Berlyn, to do another walk on, walk off, in order to get rid of them once and for all. He seems grateful.

2.00 pm I'm expecting a visit from my son James.

When I enter the visitors' room I can't see him, but then spot someone waving at me. It turns out to be my son. He's grown a beard. I hate it, and tell him so, which is a bit rough, as he's just travelled 120 miles to see me.

James tells me that my legal team are concentrating their efforts on my appeal. Mr and Mrs Barker have confirmed that they heard the judge discussing me at a dinner party over a year before I was arrested. This could change my appeal.

5.00 pm Doug and I are having tea in the hospital when Clive strolls in to announce that he's moving to another room..

'Why?' I ask, when he has the largest s.p.a.ce in the prison.

'Because they're fitting electrics into all the other rooms.' I can't believe he'd give up his large abode in exchange for a TV. 'If you want to move in, Jeffrey, you'd better come over to the south block now.' We all go off in search of the duty officer, who approves the move. I spend the next two hours, a.s.sisted by Alan (selling stolen goods), transferring all my possessions from the north block to the south, while Clive moves into a little single room at the other end of the corridor.

I am now lodged in a room twenty-one by sixteen feet. Most prisoners a.s.sume I've paid Clive some vast sum of money to move out and make way for me, whereas the truth is that Clive wanted out. There is only one disadvantage. There always has to be a disadvantage. My new abode is next to the TV room, but as that's turned off at eleven each night, and I rarely leave Doug in the hospital before 10.30 pm, I don't think it will be a real problem.

I now have an interesting job, a better room, edible food and 8.50 a week. What more could a man ask for?

DAY 109 - SUNDAY 4 NOVEMBER 2001.

6.19 am Write for two hours before I join Doug at the hospital. We watch David Frost, whose guests include Northern Ireland's Chief Constable of the Police Service Sir Ronnie Flanagan. While discussing the morning papers, Sir Ronnie says that it's an infringement of my privacy that the tabloid press are taking pictures of me while I'm in jail. The pictures are fine, but the articles border on the farcical.

A security officer later points out that two tabloids have by-lines attributed to women, and there hasn't been a female journalist or photographer seen by anyone at NSC during the past three weeks.

12 noon Over lunch I sit opposite an inmate called Andy, who is a rare phenomenon in any jail as he previously served ten years as a prison officer. He is now doing a seven-year sentence, having pleaded guilty to smuggling drugs into prison for an inmate. Andy tells me that the only reason he did so was because the inmate in question was threatening to have his daughter beaten up. She was married to an ex-prisoner.

'Did you fall for that one, Jeffrey?' I hear you ask. Yes, I did.

The police presented irrefutable evidence to the jury showing that Andy's daughter had been threatened, and asked the judge to take this into consideration when he pa.s.sed sentence. Although Andy claims he didn't know what was in the packages, the final one he smuggled in, a box of Cadbury's Quality Street, contained four grams of pure heroin.

Had it been cannabis, he might have been sentenced to a year or eighteen months. If he hadn't confessed, he might have got away with a suspension. He tells me that he knew he would eventually be caught, and once he was called in for questioning, he wanted to get the whole thing off his chest.

Andy was initially sent to HMP Gartree (B... cat), with a new ident.i.ty and a different offence on his charge sheet. He had to be moved the moment he was recognized by an old lag. From there he went to Swalesdale, where he lasted twenty-four hours. He was then moved on to Elmsley, a s.e.x offenders' prison, where he lived on the same landing as Roy Whiting, who was convicted of the murder of Sarah Payne. Once he'd earned his D-cat, Andy came to NSC, where he'll complete his sentence.

The only other comment he makes, which I've heard repeated again and again and therefore consider worthy of mention, is, 's.e.x offenders live in far better conditions than any other prisoners.'

DAY 110 - MONDAY 5 NOVEMBER 2001.

8.28 am When I was an MP I often heard the sentiment expressed that life should mean life. I am reminded of this because we have a lifers' board meeting at SMU today.

There are nine lifers at NSC and you can be fairly confident that if they've reached a D-cat, they won't consider absconding. In truth, they're all fairly harmless. Two of them go out each day to work in an old people's home, one in a library in Boston and another for the local Oxfam shop.

