Cameron Yorke's Blog, page 3

My review of 'Homicide: A view from Inside the Yellow Tape' by Cloyd Steiger

Homicide: A View from Inside the Yellow Tape by Cloyd Steiger

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Cloyd Steiger
Homicide: The View from Inside the Yellow Tape

The real truth of the life of a Homicide Detective in Seattle, USA. Witty, fast paced and undeniably American, this book almost reads like the narration of an old black and white television cop show of the 1940's. A little grammatically lacking at times, it is generally well written and maintains its pace throughout, with injections of humour and wonderfully colourful use of analogy and self-deprecation. Thoroughly entertaining.



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Teaser! First Three Chapters of 'Double Bubble - Inside Britain's Prisons' - FREE!

PrefaceI’d had a pretty good idea that this time I wasn’t going to be granted bail from the start. Everything from the past 16 months had been building to this point, and now it had all come crashing down around my ears. In some ways I was resigned to my fate. In actual fact, I had not been living for the past few months, rather going through the motions and waiting for whatever was going to happen. I was tired, disenfranchised, and sick of the daily drudge of dealing with utter cunts who had no thought for anyone else but themselves. I’d been pushed and pulled from pillar to post, attacked on all sides – everyone wanted a piece of me; I had been pursued by clients who wanted the best product for the best price, hangers on who wanted drugs for free, suppliers who wanted me to move huge volumes of gear for the highest profit they could extract, not to mention the Police who were constantly hovering like scavengers around a rubbish tip, persistently harassing me, eager to catch me out and prove to the world that they were winning the ‘war on drugs’. All of the above were quite capable of exacting violence, verbal and physical abuse if they didn’t get their own way, as I’d often discovered, to my own detriment. I’d so far lost five teeth, been gang raped at gunpoint, had a knife held to my throat at more than one occasion, and was living in an environment where I would constantly have to think about safeguarding my possessions, least they be pilfered by my so called friends. I had been trying desperately to pull myself out of this downwards spiral, but the harder I tried, the deeper I sank, so now, as I sat on the stairs outside my apartment waiting for the police to sift through the contents of my life, I could almost feel a sense of relief wash over me that the game was finally over. I was horrified at the idea of going to prison, and petrified at the thought of what would happen to me once there, but at least it would give me an escape from the constant demands from all sides that I was fielding on a daily basis. I was tired of everything! I’d given up the daily grind of even the most basic tasks such as shopping or cleaning, and had recognised that I no longer even bothered to take any pride in my own appearance, something I had been particularly vain about in the past.Physically, I was also in pain – my feet were so red and sore that I could hardly even walk on them, my back ached, I had severe stomach cramps and a constant headache from lack of sleep. Every time the phone rang or there was a knock on the door, a feeling of dread flooded over me. Where once I had been extremely vivacious and outgoing, I now wanted to hide away from the world. I had grown sick of constantly entertaining people who lied to me and stole from me on a daily basis, sick of trying to conceal the bruises and cuts I sustained whenever my suppliers came and realised I hadn’t sold as many drugs as they wanted. I had got myself into a situation where I could not escape, no matter how hard I tried. I couldn’t leave the country, as the police had my passport, although even that had long since expired by now. I couldn’t even leave the area, as I was on bail and although my tag had been removed just prior to Christmas, I was still on a door stop curfew, which meant that the police could arrive at any time during the evening and if I was not behind my door, I would be subject to breach of bail conditions, and bail would immediately be revoked. I had tried to move house three times, and on each attempt, I had been found and severely dealt with by my suppliers. Hell, even the loathsome clients I had hoped to lose in the move, by omitting to inform them of my new address and deleting them from my phone, had somehow managed to find me, and I now faced a torrent of abuse from them at excluding them from my circle on influence. Something had to give!Banged UpI was resigned to the outcome before it was even confirmed. After the somewhat short, but now rather familiar ride to Holborn in the back of the police van and the inevitable procedure that followed, I once again found myself locked away in the bleak metropolitan police lock-up overnight, awaiting Saturday morning court. Again I'd been provided with a poor people's solicitor, as I'd kicked my incredibly expensive, incredibly corrupt and incredibly ineffectual one to the curb, so would have to start the entire procedure all over again. The fellow who served me this time was a youngish looking black guy with a shock of dreadlocks, but frankly it didn't matter what he looked like, or even in fact whether he was there or not, because the advice had been the same – no comment to everything, and by now I could have handled that on my own. I wasn't frightened at all about the procedure, having been through everything on numerous occasions over the past six months. I was however, mortified at the thought of prison; how I would cope with it, what they would do to me in there, and whether I would even make it out alive! One hears stories from others about what goes on, but generally those who have been inside and really know, don't like to talk too much about it, and anyway, to date, I only knew one other person who had been incarcerated before. Jay, my drug dealer, had changed the subject whenever it had been brought up in the past, so I was completely flying blind, not knowing what to expect, and I suspected that many of the tales I had heard in the past had in fact been either bragging or old wives tales. Either way, I was about to find out!Next day in court played out exactly as I'd expected, and frankly was a complete blur, so overcome with worry was I at the prospect of years behind bars, and in fact almost the only words I managed to remember from the entire hearing was the Judge saying that as this was a second offence, committed whilst on bail, I would be looking at years, rather than months. By 2pm I was again handcuffed and bundled into the 'sweatbox', the name they use to refer to the armoured vans used by Serco and G4S to transport prisoners to and from facilities across the country. So named because each prisoner is detained in a 60cm x 60cm square aluminium cubicle with a hard seat, and no air circulation so as I was to find out on numerous occasions throughout my ordeal, you would soon be sweating like an animal, no matter what time of year it was, on any journey over about quarter of an hour in length. Fortunately the distance to HMP Pentonville was less than five minutes around the corner from Highbury Corner Court where I was remanded, but what I was spared in travel distance, I made up for in worry and anxiety at what was to come, so by the time I arrived the result was the same.One by one we were led into a bare, grey, gloss painted room with graffiti etched into its walls, dust and grime all over everything, and an old analogue TV mounted on a precarious bracket in the corner, which had obviously not been operable for a good many moons! I know all this because I used the time sitting there to studiously avoid the looks from any of the other inmates lined up along the wall beside me awaiting a similar fate, unsure what the protocol was, and frankly unwilling to find out. About the only person I can recall was an uber-tall black guy, clad in shiny blue disco trousers, Doc Martens and a full length fur coat, who paced endlessly up and down in front of the wall of reinforced glass windows which looked out into an equally dirty, dull and depressing hallway where we were spasmodically being called from and led down, further into the depths of the prison bowels.Finally it was my turn to be led away down the corridor to a steel covered desk where all my personal belongings were upended from my bag and displayed for the three prison officers in attendance to see.'Oh look! Everything matches!' one cried out in amazement. I failed to see the relevance. Obviously the police had already removed anything of interest, including the drugs I'd had packaged ready for delivery to a couple of clients on my way to lunch with friends, my mobile phones which I had expected, but I noted with alarm that my wallet was missing too, in fact all that was left were my keys - two sets, my cigarette case, and sunglasses case, all Louis Vuitton, and my SJ Du Pont Gold lighter, along with my Cartier Tank watch, so yes, I guess they did match. These of course were all prohibited items and were therefore going to be sent away to the prison storage facility, and my cigarettes were also not allowed as the packet was already open, so they disappeared as well. Next I was moved into an open fronted cubicle and asked to surrender my clothing one item at a time, which was shaken out and the pockets checked before being handed back to me.'Drop your underwear and give em a flick' one of them instructed while the rest looked on. If I was ever under any doubt that my freedom and basic civil liberties had been rescinded, after this exercise I was now under no illusion. Obviously I'd not been shy in dropping my pants in front of a crowd of similarly sexually charged boys continuously over the past twelve months at any of the countless naked, drug-fueled sex orgies I'd conducted in my flat in my intoxicated state, but now, stone cold sober, having to do it to order was a far different kettle of fish. Humiliated doesn't even begin to describe how I felt, but I supposed I would have to get used to this treatment from now on. Next they assigned me a bundle of prison issue grey tracksuits, polyester socks and oversized cotton boxer shorts, and I was herded into another holding room, reunited with all the others who had been processed before me, and handed a microwaved box of cardboard chilli and rice – By then the clock on the wall showed that it was 4pm so I guessed this was dinner!After a short wait, I was called again, and escorted through to see the nurse, where another raft of questions ensued – the same old police routine regurgitated.'Are you on any medication?'Do you have a history of depression, anxiety, or mental health issues?''Have you ever had any thoughts of suicide?'These had already been answered, and frankly were totally superfluous, apart from the first one, but even that didn't matter because I soon learned I would not be allowed them anyway. I had begged the police to retrieve my false teeth, but this had been met with mirth. I'd recently spent a considerable sum of money in finally having mine overhauled after many years without dental attention, and whilst waiting for the gums to settle sufficiently to enable implants and porcelain caps to be fitted, they had provided me with dentures as I only had six teeth left on the top and eight on the bottom. I also had tablets for the ongoing problems with my throat, where I had been due to meet the consultant in two days time for a biopsy for suspected throat cancer, so this was of grave concern, but I was quickly told they could not provide the medication, and I would not be keeping the appointment.Although I wasn't unwilling to admit it at the time, I was already suffering from depression and anxiety, not helped by this situation, but of course having heard stories of inmates being sedated and isolated in custody to deal with these 'issues' there was no way I would have subjected myself to that, and yes, I had absolutely contemplated suicide over the past few months, and at this present moment I certainly couldn't rule it out, but I'd be damned if I would tell them that either – If I was going to do it, I would make sure I did it well and succeeded – If I was going to do it, I didn't need them to try and 'save' me!I also had another problem – I was due at the Coroners Court for the hearing for the guy who had died in my sitting room some months earlier, presumably of a GBL overdose. I'd been summoned as a witness obviously, and was told It was imperative that I attended. This was not going to happen now either, as the hearing was tomorrow, and apparently according to Prison protocol, they can't schedule outside appointments where the prisoner knows in advance, in case they attempt to gain assistance in breaking out along the way. This was particularly laughable, as since the time of my arrest, I had not been allowed to talk to anyone on the phone, so no-one knew where I was, let alone that I would be en route from HMP Pentonville to the Coroners Court. Still, I reasoned, what were they going to do if I didn't show up? Arrest me?I advised the nurse of all my other health issues, and was told not to worry, they would take care of it all, then they ushered me through to another room where an enormous black man in another grime ridden, gloss painted, steel clad 'office' asked me if I smoked and gave me half an ounce of tobacco, a lighter and a pack of rizla papers. What was I supposed to do with that? I had never rolled a cigarette in my entire life! Not having ever been a pot smoker, I didn't even know how to roll a joint! I normally only ever smoked Cartier or Davidoff cigarettes, and usually once