I can hear the tap tap tap of a razor on a wash basin. Its distinctive sound resonates off the cold tiled wall of a bathroom somewhere behind the closed bedroom door. Gingerly I open one eye and begin to explore my unfamiliar surroundings, and instantly tiny, fragmented memories from last night slowly begin to slide into place. They form a disjoined and potentially ruinous story, a jigsaw puzzle where all the framework is...

A thick fog had descended on us. It came creeping off the Thames at dusk and now clung to every corner of the city, still and unmoving. It was Saturday night, October 31st, Halloween. I was sitting in the back of a black Mercedes Benz, wearing a black tuxedo with a black flash drive hidden in the heel of my right shoe. I was nervous and I could hear my heart beating hard in my chest while all the time there was a constant...

Seven weeks later, I was taken in a wheelchair by a nurse, a hospital porter and my mother, from ward 3B on the fourth floor, into a service lift heading to level zero. Somebody within the walls of this building had leaked the news of my discharge to the press, and by 8.30 that morning a small group of hacks and paparazzi had gathered outside the hospital, all hungry for a quote or picture of yours truly. My consultant, D...

BEEP…BEEP…BEEP. Plumes of thick smoke rise from the small piles of burning leaves that are dotted around the ancient church cemetery, stinging the eyes of the mourners and choking their lungs, as they file out into the murky gloom of the graveyard, their steps marked by the heavy toll of the church bell. The leaden sun of early winter is slowly dimming in the dusk of the late afternoon. The procession of formally dressed...

June 2016 <Woke up early with this sickly feeling in the pit of my stomach. As I write this the sun is just breaking through, casting a golden glow onto the painted brickwork above the cell door, bringing a new day and what should be a new chance at life. This is the last morning that I will wake up in this godforsaken place. Over the course of the last eighteen months, I have gone over this moment so many times in my...

December 2015 < It was another sleepless night; I have got kind of used to the odd noises that resonate inside this old building. Not only the clicks and clangs from the ageing pipework, but the guys who shout out indecipherable nonsense in their sleep, fighting their own personal demons, but last night I had so much crammed inside my head that it was impossible to relax. It is two days before Christmas. The first, and...

November 2015 < Incarceration. Whoever it was that first devised that word and its meaning, captured the cold isolation that exists inside this institution perfectly. Locked away from the world and loved ones, unable to do anything but wait. Even the most trivial of events, a walk in the park or a pint of beer in a pub garden, now seem so precious to me. Three weeks have passed since I saw the footage of the woman on t...

October 2015 < News travels quickly in this place, bad news I found out travels quicker. The whispers and furtive, sideways looks at breakfast time told me that there have been a development. I could imagine what was being said, if I were in their position I would probably be thinking the same. Of course, they left it to the king to deliver her decision. > *** “Well, the lady called,” Dolan said, standing in front o...

August 2015 < Michael Dolan arrived at my cell door last night. Dolan is or was an infamous London gangster. He was also the psychotic ringleader of a gang of thugs here. He is what they call a ‘lifer,’ in for a string of violent offences in the 1990s, including prostitution, arson, extortion and murder, most notably the sadistic torture and killing of a gangland rival. The court case dominated the newspapers for weeks...

Part one Spring 2020. The streets were quiet and empty. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, not even a single line of vapour trail spoiled the perfectly clear blue. My children were playing happily in the back garden and enjoying the unseasonably warm spring sunshine. Thankfully, the weather had been kind and we had the space for them to let off steam. With the pandemic lockdown in full force, my wife and I decided to try ou...

I can’t explain it, and I’m really not sure I want to. It’s been there for so long that I can’t remember a time when it wasn’t, this desire for vulnerability, the risk of being caught, and the exhilarating threat of exposure and humiliation that it brings. Even after all these years, if I think about it, I can still almost feel my first ever orgasm. Of all the places, it happened in the swimming pool at school. The teache...

“How much did David Hamilton know of your affair with his wife?” I heard the question as soon as the last word of the statement had been completed.  It pierced the silence like a gunshot. The female reporter sat on the end of a row about halfway up in this crowded press room. Her question proved to be a catalyst, setting off a frenzy of barely comprehensible noise from her colleagues.  Of the few questions that I understo...

“Penny for them,” Sally said, her voice drawing me back into the room, as would a hypnotist clicking his fingers. We were now alone. She sat in a wicker chair in the corner facing me as a low murmur of thunder sounded over the hills in the distance. “What?” “What?!” She mocked, impersonating my cockney accent, “You were miles away, sweetie.” I felt the right side of my neck, running over the tip of my finger over the sore...

Sunday morning   My dad always called my mother a witch. You see, she has this sixth sense, ‘a feeling,’ she calls it. She instinctively knows when something, normally bad, is going to happen, and that is what I was experiencing at that moment. It was a knot in the pit of my stomach that sent uneasy signals to my brain. I haven’t a clue what made me feel that way or why this feeling had arrived, but it had. And I didn’t l...

Late evening The soft lapping of the water against the side of the boat and the rhythmic putt putt of the motor were failing to be a calming influence as I fought against the waves of claustrophobia.  I’m not sure exactly how long we had been on the boat, or how far we had traveled, but I did know that I had spent far too long inside this airless hood. I caught snatches of muffled conversation and laughter, but not enough...