Linda, their probation officer, joins us for coffee during the morning break. She adds to the research I've pieced together over the past three months. I began my prison life at Belmarsh on a spur with twenty-three murderers. Lifers range from cold-blooded killers like Denis Nielsen, who pleaded guilty to murdering thirteen victims, down to Chris, who killed his wife in a fit of rage after finding her in bed with another man; he's already spent fourteen years regretting his loss of temper. Nielsen began his sentence, and will end it, in the highest security A-category facility. He is currently locked up in a SSU (a special security unit), a sort of prison within a prison. When he moves anywhere within the prison, he is always accompanied by at least two officers and a dog, and he is searched every time he leaves his cell or returns to it. At night, he places all his clothes outside the cell door, and an officer hands them back to him the following morning.

Nielsen told PO New on several occasions that it would have been better for everyone if they'd hanged him.

Now that the IRA terrorists are no longer locked up on the mainland, of the 1,800 murderers in custody, there are currently only seven SSU inmates.

Now Chris, who killed his wife, is at the other end of the scale. He's reached D-cat status after eleven years, and works in the kitchens. He therefore has access to several instruments with which he could kill or maim. Only yesterday, I watched him chopping up some meat rather efficiently. He hopes that the parole board will agree to release him in eighteen months' time. During the past eleven years, he has moved from A... cat to D-cat via seventeen jails, three of them in one weekend when he was driven to Preston, Swalesdale and Whitemoor, only to find each time that they didn't have a cell for him.

All nine lifers at NSC will be interviewed today, so further reports can be sent to the Home Office to help decide if they are ready to return to the outside world. The Home Office will make the final decision; they are traditionally rather conservative and accept about 60 per cent of the board's recommendations. The board convenes at 9 am when Linda, the lifers' probation officer, is joined by the deputy governor, Mr Berlyn, a psychiatrist called Christine and the lifers' prison officer.

The first prisoner in front of the board is Peter, who set fire to a police station. He's so far served thirty-one years, and frankly is now a great helpless hunk of a man who has become so inst.i.tutionalized that the parole board will probably have to transfer him straight to an old-peoples' home. Peter told me he has to serve at least another eighteen months before the board would be willing to consider his case. I don't think he'll ever be released, other than in a coffin.

The next to come in front of the board is Leon.

The biggest problem lifers face is their prison records. For the first ten years of their sentences, they can see no light at the end of the tunnel, so the threat of another twentyeight days added to their sentence is hardly a deterrent. After ten years, Linda says there is often a sea change in a lifer's att.i.tude that coincides with their move to a B-cat and then again when they reach a C-cat. This is even more p.r.o.nounced when they finally arrive at a D-cat and can suddenly believe release is possible.

By the way, it's almost unknown for a lifer to abscond. Not only would they be returned to an A-cat closed prison, but its possible they never would be considered for parole again.

However, most of the lifers being interviewed today have led a farily blameless existence for the past five years, although there are often scars, missing teeth and broken bones to remind them of their first ten years in an A-cat.

During the day, each of them goes meekly in to face the board. No swagger, no swearing, no att.i.tude; that alone could set them back another year.

Leon is followed by Michael, then Chris, Roger, Bob, John, John and John (a coincidence not acceptable in a novel). At the end of the day, Linda comes out exhausted. By the way, they all adore her. She not only knows their life histories to the minutest detail, but also treats them as human beings.

4.00 pm Only one other incident of note today the appearance at SMU of a man who killed a woman in a road accident and was sentenced to three years for dangerous driving. He's a mild-mannered chap who asked me for help with his book on Kurdistan. Mr New tells me that he is going to be transferred to another jail. The husband of his victim lives in Boston and, as the inmate is coming up for his first town visit, the victim's husband has objected on the grounds that he might come across him in his daily life.

The inmate joins me after his meeting with Mr New. He's philosophical about the decision. He accepts that the victim's family have every right to ask for him to be moved.

He's so clearly racked with guilt, and seems destined to relive this terrible incident for the rest of his life, that I find myself trying to comfort him. In truth, he's a different kind of lifer.

10.00 pm It must be Guy Fawkes Day, because from my little window I can see fireworks exploding over Boston.

DAY 111 - TUESDAY 6 NOVEMBER 2001.