a week I would take myself off to the tobacconist in the basement at Selfridges and stock up on them as well as my weekly pack of Davidoff cigarillos. I could also get new flints and gas for my Du Pont lighter at the same time. I detested roll-ups, and thought the habit vulgar and common, but at the time I was so nervous and worried about everything, that I needed tobacco to take my mind off everything around me. I settled down to teach myself to roll, managing to spill most of the tobacco over the desk and floor, but it kept me busy for half an hour.Finally one by one they escorted us to cells on A wing, which was daunting to say the least, although I shouldn't have been too surprised as in reality when I thought about it, it looked exactly as the images I'd seen in the newspaper or on television, every time a prison story had been reported in the past five years. The cells themselves however were a different story. The door clanged open and I was deposited in a room about 10 ft long by 8ft wide, with a set of bunks along one wall and two small desk-like tables along the other, followed by a wall about 4ft high which screened the toilet and hand basin – well, I say screened... It may have stopped anyone who looked in through the narrow glass observation panel in the door from watching you while you took a shit, but there was no privacy from the fellow on the top bunk should he choose to look!My cellmate was a black guy of about 60, from Jamaica, although he had lived in Britain for almost his entire life. He was quick to regale me with stories of his conviction. He was a heroin dealer, but had not been arrested for drugs. Instead he'd had a client who hadn't paid, so he and a couple of mates had been driving over to this fellows house to “cut 'im up wit da machete, mun,”when the police had stopped them for speeding, searched the car and found the machete, hidden in his shirt down his back, so he had been charged with holding a prohibited weapon, and sentenced to 28 days prison. He reckoned he'd had a lucky escape, although he was worried about his stash. Evidently he was also a carpenter by trade, and had been renovating a clients kitchen, so had concealed some £50k worth of gear under the floorboards of the house whilst he worked there, however now he had been away for three weeks and had not found anyone he could trust to go back to the premises and collect it. I envied him. If this was the worst of his problems, he was in a far better place than me!Actually he wasn't as bad as I'd first thought. He soon gave me a running commentary on how things were run here, what the routine was and what to expect regarding food, hygiene and lock-up times, which was lucky really, because apart from dumping me in the cell with a complete stranger who could have been an axe murderer for all I knew – and almost was, the Prison officers hadn't told me any of this. I learnt that there were manual jobs available where you could earn money, and education courses which also entitled you to a payment, although neither was going to make you rich, in fact it was barely enough to pay for an ounce of tobacco a week, and the way I was wasting it due to my lack of rolling skills, I would need at least two! He showed me a copy of the education course list and most of it appeared to be fairly basic English and maths, but that was really the least of my problems. They had given me a phone pin, and told me that if I needed to ring anyone, I would have to do it that afternoon before I'd been locked up, but the only phone available was in the holding room where we had eaten our dinner, and it hadn't been working, so by now it was Saturday night, and no-one knew where I was. I needed to get hold of Tom, and organise for him to go and collect all my belongings, as currently I wasn't even sure that my flat was locked.By 5.30pm we were ‘banged up’ for the night. My cellmate asked if I minded if he prayed on the floor in front of the toilets. It was the only area big enough to lay out his prayer mat. Frankly, compared to what I'd imagined might happen to me in here, praying was a relief. By 10pm he was finished and soon fell asleep on the top bunk, but I knew that it would be many hours before I could even contemplate retiring, so I sat down with a couple of pieces of scrap paper, and started to make a list of all the contents of the flat. Next, I made another one of all the people who owed me money, and then rearranged them in order of how likely I was to get it out of them. I knew that most of the people that I'd been dealing with had been low-life scum, and had refused credit to them, but there were a handful who I had rightly or wrongly called friends, and now that I was in here without the benefit of being able to prepare for it, I would have to rely on these people to pay up in order to survive! I then made another list of all the contents of the storage shed I'd been renting around the corner in St John's Wood. If I was brutally honest with myself, I would have to make plans to have all these arrangements wound up, and someone would have to dispose of all the excess assets I had lying around the district because it looked like I was going to be here for quite some time. Giving myself something to do kept my mind off the horror of where I was, and what might become of me – I seemed to be in a bit of a daze at the time, and couldn't quite believe what had happened. Eventually I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer, and fell into a troubled sleep.I woke with a start at 9am as the cell door clanged open. Mr B, My cellmate was off to church. I would have gone too, if only to get out of the hideous cell for an hour or so, but as I wasn't on the list, I wasn't allowed. Evidently the pastor would be around to talk to me later in the week, and I could put my name down if I decided to go next week. Left again to my own devices, I spent the morning revising my lists and making others, this time of names of possible people I might ask to help me out with the ever growing number of chores to be carried out in the coming weeks. This was all well and good, but not having had access to the telephone anyway, I would have to wait until my numbers had been added to my pin, and God only knew how long that would take.Mr B arrived back at around 11.30am, and then half an hour later we were unlocked for lunch – just enough time to walk down to the servery, line up while our orders were read out, collect it and walk back to the cell. As I had only just arrived, I was on default so got what they had spare.. Lunch was a fry up, and not exactly a culinary delight, but certainly better than I had thought it would be. Maybe things wouldn't be as difficult in here as I thought. After lunch as we were locked up all afternoon, My thoughts turned to washing. I hadn't had a shower since midday Friday, and by the looks of it, I would be waiting a while longer! My B had said that they usually opened the shower room for an hour or so every second day, and two landings would have to jockey to get a spot, but on weekends it was never open. He had quite openly told me that he had given up, and would have a shower when he got home a week later, as it was too difficult to manage in here. I had been used to a shower at least once a day, quite often twice, so I was damn sure I wasn't going to wait until I got out of here – that could be months, or even years away! I'd been in the same clothes for two days continuously too, so as much as I hated the idea of my prison issue garb, and in the absence of a shower, I decided I would at least feel a little fresher in a clean tracksuit and underwear. I probably looked horrendous, I couldn't tell because there was no mirror, but then I reasoned, there had been no one in here so far worth looking pretty for!We didn't have a television either. My predecessor had sold it to another inmate for a bag of 'spice'. My B. had asked the officers repeatedly for another one, but apparently the answer had been the same on each occasion,'Not our problem, there are none spare, you'll have to wait until you're moved to another wing.' So far Mr B had been on this wing for the past three weeks, and it looked like he would be here until he was discharged a week later, and it also looked like there would be no television for the foreseeable future.Monday morning dawned and I awoke early, keen to get things sorted and find out what was in store for me over the coming weeks and months. 'Mr B' had a maths class scheduled for the morning, however as yet, I had no idea about my day. Eight o'clock struck and a deafening siren rang out across the wing, followed by someone screaming out 'free-flow'. Apparently the doors were open for 20 minutes or so to enable inmates to travel from their cells to their places of work or education. Mr B was off, and I was left standing in the doorway, with no idea what to do. Before long an officer came along and handed me a strip of paper. I was to see the sexual health nurse. Evidently they wanted to take some blood tests and screen me for Hep B. I had already told them I had been inoculated for hep A and B, but that didn't seem to matter. I had no idea where to go but that didn't matter either.'Down the end of the landing, turn left' He bellowed at me, looking at me as if I was demented. I followed his advice and knocked on the door, and waited.'What the hell are you doing hanging around here?' another one demanded. Evidently I was just supposed to open the door and go straight in. Who knew? I was at my wits end, in a complete fog. Everything looked the same. For the next few weeks there would always be someone bellowing, whenever I was out of my cell, but I was soon to work out, disgusting as it was, that the best option seemed to be just not venture out for anything apart from the bare necessities. Once inside the sexual health clinic they were much friendlier, The nurse told me to sit down while she prepared everything, then fastened a tourniquet, pulled out a needle and tried, without success to find a vein. I must confess, my arms had seen better days, but I had become so used to self medicating by now that I could normally hit a vein within 3,5 seconds, in fact, after about four failed attempts, I volunteered to find it for her, but of course that was not allowed. Eventually they decided to get me back later in the week when the doctor was in, and try again with him, so I was allowed to go.Just then another siren went off, sounding a bit like those blasts you hear on movies when submarines are in trouble, and the word 'lock-down' blared across the loud speakers. Again I had no idea what was happening, but the nurse was quick to point out that I would now need to stay here until a full head count had been done, as there was either someone missing, or there was an 'incident' somewhere on the wing. She made me a cup of coffee, and we sat chatting about what I had been doing on the outside. Not the drug fucked orgies of course, but the writing and film stuff, and she was fascinated, only stopping to ask'What on earth are you doing in here?' This was a question I would ask myself numerous times over the coming months, and only served at this point to illustrate how incredibly stupid and foolhardy I had been! After about half an hour, an officer came running into the clinic, before yelling,'What the hell are you doing in here?' It seems they had been looking for me, I was the 'incident'. I was promptly escorted back to my cell and locked up again until lunchtime. Before long another officer opened the cell door'Where the fuck were you?' He demanded 'They wanted you for education assessment!''No one had told me, and even if they had, I wouldn't have known where to go anyway,' I replied. Frankly I'd had enough of being treated like an idiot!'Can you try not to sound so fucking superior? With an attitude like that you can fuck off,' As he slammed the cell door again and stormed off. I would gladly fuck off, Idiot! Where did he think I could fuck off to?I was in despair at how I would ever get used to this place – there was neither rhyme nor reason to anything they did. I would have thought that being on an induction wing they would show you where everything was, and how everything was supposed to work, but clearly that was not the case. Lunch was served at 11.45, and I'm afraid the quality had slipped from Sunday's fare. Potatoes which looked OK, but had obviously been boiled without being washed because they tasted not only of dirt, but of rotten potato blight as well. These were accompanied by a rather weak looking stew or curry or something, the taste was indecipherable. Wet and brown with bits floating in it, was the only way to describe it. Two mouthfuls of potato and I started heaving my guts out, so I made do with the 3 slices of stale bread which came with it.The following afternoon was torturous. Mr B. had nothing scheduled for the afternoon, so he spent the entire time until dinner, pacing up and down the cell. He had developed a nervous twitch and his lips started flapping together which made an annoying, relentlessly hollow clapping sound, a bit like flipflops on pavement. I tried concentrating on my lists again, but it was too much so I lay on my bunk staring at the ceiling, wondering how the hell I was ever going to extricate myself from this mess. I had another more immediate problem as well. My case had been bound over for the crown court on the 5th March, approximately a month away, and I was without legal counsel. The little guy with the dreads who had represented me in the police station, had given me the details for his boss, but as I had no access to a telephone, I couldn't call them. I decided I would have to write a letter, but at present I didn't have anything on which to write it, and requests for paper and pen from officers fell on deaf ears. It seemed the further into this mess I got, the less chance there was of ever getting out of it!I was jolted from my thoughts by the door clanging open again, this time to a tall, skinny woman in hippy style attire, who called my name and then took me outside onto the landing to ask me some more questions.'Where do you live?''Marital status?''Have you ever been a victim of domestic abuse?''Are you on medication for depression?''What's your occupation?'' Do you have a drug or alcohol problem?'I had no idea where these questions were leading? Who was this woman? And why the hell should I tell her all the intimate details of my life? For all I knew she would be around to my house while I was in here, and clean the place out. When I asked her she muttered something about providing assistance for dealing with family issues on the outside, but I didn't need help with family – I didn't have any family in Britain, what I really needed was access to a phone, help in engaging a lawyer, and someone to tell me exactly how everything in here worked so that I wasn't constantly running into brick walls with everything I needed, but this was met with a blank stare.Interestingly though, the Drug and alcohol question got me thinking about drugs for the first time since my arrival, and I realised that I couldn't in fact be addicted to crystal meth, as I'd been told I was, because until this woman had mentioned it, I hadn't even given it a backwards glance, which only served to prove my point, that it wasn't in fact 'highly addictive' as all the do-gooders made out, but rather a bloody good excuse for bad behaviour! Throughout the whole ordeal over the past twelve months I had been convinced that I could give it up if I'd wanted to, but that was just the point – I hadn't wanted to, and now I came to think of it, in my current state of mind, feeling extremely sorry for myself, I would have loved a long, cold Gin and Tonic, and a nice, big, fat line of coke to top it off!I'd become bored with everything by now. Left alone with too much time on my hands I started to think about things which I shouldn't have. I'd completed all the lists I needed, and for the moment had drawn a blank on where to source paper and a pen to write letters to all my friends and acquaintances whose addresses I remembered. My thoughts then started to turn towards how I could have run the drugs operation better, how I could have foiled the police for a while longer, and how I could have got away with it, or rather how I would get away with it when I set up again after I was finally released from this hell hole. I was still angry with the police, because they had acted so superior about how they had managed to capture me, and disrupt one of the biggest drugs cartels in London, when in actual fact, it was only a small, one man affair, there were no great import processes, In fact it was not me they were after at all, but the guys above me who had been forcing me to sell their shit, under penalty of violence and abuse for some months. The reason I had got caught, I realised now was that because I had only started off intending to deal a little to my friends in order to fund my fun and make a little pocket money in the short term, I hadn't given any thought to how the operation was set up, and how big it would grow!Because initially it had just been friends, I had allowed them to collect from my apartment, which had meant that I had to have a supply of everything on the premises. I had started off very carefully, however things had very quickly spiralled out of control and within the space of just a few short months I had a database of some 3000 clients, so in a sense I had set myself on a path of destruction from the word go. Later on in the proceedings when I had been getting away with it for some months, and had been entertaining a string of boys who had beat a path to my door every day for months on end to get their fixes,I had become ambivalent to all precaution, and in fact had become rather sloppy, however the very fact that I'd been caught was testament to the fact that I hadn't been running the 'sophisticated and elaborate affair' that the idiotic police had been claiming, and I wondered whether if I told the solicitor this, it might in fact form quite a robust defence, coupled with the fact that I had been under duress to sell huge volumes of the stuff, in order to escape harm for me and those around me. Surely if I told the truth, the judge would be more lenient, as just by the sloppiness of the way I had been caught, they must see that I was no professional at the game!Once I was finally released though things would take on a whole new shape and form. Gone would be the store of product in my flat. I would set up a delivery system during the day using keypad storage padlocks, which I had already sourced from china, and that way I would be able to deliver in advance and then give them the pin code once they paid the money, and I was damned sure there would be absolutely no credit, no paper chase, and nothing to tie any drugs to me or my property! To date I was owed some £14,000 if I included the money that had been stolen from me by one of my ex-clients, and one of my ex-employees. Just in little people alone around the district and my so called friends, I was owed some £2,700 which I was pretty sure could be accessed fairly readily, as they were all good for it, but again It got back to the point that I needed access to the bloody phone, and my two phone numbers had still not been added to my pin, however, when they were, I would be ready, with all my lists in place.Moving HouseI was moving! I wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing, but on Tuesday morning when an officer opened the door soon after Mr B had gone to class and asked me if I wanted to move, I nearly bit her hand off in my eagerness! I'd put up with incessant chanting and praying until about midnight, then the constant flap, flap, flapping of his gums for the next two hours after that, and finally when I had just been about to drift off to sleep, he had got up and started chanting again! I'd had enough. The only wing on which they had space was non-smoking, but that didn't worry me either. I had no money to buy tobacco anyway, as the police had confiscated any cash I'd had on me, and my half ounce had long since gone, and without any way of contacting anyone, I had no chance of getting money sent in, and anyway, that was a feat in itself! In this day and age, it was astounding to me, but in order to receive money, ones friends or family had to send it in via post office money order by mail to the prison who would then process it within three days of receipt. Once it was on your spends account, you then had to wait until Sunday to fill out a canteen form with your order, submit the form on Sunday night and then wait until the following Friday for delivery, so all in all, if I was lucky, I would get my next pack of tobacco in three weeks, providing I could even contact anyone to send cash in the first place! It seemed like a perfect opportunity to give up completely! D wing it was, and the officer assured me it was newly renovated. They would be back in half an hour to collect me. I packed up my meagre belongings within five minutes flat, and sat waiting until they returned.

Teaser! First three chapters of 'Double Bubble' - FREE!

PrefaceI’d had a pretty good idea that this time I wasn’t going to be granted bail from the start. Everything from the past 16 months had been building to this point, and now it had all come crashing down around my ears. In some ways I was resigned to my fate. In actual fact, I had not been living for the past few months, rather going through the motions and waiting for whatever was going to happen. I was tired, disenfranchised, and sick of the daily drudge of dealing with utter cunts who had no thought for anyone else but themselves. I’d been pushed and pulled from pillar to post, attacked on all sides – everyone wanted a piece of me; I had been pursued by clients who wanted the best product for the best price, hangers on who wanted drugs for free, suppliers who wanted me to move huge volumes of gear for the highest profit they could extract, not to mention the Police who were constantly hovering like scavengers around a rubbish tip, persistently harassing me, eager to catch me out and prove to the world that they were winning the ‘war on drugs’. All of the above were quite capable of exacting violence, verbal and physical abuse if they didn’t get their own way, as I’d often discovered, to my own detriment. I’d so far lost five teeth, been gang raped at gunpoint, had a knife held to my throat at more than one occasion, and was living in an environment where I would constantly have to think about safeguarding my possessions, least they be pilfered by my so called friends. I had been trying desperately to pull myself out of this downwards spiral, but the harder I tried, the deeper I sank, so now, as I sat on the stairs outside my apartment waiting for the police to sift through the contents of my life, I could almost feel a sense of relief wash over me that the game was finally over. I was horrified at the idea of going to prison, and petrified at the thought of what would happen to me once there, but at least it would give me an escape from the constant demands from all sides that I was fielding on a daily basis. I was tired of everything! I’d given up the daily grind of even the most basic tasks such as shopping or cleaning, and had recognised that I no longer even bothered to take any pride in my own appearance, something I had been particularly vain about in the past. Physically, I was also in pain – my feet were so red and sore that I could hardly even walk on them, my back ached, I had severe stomach cramps and a constant headache from lack of sleep. Every time the phone rang or there was a knock on the door, a feeling of dread flooded over me. Where once I had been extremely vivacious and outgoing, I now wanted to hide away from the world. I had grown sick of constantly entertaining people who lied to me and stole from me on a daily basis, sick of trying to conceal the bruises and cuts I sustained whenever my suppliers came and realised I hadn’t sold as many drugs as they wanted. I had got myself into a situation where I could not escape, no matter how hard I tried. I couldn’t leave the country, as the police had my passport, although even that had long since expired by now. I couldn’t even leave the area, as I was on bail and although my tag had been removed just prior to Christmas, I was still on a door stop curfew, which meant that the police could arrive at any time during the evening and if I was not behind my door, I would be subject to breach of bail conditions, and bail would immediately be revoked. I had tried to move house three times, and on each attempt, I had been found and severely dealt with by my suppliers. Hell, even the loathsome clients I had hoped to lose in the move, by omitting to inform them of my new address and deleting them from my phone, had somehow managed to find me, and I now faced a torrent of abuse from them at excluding them from my circle on influence. Something had to give!Banged UpI was resigned to the outcome before it was even confirmed. After the somewhat short, but now rather familiar ride to Holborn in the back of the police van and the inevitable procedure that followed, I once again found myself locked away in the bleak metropolitan police lock-up overnight, awaiting Saturday morning court. Again I'd been provided with a poor people's solicitor, as I'd kicked my incredibly expensive, incredibly corrupt and incredibly ineffectual one to the curb, so would have to start the entire procedure all over again. The fellow who served me this time was a youngish looking black guy with a shock of dreadlocks, but frankly it didn't matter what he looked like, or even in fact whether he was there or not, because the advice had been the same – no comment to everything, and by now I could have handled that on my own. I wasn't frightened at all about the procedure, having been through everything on numerous occasions over the past six months. I was however, mortified at the thought of prison; how I would cope with it, what they would do to me in there, and whether I would even make it out alive! One hears stories from others about what goes on, but generally those who have been inside and really know, don't like to talk too much about it, and anyway, to date, I only knew one other person who had been incarcerated before. Jay, my drug dealer, had changed the subject whenever it had been brought up in the past, so I was completely flying blind, not knowing what to expect, and I suspected that many of the tales I had heard in the past had in fact been either bragging or old wives tales. Either way, I was about to find out!Next day in court played out exactly as I'd expected, and frankly was a complete blur, so overcome with worry was I at the prospect of years behind bars, and in fact almost the only words I managed to remember from the entire hearing was the Judge saying that as this was a second offence, committed whilst on bail, I would be looking at years, rather than months. By 2pm I was again handcuffed and bundled into the 'sweatbox', the name they use to refer to the armoured vans used by Serco and G4S to transport prisoners to and from facilities across the country. So named because each prisoner is detained in a 60cm x 60cm square aluminium cubicle with a hard seat, and no air circulation so as I was to find out on numerous occasions throughout my ordeal, you would soon be sweating like an animal, no matter what time of year it was, on any journey over about quarter of an hour in length. Fortunately the distance to HMP Pentonville was less than five minutes around the corner from Highbury Corner