5.49 am The big news in the camp today is that from 1 November, NSC is to become a resettlement prison. (No doubt you will have noticed that it's 6 November.) The change of status could spell survival for NSC, which has been under threat of closure for several years.

Resettlement means quite simply that once a prisoner has reached his FLED (facility licence eligibility date) in my case July next year he can take a job outside the prison working for fifty-five hours a week, not including travelling time. The whole atmosphere of the prison will change when inmates are translated into outmates. They will leave the prison every morning between seven and eight, and not return until seven in the evening.

Prisoners will be able to earn 150 to 200 a week, just as Clive does as a line manager for Exotic Foods. It will be interesting to see how quickly NSC implements the new Home Office directive.

8.30 am Seven new arrivals at NSC today, who complete their induction talk and labour board by 11.21 am. My job as SMU orderly is now running smoothly, although Matthew tells me that an officer said that for the first week I made the worst cup of tea of any orderly in history. But now that I've worked out how to avoid tea leaves ending up in the mug, I need a fresh challenge.

2.30 pm Mr New warns me that the prison is reaching full capacity, and they might have to put a second bed in my room. Not that they want anyone to share with me, after the News of the World covered three pages with the life history of my last unfortunate cell-mate. It's simply a gesture to prove to other inmates that my s.p.a.cious abode is not a single dwelling.

5.00 pm I write, or to be more accurate, work on the sixth draft of my latest novel Sons of Fortune.

7.00 pm Doug and I watch Channel 4 news. Fighting breaks out in Stormont during David Trimble's press conference following his reappointment as First Minister. If what I am witnessing on television were to take place at NSC, they would all lose their privileges and be sent back to closed conditions.

Doug has a natural gift of timing, and waits until the end of the news before he drops his bombsh.e.l.l. The monthly prison committee meeting made up in equal numbers of staff and prisoners is to have its next get-together on Friday. The governor is chairman, and among the five prison representatives are Doug and Clive; two men who understand power, however limited.

Doug tells me that the main item on the agenda will be resettlement, and he intends to apply to work at his haulage company in Cambridgeshire. His application fulfils the recommended criteria, as March is within the fifty-five-mile radius. It is also the job he will return to once he's released, relieving his wife of the pressure of running the company while he's been locked up.

But now for the consequences. His job as hospital orderly the most sought-after position in the prison will become available.

He makes it clear that if I want the job, he will happily make a recommendation to Linda, who has already hinted that such an appointment would meet with her approval.

This would mean my moving into the hospital, and although I'd be working seven days a week, there is an added advantage of a pay rise of 3.20 so, with my personal income of 10, I'd have over 20 a week to spend in the canteen.

But the biggest luxury of all would be sleeping in the hospital, which has an ensuite bathroom, a sixteen-inch TV and a fridge. It's too much to hope for, and might even tempt me to stay at NSC well, at least until my FLED.

DAY 112 - WEDNESDAY 7 NOVEMBER 2001.

5.58 am They call him Mick the Key. He arrived yesterday, and if he hadn't been turned down for a job in the kitchens, I might never have heard his story. Even now I'm not sure how much of it I believe.

Originally sentenced to two years for breaking and entering, Mick is now serving his ninth year. They have only risked moving him to a D-cat for his last twelve weeks. The reason is simple. Mick likes escaping, or a.s.sisting others to escape, and he has one particular gift that aids him in this enterprise. He only needs to look at a key once and he can reproduce it. He first commits the shape to memory, then draws the outline on a piece of paper, before transferring that onto a bar of prison soap the first impression of the key. The next stage is to reproduce the image in plastic, using prison knives or forks. He then covers the newly minted key with thick paint he obtains from the works department. The next day he has a key.

During his years in prison, Mick has been able to open not only his own cell door, but also anyone else's. In fact, while he was at Whitemoor, they closed the prison for twenty-four hours because they had to change the locks on all 500 cells.

Getting out of prison is only half the enjoyment, this charming Irishman tells me, 'Getting into kitchens, stores or even the governor's office adds to the quality of one's life. In fact,' he concludes, 'my greatest challenge was opening the hospital drugs cabinet in under an hour.' On that occasion, the officers knew who was responsible, but as nothing was missing (Mick says he's never taken a drug in his life), they could only charge him 'on suspicion', and were later unable to make the charge stick.