Court where I was remanded, but what I was spared in travel distance, I made up for in worry and anxiety at what was to come, so by the time I arrived the result was the same.One by one we were led into a bare, grey, gloss painted room with graffiti etched into its walls, dust and grime all over everything, and an old analogue TV mounted on a precarious bracket in the corner, which had obviously not been operable for a good many moons! I know all this because I used the time sitting there to studiously avoid the looks from any of the other inmates lined up along the wall beside me awaiting a similar fate, unsure what the protocol was, and frankly unwilling to find out. About the only person I can recall was an uber-tall black guy, clad in shiny blue disco trousers, Doc Martens and a full length fur coat, who paced endlessly up and down in front of the wall of reinforced glass windows which looked out into an equally dirty, dull and depressing hallway where we were spasmodically being called from and led down, further into the depths of the prison bowels.Finally it was my turn to be led away down the corridor to a steel covered desk where all my personal belongings were upended from my bag and displayed for the three prison officers in attendance to see.'Oh look! Everything matches!' one cried out in amazement. I failed to see the relevance. Obviously the police had already removed anything of interest, including the drugs I'd had packaged ready for delivery to a couple of clients on my way to lunch with friends, my mobile phones which I had expected, but I noted with alarm that my wallet was missing too, in fact all that was left were my keys - two sets, my cigarette case, and sunglasses case, all Louis Vuitton, and my SJ Du Pont Gold lighter, along with my Cartier Tank watch, so yes, I guess they did match. These of course were all prohibited items and were therefore going to be sent away to the prison storage facility, and my cigarettes were also not allowed as the packet was already open, so they disappeared as well. Next I was moved into an open fronted cubicle and asked to surrender my clothing one item at a time, which was shaken out and the pockets checked before being handed back to me.'Drop your underwear and give em a flick' one of them instructed while the rest looked on. If I was ever under any doubt that my freedom and basic civil liberties had been rescinded, after this exercise I was now under no illusion. Obviously I'd not been shy in dropping my pants in front of a crowd of similarly sexually charged boys continuously over the past twelve months at any of the countless naked, drug-fueled sex orgies I'd conducted in my flat in my intoxicated state, but now, stone cold sober, having to do it to order was a far different kettle of fish. Humiliated doesn't even begin to describe how I felt, but I supposed I would have to get used to this treatment from now on. Next they assigned me a bundle of prison issue grey tracksuits, polyester socks and oversized cotton boxer shorts, and I was herded into another holding room, reunited with all the others who had been processed before me, and handed a microwaved box of cardboard chilli and rice – By then the clock on the wall showed that it was 4pm so I guessed this was dinner!After a short wait, I was called again, and escorted through to see the nurse, where another raft of questions ensued – the same old police routine regurgitated.'Are you on any medication?'Do you have a history of depression, anxiety, or mental health issues?''Have you ever had any thoughts of suicide?'These had already been answered, and frankly were totally superfluous, apart from the first one, but even that didn't matter because I soon learned I would not be allowed them anyway. I had begged the police to retrieve my false teeth, but this had been met with mirth. I'd recently spent a considerable sum of money in finally having mine overhauled after many years without dental attention, and whilst waiting for the gums to settle sufficiently to enable implants and porcelain caps to be fitted, they had provided me with dentures as I only had six teeth left on the top and eight on the bottom. I also had tablets for the ongoing problems with my throat, where I had been due to meet the consultant in two days time for a biopsy for suspected throat cancer, so this was of grave concern, but I was quickly told they could not provide the medication, and I would not be keeping the appointment.Although I wasn't unwilling to admit it at the time, I was already suffering from depression and anxiety, not helped by this situation, but of course having heard stories of inmates being sedated and isolated in custody to deal with these 'issues' there was no way I would have subjected myself to that, and yes, I had absolutely contemplated suicide over the past few months, and at this present moment I certainly couldn't rule it out, but I'd be damned if I would tell them that either – If I was going to do it, I would make sure I did it well and succeeded – If I was going to do it, I didn't need them to try and 'save' me!I also had another problem – I was due at the Coroners Court for the hearing for the guy who had died in my sitting room some months earlier, presumably of a GBL overdose. I'd been summoned as a witness obviously, and was told It was imperative that I attended. This was not going to happen now either, as the hearing was tomorrow, and apparently according to Prison protocol, they can't schedule outside appointments where the prisoner knows in advance, in case they attempt to gain assistance in breaking out along the way. This was particularly laughable, as since the time of my arrest, I had not been allowed to talk to anyone on the phone, so no-one knew where I was, let alone that I would be en route from HMP Pentonville to the Coroners Court. Still, I reasoned, what were they going to do if I didn't show up? Arrest me?I advised the nurse of all my other health issues, and was told not to worry, they would take care of it all, then they ushered me through to another room where an enormous black man in another grime ridden, gloss painted, steel clad 'office' asked me if I smoked and gave me half an ounce of tobacco, a lighter and a pack of rizla papers. What was I supposed to do with that? I had never rolled a cigarette in my entire life! Not having ever been a pot smoker, I didn't even know how to roll a joint! I normally only ever smoked Cartier or Davidoff cigarettes, and usually once a week I would take myself off to the tobacconist in the basement at Selfridges and stock up on them as well as my weekly pack of Davidoff cigarillos. I could also get new flints and gas for my Du Pont lighter at the same time. I detested roll-ups, and thought the habit vulgar and common, but at the time I was so nervous and worried about everything, that I needed tobacco to take my mind off everything around me. I settled down to teach myself to roll, managing to spill most of the tobacco over the desk and floor, but it kept me busy for half an hour.Finally one by one they escorted us to cells on A wing, which was daunting to say the least, although I shouldn't have been too surprised as in reality when I thought about it, it looked exactly as the images I'd seen in the newspaper or on television, every time a prison story had been reported in the past five years. The cells themselves however were a different story. The door clanged open and I was deposited in a room about 10 ft long by 8ft wide, with a set of bunks along one wall and two small desk-like tables along the other, followed by a wall about 4ft high which screened the toilet and hand basin – well, I say screened... It may have stopped anyone who looked in through the narrow glass observation panel in the door from watching you while you took a shit, but there was no privacy from the fellow on the top bunk should he choose to look!My cellmate was a black guy of about 60, from Jamaica, although he had lived in Britain for almost his entire life. He was quick to regale me with stories of his conviction. He was a heroin dealer, but had not been arrested for drugs. Instead he'd had a client who hadn't paid, so he and a couple of mates had been driving over to this fellows house to “cut 'im up wit da machete, mun,”when the police had stopped them for speeding, searched the car and found the machete, hidden in his shirt down his back, so he had been charged with holding a prohibited weapon, and sentenced to 28 days prison. He reckoned he'd had a lucky escape, although he was worried about his stash. Evidently he was also a carpenter by trade, and had been renovating a clients kitchen, so had concealed some £50k worth of gear under the floorboards of the house whilst he worked there, however now he had been away for three weeks and had not found anyone he could trust to go back to the premises and collect it. I envied him. If this was the worst of his problems, he was in a far better place than me!Actually he wasn't as bad as I'd first thought. He soon gave me a running commentary on how things were run here, what the routine was and what to expect regarding food, hygiene and lock-up times, which was lucky really, because apart from dumping me in the cell with a complete stranger who could have been an axe murderer for all I knew – and almost was, the Prison officers hadn't told me any of this. I learnt that there were manual jobs available where you could earn money, and education courses which also entitled you to a payment, although neither was going to make you rich, in fact it was barely enough to pay for an ounce of tobacco a week, and the way I was wasting it due to my lack of rolling skills, I would need at least two! He showed me a copy of the education course list and most of it appeared to be fairly basic English and maths, but that was really the least of my problems. They had given me a phone pin, and told me that if I needed to ring anyone, I would have to do it that afternoon before I'd been locked up, but the only phone available was in the holding room where we had eaten our dinner, and it hadn't been working, so by now it was Saturday night, and no-one knew where I was. I needed to get hold of Tom, and organise for him to go and collect all my belongings, as currently I wasn't even sure that my flat was locked.By 5.30pm we were ‘banged up’ for the night. My cellmate asked if I minded if he prayed on the floor in front of the toilets. It was the only area big enough to lay out his prayer mat. Frankly, compared to what I'd imagined might happen to me in here, praying was a relief. By 10pm he was finished and soon fell asleep on the top bunk, but I knew that it would be many hours before I could even contemplate retiring, so I sat down with a couple of pieces of scrap paper, and started to make a list of all the contents of the flat. Next, I made another one of all the people who owed me money, and then rearranged them in order of how likely I was to get it out of them. I knew that most of the people that I'd been dealing with had been low-life scum, and had refused credit to them, but there were a handful who I had rightly or wrongly called friends, and now that I was in here without the benefit of being able to prepare for it, I would have to rely on these people to pay up in order to survive! I then made another list of all the contents of the storage shed I'd been renting around the corner in St John's Wood. If I was brutally honest with myself, I would have to make plans to have all these arrangements wound up, and someone would have to dispose of all the excess assets I had lying around the district because it looked like I was going to be here for quite some time. Giving myself something to do kept my mind off the horror of where I was, and what might become of me – I seemed to be in a bit of a daze at the time, and couldn't quite believe what had happened. Eventually I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer, and fell into a troubled sleep.I woke with a start at 9am as the cell door clanged open. Mr B, My cellmate was off to church. I would have gone too, if only to get out of the hideous cell for an hour or so, but as I wasn't on the list, I wasn't allowed. Evidently the pastor would be around to talk to me later in the week, and I could put my name down if I decided to go next week. Left again to my own devices, I spent the morning revising my lists and making others, this time of names of possible people I might ask to help me out with the ever growing number of chores to be carried out in the coming weeks. This was all well and good, but not having had access to the telephone anyway, I would have to wait until my numbers had been added to my pin, and God only knew how long that would take.Mr B arrived back at around 11.30am, and then half an hour later we were unlocked for lunch – just enough time to walk down to the servery, line up while our orders were read out, collect it and walk back to the cell. As I had only just arrived, I was on default so got what they had spare.. Lunch was a fry up, and not exactly a culinary delight, but certainly better than I had thought it would be. Maybe things wouldn't be as difficult in here as I thought. After lunch as we were locked up all afternoon, My thoughts turned to washing. I hadn't had a shower since midday Friday, and by the looks of it, I would be waiting a while longer! My B had said that they usually opened the shower room for an hour or so every second day, and two landings would have to jockey to get a spot, but on weekends it was never open. He had quite openly told me that he had given up, and would have a shower when he got home a week later, as it was too difficult to manage in here. I had been used to a shower at least once a day, quite often twice, so I was damn sure I wasn't going to wait until I got out of here – that could be months, or even years away! I'd been in the same clothes for two days continuously too, so as much as I hated the idea of my prison issue garb, and in the absence of a shower, I decided I would at least feel a little fresher in a clean tracksuit and underwear. I probably looked horrendous, I couldn't tell because there was no mirror, but then I reasoned, there had been no one in here so far worth looking pretty for!We didn't have a television either. My predecessor had sold it to another inmate for a bag of 'spice'. My B. had asked the officers repeatedly for another one, but apparently the answer had been the same on each occasion,'Not our problem, there are none spare, you'll have to wait until you're moved to another wing.' So far Mr B had been on this wing for the past three weeks, and it looked like he would be here until he was discharged a week later, and it also looked like there would be no television for the foreseeable future.Monday morning dawned and I awoke early, keen to get things sorted and find out what was in store for me over the coming weeks and months. 'Mr B' had a maths class scheduled for the morning, however as yet, I had no idea about my day. Eight o'clock struck and a deafening siren rang out across the wing, followed by someone screaming out 'free-flow'. Apparently the doors were open for 20 minutes or so to enable inmates to travel from their cells to their places of work or education. Mr B was off, and I was left standing in the doorway, with no idea what to do. Before long an officer came along and handed me a strip of paper. I was to see the sexual health nurse. Evidently they wanted to take some blood tests and screen me for Hep B. I had already told them I had been inoculated for hep A and B, but that didn't seem to matter. I had no idea where to go but that didn't matter either.'Down the end of the landing, turn left' He bellowed at me, looking at me as if I was demented. I followed his advice and knocked on the door, and waited.'What the hell are you doing hanging around here?' another one demanded. Evidently I was just supposed to open the door and go straight in. Who knew? I was at my wits end, in a complete fog. Everything looked the same. For the next few weeks there would always be someone bellowing, whenever I was out of my cell, but I was soon to work out, disgusting as it was, that the best option seemed to be just not venture out for anything apart from the bare necessities. Once inside the sexual health clinic they were much friendlier, The nurse told me to sit down while she prepared everything, then fastened a tourniquet, pulled out a needle and tried, without success to find a vein. I must confess, my arms had seen better days, but I had become so used to self medicating by now that I could normally hit a vein within 3,5 seconds, in fact, after about four failed attempts, I volunteered to find it for her, but of course that was not allowed. Eventually they decided to get me back later in the week when the doctor was in, and try again with him, so I was allowed to go.Just then another siren went off, sounding a bit like those blasts you hear on movies when submarines are in trouble, and the word 'lock-down' blared across the loud speakers. Again I had no idea what was happening, but the nurse was quick to point out that I would now need to stay here until a full head count had been done, as there was either someone missing, or there was an 'incident' somewhere on the wing. She made me a cup of coffee, and we sat chatting about what I had been doing on the outside. Not the drug fucked orgies of course, but the writing and film stuff, and she was fascinated, only stopping to ask'What on earth are you doing in here?' This was a question I would ask myself numerous times over the coming months, and only served at this point to illustrate how incredibly stupid and foolhardy I had been! After about half an hour, an officer came running into the clinic, before yelling,'What the hell are you doing in here?' It seems they had been looking for me, I was the 'incident'. I was promptly escorted back to my cell and locked up again until lunchtime. Before long another officer opened the cell door'Where the fuck were you?' He demanded 'They wanted you for education assessment!''No one had told me, and even if they had, I wouldn't have known where to go anyway,' I replied. Frankly I'd had enough of being treated like an idiot!'Can you try not to sound so fucking superior? With an attitude like that you can fuck off,' As he slammed the cell door again and stormed off. I would gladly fuck off, Idiot! Where did he think I could fuck off to?I was in despair at how I would ever get used to this place – there was neither rhyme nor reason to anything they did. I would have thought that being on an induction wing they would show you where everything was, and how everything was supposed to work, but clearly that was not the case. Lunch was served at 11.45, and I'm afraid the quality had slipped from Sunday's fare. Potatoes which looked OK, but had obviously been boiled without being washed because they tasted not only of dirt, but of rotten potato blight as well. These were accompanied by a rather weak looking stew or curry or something, the taste was indecipherable. Wet and brown with bits floating in it, was the only way to describe it. Two mouthfuls of potato and I started heaving my guts out, so I made do with the 3 slices of stale bread which came with it.The following afternoon was torturous. Mr B. had nothing scheduled for the afternoon, so he spent the entire time until dinner, pacing up and down the cell. He had developed a nervous twitch and his lips started flapping together which made an annoying, relentlessly hollow clapping sound, a bit like flipflops on pavement. I tried concentrating on my lists again, but it was too much so I lay on my bunk staring at the ceiling, wondering how the hell I was ever going to extricate myself from this mess. I had another more immediate problem as well. My case had been bound over for the crown court on the 5th March, approximately a month away, and I was without legal counsel. The little guy with the dreads who had represented me in the police station, had given me the details for his boss, but as I had no access to a telephone, I couldn't call them. I decided I would have to write a letter, but at present I didn't have anything on which to write it, and requests for paper and pen from officers fell on deaf ears. It seemed the further into this mess I got, the less chance there was of ever getting out of it!I was jolted from my thoughts by the door clanging open again, this time to a tall, skinny woman in hippy style attire, who called my name and then took me outside onto the landing to ask me some more questions.'Where do you live?''Marital status?''Have you ever been a victim of domestic abuse?''Are you on medication for depression?''What's your occupation?'' Do you have a drug or alcohol problem?'I had no idea where these questions were leading? Who was this woman? And why the hell should I tell her all the intimate details of my life? For all I knew she would be around to my house while I was in here, and clean the place out. When I asked her she muttered something about providing assistance for dealing with family issues on the outside, but I didn't need help with family – I didn't have any family in Britain, what I really needed was access to a phone, help in engaging a lawyer, and someone to tell me exactly how everything in here worked so that I wasn't constantly running into brick walls with everything I needed, but this was met with a blank stare.Interestingly though, the Drug and alcohol question got me thinking about drugs for the first time since my arrival, and I realised that I couldn't in fact be addicted to crystal meth, as I'd been told I was, because until this woman had mentioned it, I hadn't even given it a backwards glance, which only served to prove my point, that it wasn't in fact 'highly addictive' as all the do-gooders made out, but rather a bloody good excuse for bad behaviour! Throughout the whole ordeal over the past twelve months I had been convinced that I could give it up if I'd wanted to, but that was just the point – I hadn't wanted to, and now I came to think of it, in my current state of mind, feeling extremely sorry for myself, I would have loved a long, cold Gin and Tonic, and a nice, big, fat line of coke to top it off!I'd become bored with everything by now. Left alone with too much time on my hands I started to think about things which I shouldn't have. I'd completed all the lists I needed, and for the moment had drawn a blank on where to source paper and a pen to write letters to all my friends and acquaintances whose addresses I remembered. My thoughts then started to turn towards how I could have run the drugs operation better, how I could have foiled the police for a while longer, and how I could have got away with it, or rather how I would get away with it when I set up again after I was finally released from this hell hole. I was still angry with the police, because they had acted so superior about how they had managed to capture me, and disrupt one of the biggest drugs cartels in London, when in actual fact, it was only a small, one man affair, there were no great import processes, In fact it was not me they were after at all, but the guys above me who had been forcing me to sell their shit, under penalty of violence and abuse for some months. The reason I had got caught, I realised now was that because I had only started off intending to deal a little to my friends in order to fund my fun and make a little pocket money in the short term, I hadn't given any thought to how the operation was set up, and how big it would grow!Because initially it had just been friends, I had allowed them to collect from my apartment, which had meant that I had to have a supply of everything on the premises. I had started off very carefully, however things had very quickly spiralled out of control and within the space of just a few short months I had a database of some 3000 clients, so in a sense I had set myself on a path of destruction from the word go. Later on in the proceedings when I had been getting away with it for some months, and had been entertaining a string of boys who had beat a path to my door every day for months on end to get their fixes,I had become ambivalent to all precaution, and in fact had become rather sloppy, however the very fact that I'd been caught was testament to the fact that I hadn't been running the 'sophisticated and elaborate affair' that the idiotic police had been claiming, and I wondered whether if I told the solicitor this, it might in fact form quite a robust defence, coupled with the fact that I had been under duress to sell huge volumes of the stuff, in order to escape harm for me and those around me. Surely if I told the truth, the judge would be more lenient, as just by the sloppiness of the way I had been caught, they must see that I was no professional at the game!Once I was finally released though things would take on a whole new shape and form. Gone would be the store of product in my flat. I would set up a delivery system during the day using keypad storage padlocks, which I had already sourced from china, and that way I would be able to deliver in advance and then give them the pin code once they paid the money, and I was damned sure there would be absolutely no credit, no paper chase, and nothing to tie any drugs to me or my property! To date I was owed some £14,000 if I included the money that had been stolen from me by one of my ex-clients, and one of my ex-employees. Just in little people alone around the district and my so called friends, I was owed some £2,700 which I was pretty sure could be accessed fairly readily, as they were all good for it, but again It got back to the point that I needed access to the bloody phone, and my two phone numbers had still not been added to my pin, however, when they were, I would be ready, with all my lists in place.Moving HouseI was moving! I wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing, but on Tuesday morning when an officer opened the door soon after Mr B had gone to class and asked me if I wanted to move, I nearly bit her hand off in my eagerness! I'd put up with incessant chanting and praying until about midnight, then the constant flap, flap, flapping of his gums for the next two hours after that, and finally when I had just been about to drift off to sleep, he had got up and started chanting again! I'd had enough. The only wing on which they had space was non-smoking, but that didn't worry me either. I had no money to buy tobacco anyway, as the police had confiscated any cash I'd had on me, and my half ounce had long since gone, and without any way of contacting anyone, I had no chance of getting money sent in, and anyway, that was a feat in itself! In this day and age, it was astounding to me, but in order to receive money, ones friends or family had to send it in via post office money order by mail to the prison who would then process it within three days of receipt. Once it was on your spends account, you then had to wait until Sunday to fill out a canteen form with your order, submit the form on Sunday night and then wait until the following Friday for delivery, so all in all, if I was lucky, I would get my next pack of tobacco in three weeks, providing I could even contact anyone to send cash in the first place! It seemed like a perfect opportunity to give up completely! D wing it was, and the officer assured me it was newly renovated. They would be back in half an hour to collect me. I packed up my meagre belongings within five minutes flat, and sat waiting until they returned.

Teaser! First Three Chapters of 'Candy Flipping - The Sex and Drug Cocktail' - FREE!

PrefaceI never was a great fan of blow-backs. It all seemed rather grubby, like drinking from a shared soft drink bottle, or smoking someone else’s butt ends – I was rather fussy about what I put in my mouth – Well most of the time anyway! I had resisted smoking marijuana from a bong in my youth for the same reasons. Being a country boy, from a rather conservative private school upbringing, I found it dirty, distasteful and common. Nevertheless, it was terribly popular amongst my nice, middle class friends and clients. Maybe it had something to do with the risqué nature of the habit. The idea of slumming it temporarily, getting down and dirty with some multi-tattooed rough trade from the East, experiencing something of which Mummy wouldn’t approve. Maybe that was what set me aside from them all and made me the misfit in this microcosm of society. My Mother had never approved of anything I did, so if I was trying to provoke her, I was already there before the gun went off!The principles of blow-backs were simple enough. One took a huge hit of crystal methamphetamine from ones pipe, inhaling the vapour deep into ones lungs, before kissing ones lover/partner/fuck-buddy on the lips and simultaneously blowing the vapour into their mouth, and then whilst holding the kiss, said partner would draw the stale fumes in, and then blow it back into one’s mouth, thereby increasing the intensity of the high, and when one became particularly adept, the vapour could be passed backwards and forwards numerous times, vastly escalating the magnitude of ones buzz. In reality, the vapour mixed with carbon dioxide when exhaled so in effect, one was only succeeding in poisoning the very person one was apt to love/desire/lust after! To be honest, I had never seen the point in it anyway, I had overcome my distaste on many occasions to try it, but it didn’t seem to have the slightest effect on me whatsoever.The only point to it from the way I saw it was that one got to kiss the object of one's desire. In this age of ‘just sex’, it was not cool to kiss during intercourse. We were all looking for bigger, faster, harder, higher, rougher, - slower, sensual, caring, emotional connections had no place in this disposable, consumable culture. The art was to consume as many conquests as possible, before discarding them like yesterday's newspaper, in search of the next big target on the horizon, in a race with one's peers to be the best, the alpha male of the group, The leader of the pack – By which benchmark, no one knew, and even if they did, the goalposts were ever moving!In a way, I had become a Blow-back – The very thing I despised the most. Sucked up into the vortex, all-consumed, mixed with stale, contaminated fumes, poisoned and damaged, before being exhaled, expelled, forced down the throats of the unsuspecting masses - trying to enhance their experiences, but was I similarly, albeit inadvertently, poisoning them too?Now Candy Flipping – that was an entirely different ball game! I had become expert at judging the exact amount of uppers and downers to hit the perfect peak every time, and it was a fine art. Too much downer, and you tipped over the cliff face, plunged headlong into a K-hole, spiralling endlessly out of control, futilely searching for something in which you would never quite succeed, for hours on end, until you eventually came down, or in the case of G, rendered comatose for a similar length of time. Too little and you just scraped along, not high, but not really sober either. Either way it was an obscene waste of good uppers, because in whichever state, you never really had the benefit of them – But, get the mix right and you would fly! Once the rush came on, the effect was euphoric! All inhibition was out the window, and you felt a confidence nothing could curtail. Everyone was beautiful, everything felt amazing, as if every single nerve ending in your body was alive and alert, waiting for whatever pleasure took it's fancy. Oh yes! The powers of chem-sex Candyflipping were second to none, unrivalled, unlimited and all encompassing! For five or six hours, all thought of the bad, evil, mean, and unkind were banished from the mind, replaced by warm considerate, generous, comforting and cocooning. In this state everyone was safe, looked after and cared for – why would anyone want to go back to reality?ArrestFuck! What was I to do? The Police were now banging on the door, and they were not going to go away. Thinking on my feet, I made a split second decision to confront the issue head on and try to get them to piss off. What were they here for anyway? I moved quickly towards the entrance hall, and hissing at Daniel to keep his mouth shut, I opened the front door to be greeted by two male policemen, one tall and fat, the other squat and weedy.“Good afternoon, we’ve had reports from one of your neighbours of excessive noise and a possible domestic argument.” Oh, fuck, was that all! I silently cursed Daniel for arriving in such a state, and causing this situation.“Ah, no it’s fine, no problem, a friend of mine was a bit upset, but he’s calmed down now, everything’s fine!” I answered from behind the half closed door.“Oh, right, do you mind if we just come in and take a look around?” he countered in a thick northern accent. Yes, I bloody well did! There were about six boys lying around the room in various states of undress and a plate of coke on the coffee table, accompanied by a couple of crystal-methamphetamine loaded water-pipes, Besides all this, before we’d been so rudely interrupted by Daniel, we’d all been about to slam fairly hefty hits of Tina, and an afternoon of frenetic, uninhibited group fornication had been eagerly awaited by the remaining guests. Of course I minded!“No really, there is no need, it's all under control now, my friend has calmed down and actually he’s just leaving, thanks for your concern, its fine. Thank you. We’ll keep the noise down from now on” - Now piss off, was my exact thought!“Actually we’re going to have to insist on coming in. Under section 19 of the domestic violence act we are entitled to enter the premises if we think someone’s life may be in danger, we’ll just take a quick look, it’ll only take a minute and then we’ll get out of your hair.” he answered, placing his foot in the doorway threateningly, to prevent me closing it. Arrogant prick, he was going nowhere! Fucking Daniel! There might not have been anyone’s life in danger on their arrival, but by Jesus, just wait until they had left! I would kill the Bastard! Reasoning that the boys would have had enough time to clear everything away and pull on some clothes, I finally capitulated, moving out of the way and opening the door to admit them, walking into the sitting room with the two of them following close behind, however my eyes were raised in horror at what lay before me. It seemed I had given my idiotic guests more credit than they deserved. The six of them had all clothed themselves into some semblance of decency, and having stopped short of ordering them into action as I headed to greet the cops, I’d have thought it pretty elementary for them to have at least had the foresight, on hearing the ensuing conversation at the door to remove any obvious evidence of our indulgence from sight, however staring back at me completely untouched in all its glory was the plate with eight or nine perfectly formed lines of cocaine lying invitingly as it had been, for all the world to see, and they were onto it immediately.“Oh 'ello, what have we here?” causing me to laugh involuntarily. I hadn’t heard that line in decades, and had always thought it was a leftover cliché from the hyperbolic British sitcoms of the eighties, which in reality would never have been used in real life! It seemed I was wrong about that!“Now we have reason to believe that these are class A drugs you’ve been using, so we’re going to have to search your property”. No shit, Sherlock! I was livid! Idiots! Why had they not just slid the fucking plate under the table? I couldn’t believe their stupidity! I’d had a vague idea that by law I hadn’t had to let the Police in, but in reality I’d had no choice. If I’d denied them entry they would have been suspicious of something going on, and inevitably have forced themselves in anyway, under section nineteen of whatever fucking act they were quoting, but it would have been a simple matter for these fucking, fuckwits to hide the fucking plate!“Who’s the owner of the flat? Who lives here?” they asked, and I affirmed.“The rest of you can go!” they replied, as the boys slowly stood like zombies in a trance and began gathering their belongings, apart from Jacob my on-again-off-again pseudo-boyfriend who had been asleep on the sofa, and had continued to remain so throughout the whole process. I had a feeling he was faking it, but couldn’t understand why.Daniel had been carrying a rather large backpack which was lying on the floor under the breakfast bar where he was sitting“Why are you sweating so much” One of the cops asked him“Because I just ran all the way here from Frognall” he replied, and they swallowed it! Of course it had nothing to do with the great slug of crystal meth he must have slammed before his arrival!“Go on then clear out, the lot of you!” The fat cop answered. He waddled over to Jacob and shook him roughly on the shoulder,“Come on sleepyhead, off you go!” he added, “Time to go home!”Jacob rose disorientated and wandered into the bedroom, and I couldn’t see what he was doing, but the fat copper wasn’t interested in having him hang around, and threatened to arrest him if he didn’t leave. Whilst this was all happening, the sneaky little short one had run around picking up both my phones, both iPads and my MacBook pro, like a seagull on a rubbish tip.“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I shrieked, whereupon Jacob ran back in, eyes darting as he searching the room. Seeing them in the little pig’s hands, he immediately seized upon them,“Those are mine!” he stated, making to grab them out of the grubby little pig’s hands. At least someone was thinking, I thought to myself, but unfortunately he wasn’t quick enough.“We’re keeping these!” he answered, “You can have them back after we’ve ascertained that they haven’t been used criminally”. The whole situation seemed to be playing out in slow motion in front of my eyes like a bad B grade movie, but at the same time everything was happening so fast that I had no chance to circumvent the inevitable. I felt like I didn’t know which way they were going to jump next, and was powerless to prevent them from unearthing more incriminating evidence. Each new uncovering made me mentally kick myself for not having thought of hiding it before their discovery, but there were two of them and only one of me, so I had little chance to do anything as they were watching me like a hawk.It was then that I noticed the ounce of coke; still sitting in its bag as it had been delivered earlier in the day, save for the half gram I’d taxed from it to prepare the plate which had alerted them. Alongside that was an array of airtight canisters in which I stored all the other lines of product we usually had on offer, and now as the two pigs were escorting all the guests out the door I seized my chance and was galvanised into action, throwing them all well underneath the kitchen units, out of obvious sight. There was a slim chance they hadn’t seen them initially and would miss them in their search – well it was worth a try at any rate.All too soon they were back in the room, having slammed the front door shut behind them, and now they were like flies around a septic sore, crawling all over the sitting room and kitchen, their piggy little eyes shifting left and right as they scanned the apartment, for anything and everything they could find to incriminate me.“Have a look at this!” the skinny one called to his fat mate, holding up another large canister full of mephedrone which he had procured from the safe cupboard. Fuck! I reckoned there was almost a kilogram in there alone. Wearily I sat down on the sofa to wait, hands shaking, heart pounding, the game was up and I was in the shit! They were going to lock me up and throw away the key. The fat one was now on the phone, calling for backup, and complaining because there wasn’t a dog squad available to sniff the place out. Idly it dawned on me with not a small amount of humour, that he was disappointed at the revelation because it would have meant he would actually have to do some work himself, something that given his size, he was clearly not used to doing regularly!“How long have you been dealing drugs for?” the fat one asked.Suddenly in a flash of inspiration I had an idea.“Don’t be ridiculous!” I rounded on him “those are not mine! You let the dealer go when you told them all to leave before!” I answered, as a look of insecurity and doubt settled on his plump chops. By now the guys would be long gone, and I didn’t even have Daniel’s last name, but I knew from conversations with him in the past, that he had a history with the police involving drugs, both here and in Germany where he also lived part time, so he was well used to hiding from the law. These two bumpkins had no chance of finding him by now even if they wanted to, and if it came down to saving either me or him, I would quite easily throw him under the bus, in much the same way as he had just done to me, firstly by causing the noise, and then by not removing the evidence when I was at the door. He must have known exactly what was happening and deliberately sat there and done nothing. Or maybe I was giving him too much credit again, and he was just incredibly stupid!Meanwhile, within minutes what felt like the entire Kentish Town Police Department had arrived! Looking out the window I was alarmed to see four squad cars and a van. Jesus, they never reacted this quickly when you reported a break-in or a theft! Usually in that situation you’d be fobbed off with“We’ll get someone out to you as soon as they’re available”, which normally translated to “Fuck off, we don’t give a fuck about what you rich bastards have lost, you’re wasting our time!” They must have thought they’d hit the jackpot here through, as pretty soon there were some nine PC plods gracing my sitting room, all trying to get in on the action, all wanting to be credited in some way with this remarkable coup they thought they’d pulled off, although in reality it had been entirely accidental. Budget cuts, indeed! I thought as I surveyed them all sitting around trying to look important, but in reality, doing sweet fuck all!The fat one had grown in stature by now though, like an overweight Robin with his chest puffed out, proudly strutting around laying claim to have been the first one on the scene.“What’s this then?” he enquired with a smug look on his dial“It’s a soldering iron!” I answered, telling the truth. It was about a foot long, with a large glass chamber which stored the gas to fuel it, and was capable of reaching incredibly high temperatures, hot enough even to weld glass and melt or repair any soft metal. It was used mainly in the design and manufacture of jewellery, but we’d thought it ideal for heating crystal methamphetamine in a pipe or water pipe, but he didn’t need to know that!“Likely story! And what would you want with a soldering iron?” he replied. Who did he think he was? I’d had enough of his clever smartarse comments“None of your fucking business!” I answered, figuring I couldn’t really get into any more hot water than I already was.“Or could it be a device for storing and concealing GBL?” he quipped, looking extremely pleased with himself.“Oh you fucking idiot” I levelled, “You really think I would go to that length, and that expense to buy something that size, to store what? - 50ml of GBL?” Even the other plods on the sofa were now tittering amongst themselves at his stupidity, but as I’d been saying this, I’d had my eye on the 5 litre drum of the stuff sitting on the floor in the kitchen, which they’d been tripping over in their endless journeys back and forth to the fridge, where they had examined the entire contents, taking samples of liquids in the juice cartons. I came to the realisation that they didn’t know what it was, and I was pretty sure that in their haste to ‘leave no stone unturned’ they were overlooking what was literally right under their noses!Attention was then turned to my messenger bag which had been sitting on the sofa where Jacob had been sleeping. They opened it up and examined the contents. The bag itself had been a gift from Umut earlier in the day, a fake Armani which he had picked up in the market on Edgware road. It was a sweet gesture, although I never bought fakes myself, however my big leather satchel had got incredibly wet in a downpour the night before and it was now drying in the airing cupboard, so I had decided to use this one today, and had not long before stocked it with my essentials; My Louis Vuitton cigarette case, Du Pont lighter, sunglasses, Louis Vuitton credit card holder, An envelope with 15g of meph. which I’d been about to take out on a delivery, and my Dior wallet, and a wad of £50 notes in an envelope. They examined each item with avid interest.“What are you doing with so much cash?” The fat one asked, rifling through my wallet and running his grubby little thumbs through the notes.“I always carry £500 in cash.”“What about this other money – what, there must be about a thousand pounds here!” he cried.“£1400, I corrected - spending money for my holiday next week” I replied, suddenly realising that the chances of that happening were now pretty slim!“Who takes almost £2000 cash on holiday?” he cried incredulously, as his cronies gathered around to get a better look at the bundle of notes. Jesus who were these people?“Well obviously not you!” I answered “but then you probably don’t need it for all-you-can-eat-buffet at your budget-Barbie, full-board package holidays in Magaluf!”“I take my credit card” he muttered“oh yes, of course, but I don't suppose you're the sort of person who thinks of tipping staff, and mostly they don't accept credit cards” I answered as he lifted out my Credit card holder, flicking the cards onto the table, and bending to examine them.“Well it doesn’t matter now though, does it?” he answered smugly “We’re seizing all this – proceeds of crime! You won’t be seeing this ever again!”What on earth was he on about? Proceeds of crime indeed!Now I was starting to worry. Buoyed by the copious amounts of cocaine which had been coursing through my veins, it had occurred to me that I had been perhaps a little too keen to belittle this idiot, no matter what his obvious shortcomings might have been. Coming back to reality, I realised that I was in fact out of my depth completely, and had no idea where I stood legally, or even what the next moves would be. I should probably shut my trap, and wait to see what their next move would be. From then on, I maintained a stony silence, my only concession to glare at the fat prick of a policeman whenever he made any further discoveries.Eventually, the smug, weedy, little arsehole - Chris Pink was his name I was to find out later, who had originally attended with the fat one, decided there was no reason for me to stay here, and that he could “wrap it up” on his own, so after clamping a set of cuffs on me, I was frog marched out to the van. The fat one opened the back door, slamming my face into the steel edge in the process.“Whoops, sorry! No CCTV cameras around here sonny!” he quipped as he threw me into the van, with a smarmy grin on his double chinned dial, and slammed the door closed. I guess I was under arrest!The Holborn HiltonWe arrived at Holborn Police station a short while later, and I was escorted from the drive-in undercover car parking area, along a narrow corridor and into the reception, where the contents of my bag, minus the mephedrone, along with my phones and devices, were recorded, and I was allowed to retrieve two phone numbers before everything was placed into evidence bags and whisked away out of sight. Meanwhile the other investigating officers had arrived with the rest of the evidence they had retrieved from my flat, and they now spread it out in bags across the floor of the reception for all in sundry to see. At least it gave me an idea of what they had taken, however it didn’t look good! There were literally armfuls of stuff, but I was fascinated to see what they thought was incriminating, and I managed to get a good look at everything before they ushered me back to the desk, where the endless, pointless list of questions started – The same for everyone, rote learnt, monkey-see-monkey-do! It’s amazing how these people are absolute sticklers for routine and following the procedure when it suits them, but oh, so willing to skip it when it’s not something they can be caught or reprimanded for – Law or no law!“Name?”“Age?”“Date of Birth?”“Address?” All of which they knew or had already taken down at the time of arrest, and still managed to spell incorrectly. How difficult is it to spell Yorke, for Christ sake! It's one of the oldest, most English names in the book! I pitied the poor Romanians or Hungarians when dealing with these imbeciles! And then onto the more difficult questions…“Nationality?”“Well, since you’re staring at my NEW ZEALAND Passport, which incidentally, also shows you the spelling of my name, I guess it’s pretty simple to deduce that my Nationality is NEW ZEALAND!”“Well, you might have more than one passport” So why not ask that then?“Do you now, or have you ever in the past had any thoughts of suicide or self harm?” Really? What are your thoughts? You’ve just caught me doing some seriously illegal shit, so according to the way you’re behaving; my life is pretty much over. On top of that, I’ve just spent the past three hours with the mind numbing task of having to deal with people who are only marginally of a high enough IQ not to be classed as special needs, but who think they are incredibly clever and intelligent! You’re clearly on some massive power trip, and you wonder whether I’m having thoughts of suicide? Seriously? Damn right I do! I want to kill myself from depression at the utter stupidity of the people in this country who are supposedly charged with keeping its occupants safe! God save us, because the fucking Police force won’t! And if I was seriously thinking of topping myself, do you really think I would tell you! Just because someone says they are going to do something, doesn’t mean they will! I answered“No.”And the list went on, and on, and on in the same mind-numbingly boring routine – Interrogation for dummies, following the succession of ridiculously obvious questions, laughable in their content, but even more hilarious for the fact that those asking them could hardly read what they needed to say, having to skip the words they couldn’t pronounce! Jesus! Kill me now!My regulation phone call had resulted in no answer to both numbers. Now that was out of the way, they could tick the box to say I’d been offered a phone call, even though I hadn’t connected with anyone. Job done, numbers discarded, obligation over! Jacob should have been waiting to hear from me, and the second number belonged to Teem, a friend who I’d vaguely thought may be the best bet as a backup in my panic to jot down the numbers, but he was also ignoring me.To be honest, I hadn’t been able to think straight at the time. Nothing prepares one for these situations, and everything had happened so fast, with my life painstakingly unfurling before my eyes as if I were in a trance. What would become of me? Clearly they were going to lock me up for a long time! I’d been caught red-handed with huge quantities of almost every conceivable recreational drug imaginable, and could only ponder at how insanely stupid I’d been! Fear of the unknown now mixed with anger and disgust at myself for allowing this to happen. Paperwork over for the moment, I was escorted to the holding cells and thrown into an 8’ x 6’ room with a bench along the rear wall and a toilet bowl in the corner. The Steel door banged and echoed as they slammed it shut behind me, turning the key in the lock with a finality I had never before encountered. Alone with my thoughts in the silence, eventually I came to the conclusion that no amount of pacing the cell would offer a solution. I had to calm down, weigh up the options, and try to work out the best way forward. Sitting down on the filthy bench, I started to replay the events of the day which had brought me to this, going over and over in my mind every little detail, grasping for some glimmer of hope which would extricate me from the enormous hole I had dug for myself. A silly old man, alone in the darkness, with no friends who cared enough to even answer my phone calls, and nothing to rely on but a poor-peoples-solicitor, and my own wits – the later of which hadn’t been too dependable to date! The weight of evidence against me seemed insurmountable but I figured there was a slim chance my original story about the drugs belonging to Daniel would hold up. It had to be my best chance so far, at any rate.My mouth was so dry, no doubt dehydration from the cocaine I had hovered-up hours earlier. I was hungry and needed some water. After what seemed like eternity, the duty constable appeared to tell me they were going to test my saliva for drugs! This was starting to become an obstacle course, a veritable minefield which, from here on in was going to take every sense and skill I could muster, to ensure I came out the other end in one piece. Stupid, stupid STUPID! I’d been so busy chasing the dragon that I had paid scant regard to the consequences of my actions should I find myself in this situation, but now I would inevitably pay the price!After taking my fingerprints, they then moved onto the saliva test. Apparently they could test for cocaine and heroin, but nothing else. Why hadn’t I known that before today? And of course the only drug I’d been doing today was cocaine. I’d been so excited to test the new batch, straight off the plane from our little man in Peru that I couldn’t wait to unwrap the ounce sized bullet and devour a few lines! Damn! As I sat waiting for the fat, slovenly looking woman officer to come back with the swabs for the drugs test, I wondered about how to make them lie – My Mouth was so dry! Surely in the absence of saliva, there could be no saliva test? They had denied me water for the previous two hours, apparently because it altered the test result, and anyway, I figured I was in so much trouble anyway, that I couldn’t possibly get myself any further in the shit by testing positive to using the drugs they had found in barrow-loads in my kitchen, but the main problem was I just didn’t know what I needed and what not! Best to try and worm out of everything I possibly could at this point, just in case I needed it at a later date. The officer finally came back with an ice lolly stick inserting it under my tongue and telling me to leave it there until she removed it. I found I could quite easily rest it there, without putting it into contact with the inside of my mouth at all, and as my mouth was so dry, there was no danger of any saliva connecting with it. She came back again and checked it, but nothing had happened so she replaced it, went off again, no doubt to fill her face. Eventually after some 20 minutes or so, there was still no reading on the stick so she decided it would have to do, and recorded a reading of negative. Thank God – it might have been a small one but nevertheless it was the first win I’d had all day! Things were looking up!

Teaser! First three Chapters of Candy Flipping - FREE!

PrefaceI never was a great fan of blow-backs. It all seemed rather grubby, like drinking from a shared soft drink bottle, or smoking someone else’s butt ends – I was rather fussy about what I put in my mouth – Well most of the time anyway! I had resisted smoking marijuana from a bong in my youth for the same reasons. Being a country boy, from a rather conservative private school upbringing, I found it dirty, distasteful and common. Nevertheless, it was terribly popular amongst my nice, middle class friends and clients. Maybe it had something to do with the risqué nature of the habit. The idea of slumming it temporarily, getting down and dirty with some multi-tattooed rough trade from the East, experiencing something of which Mummy wouldn’t approve. Maybe that was what set me aside from them all and made me the misfit in this microcosm of society. My Mother had never approved of anything I did, so if I was trying to provoke her, I was already there before the gun went off!The principles of blow-backs were simple enough. One took a huge hit of crystal methamphetamine from ones pipe, inhaling the vapour deep into ones lungs, before kissing ones lover/partner/fuck-buddy on the lips and simultaneously blowing the vapour into their mouth, and then whilst holding the kiss, said partner would draw the stale fumes in, and then blow it back into one’s mouth, thereby increasing the intensity of the high, and when one became particularly adept, the vapour could be passed backwards and forwards numerous times, vastly escalating the magnitude of ones buzz. In reality, the vapour mixed with carbon dioxide when exhaled so in effect, one was only succeeding in poisoning the very person one was apt to love/desire/lust after! To be honest, I had never seen the point in it anyway, I had overcome my distaste on many occasions to try it, but it didn’t seem to have the slightest effect on me whatsoever.The only point to it from the way I saw it was that one got to kiss the object of one's desire. In this age of ‘just sex’, it was not cool to kiss during intercourse. We were all looking for bigger, faster, harder, higher, rougher, - slower, sensual, caring, emotional connections had no place in this disposable, consumable culture. The art was to consume as many conquests as possible, before discarding them like yesterday's newspaper, in search of the next big target on the horizon, in a race with one's peers to be the best, the alpha male of the group, The leader of the pack – By which benchmark, no one knew, and even if they did, the goalposts were ever moving!In a way, I had become a Blow-back – The very thing I despised the most. Sucked up into the vortex, all-consumed, mixed with stale, contaminated fumes, poisoned and damaged, before being exhaled, expelled, forced down the throats of the unsuspecting masses - trying to enhance their experiences, but was I similarly, albeit inadvertently, poisoning them too?Now Candy Flipping – that was an entirely different ball game! I had become expert at judging the exact amount of uppers and downers to hit the perfect peak every time, and it was a fine art. Too much downer, and you tipped over the cliff face, plunged headlong into a K-hole, spiralling endlessly out of control, futilely searching for something in which you would never quite succeed, for hours on end, until you eventually came down, or in the case of G, rendered comatose for a similar length of time. Too little and you just scraped along, not high, but not really sober either. Either way it was an obscene waste of good uppers, because in whichever state, you never really had the benefit of them – But, get the mix right and you would fly! Once the rush came on, the effect was euphoric! All inhibition was out the window, and you felt a confidence nothing could curtail. Everyone was beautiful, everything felt amazing, as if every single nerve ending in your body was alive and alert, waiting for whatever pleasure took it's fancy. Oh yes! The powers of chem-sex Candyflipping were second to none, unrivalled, unlimited and all encompassing! For five or six hours, all thought of the bad, evil, mean, and unkind were banished from the mind, replaced by warm considerate, generous, comforting and cocooning. In this state everyone was safe, looked after and cared for – why would anyone want to go back to reality?ArrestFuck! What was I to do? The Police were now banging on the door, and they were not going to go away. Thinking on my feet, I made a split second decision to confront the issue head on and try to get them to piss off. What were they here for anyway? I moved quickly towards the entrance hall, and hissing at Daniel to keep his mouth shut, I opened the front door to be greeted by two male policemen, one tall and fat, the other squat and weedy.“Good afternoon, we’ve had reports from one of your neighbours of excessive noise and a possible domestic argument.” Oh, fuck, was that all! I silently cursed Daniel for arriving in such a state, and causing this situation.“Ah, no it’s fine, no problem, a friend of mine was a bit upset, but he’s calmed down now, everything’s fine!” I answered from behind the half closed door.“Oh, right, do you mind if we just come in and take a look around?” he countered in a thick northern accent. Yes, I bloody well did! There were about six boys lying around the room in various states of undress and a plate of coke on the coffee table, accompanied by a couple of crystal-methamphetamine loaded water-pipes, Besides all this, before we’d been so rudely interrupted by Daniel, we’d all been about to slam fairly hefty hits of Tina, and an afternoon of frenetic, uninhibited group fornication had been eagerly awaited by the remaining guests. Of course I minded!“No really, there is no need, it's all under control now, my friend has calmed down and actually he’s just leaving, thanks for your concern, its fine. Thank you. We’ll keep the noise down from now on” - Now piss off, was my exact thought!“Actually we’re going to have to insist on coming in. Under section 19 of the domestic violence act we are entitled to enter the premises if we think someone’s life may be in danger, we’ll just take a quick look, it’ll only take a minute and then we’ll get out of your hair.” he answered, placing his foot in the doorway threateningly, to prevent me closing it. Arrogant prick, he was going nowhere! Fucking Daniel! There might not have been anyone’s life in danger on their arrival, but by Jesus, just wait until they had left! I would kill the Bastard! Reasoning that the boys would have had enough time to clear everything away and pull on some clothes, I finally capitulated, moving out of the way and opening the door to admit them, walking into the sitting room with the two of them following close behind, however my eyes were raised in horror at what lay before me. It seemed I had given my idiotic guests more credit than they deserved. The six of them had all clothed themselves into some semblance of decency, and having stopped short of ordering them into action as I headed to greet the cops, I’d have thought it pretty elementary for them to have at least had the foresight, on hearing the ensuing conversation at the door to remove any obvious evidence of our indulgence from sight, however staring back at me completely untouched in all its glory was the plate with eight or nine perfectly formed lines of cocaine lying invitingly as it had been, for all the world to see, and they were onto it immediately.“Oh 'ello, what have we here?” causing me to laugh involuntarily. I hadn’t heard that line in decades, and had always thought it was a leftover cliché from the hyperbolic British sitcoms of the eighties, which in reality would never have been used in real life! It seemed I was wrong about that!“Now we have reason to believe that these are class A drugs you’ve been using, so we’re going to have to search your property”. No shit, Sherlock! I was livid! Idiots! Why had they not just slid the fucking plate under the table? I couldn’t believe their stupidity! I’d had a vague idea that by law I hadn’t had to let the Police in, but in reality I’d had no choice. If I’d denied them entry they would have been suspicious of something going on, and inevitably have forced themselves in anyway, under section nineteen of whatever fucking act they were quoting, but it would have been a simple matter for these fucking, fuckwits to hide the fucking plate!“Who’s the owner of the flat? Who lives here?” they asked, and I affirmed.“The rest of you can go!” they replied, as the boys slowly stood like zombies in a trance and began gathering their belongings, apart from Jacob my on-again-off-again pseudo-boyfriend who had been asleep on the sofa, and had continued to remain so throughout the whole process. I had a feeling he was faking it, but couldn’t understand why.Daniel had been carrying a rather large backpack which was lying on the floor under the breakfast bar where he was sitting“Why are you sweating so much” One of the cops asked him“Because I just ran all the way here from Frognall” he replied, and they swallowed it! Of course it had nothing to do with the great slug of crystal meth he must have slammed before his arrival!“Go on then clear out, the lot of you!” The fat cop answered. He waddled over to Jacob and shook him roughly on the shoulder,“Come on sleepyhead, off you go!” he added, “Time to go home!”Jacob rose disorientated and wandered into the bedroom, and I couldn’t see what he was doing, but the fat copper wasn’t interested in having him hang around, and threatened to arrest him if he didn’t leave. Whilst this was all happening, the sneaky little short one had run around picking up both my phones, both iPads and my MacBook pro, like a seagull on a rubbish tip.“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I shrieked, whereupon Jacob ran back in, eyes darting as he searching the room. Seeing them in the little pig’s hands, he immediately seized upon them,“Those are mine!” he stated, making to grab them out of the grubby little pig’s hands. At least someone was thinking, I thought to myself, but unfortunately he wasn’t quick enough.“We’re keeping these!” he answered, “You can have them back after we’ve ascertained that they haven’t been used criminally”. The whole situation seemed to be playing out in slow motion in front of my eyes like a bad B grade movie, but at the same time everything was happening so fast that I had no chance to circumvent the inevitable. I felt like I didn’t know which way they were going to jump next, and was powerless to prevent them from unearthing more incriminating evidence. Each new uncovering made me mentally kick myself for not having thought of hiding it before their discovery, but there were two of them and only one of me, so I had little chance to do anything as they were watching me like a hawk.It was then that I noticed the ounce of coke; still sitting in its bag as it had been delivered earlier in the day, save for the half gram I’d taxed from it to prepare the plate which had alerted them. Alongside that was an array of airtight canisters in which I stored all the other lines of product we usually had on offer, and now as the two pigs were escorting all the guests out the door I seized my chance and was galvanised into action, throwing them all well underneath the kitchen units, out of obvious sight. There was a slim chance they hadn’t seen them initially and would miss them in their search – well it was worth a try at any rate.All too soon they were back in the room, having slammed the front door shut behind them, and now they were like flies around a septic sore, crawling all over the sitting room and kitchen, their piggy little eyes shifting left and right as they scanned the apartment, for anything and everything they could find to incriminate me.“Have a look at this!” the skinny one called to his fat mate, holding up another large canister full of mephedrone which he had procured from the safe cupboard. Fuck! I reckoned there was almost a kilogram in there alone. Wearily I sat down on the sofa to wait, hands shaking, heart pounding, the game was up and I was in the shit! They were going to lock me up and throw away the key. The fat one was now on the phone, calling for backup, and complaining because there wasn’t a dog squad available to sniff the place out. Idly it dawned on me with not a small amount of humour, that he was disappointed at the revelation because it would have meant he would actually have to do some work himself, something that given his size, he was clearly not used to doing regularly!“How long have you been dealing drugs for?” the fat one asked.Suddenly in a flash of inspiration I had an idea.“Don’t be ridiculous!” I rounded on him “those are not mine! You let the dealer go when you told them all to leave before!” I answered, as a look of insecurity and doubt settled on his plump chops. By now the guys would be long gone, and I didn’t even have Daniel’s last name, but I knew from conversations with him in the past, that he had a history with the police involving drugs, both here and in Germany where he also lived part time, so he was well used to hiding from the law. These two bumpkins had no chance of finding him by now even if they wanted to, and if it came down to saving either me or him, I would quite easily throw him under the bus, in much the same way as he had just done to me, firstly by causing the noise, and then by not removing the evidence when I was at the door. He must have known exactly what was happening and deliberately sat there and done nothing. Or maybe I was giving him too much credit again, and he was just incredibly stupid!Meanwhile, within minutes what felt like the entire Kentish Town Police Department had arrived! Looking out the window I was alarmed to see four squad cars and a van. Jesus, they never reacted this quickly when you reported a break-in or a theft! Usually in that situation you’d be fobbed off with“We’ll get someone out to you as soon as they’re available”, which normally translated to “Fuck off, we don’t give a fuck about what you rich bastards have lost, you’re wasting our time!” They must have thought they’d hit the jackpot here through, as pretty soon there were some nine PC plods gracing my sitting room, all trying to get in on the action, all wanting to be credited in some way with this remarkable coup they thought they’d pulled off, although in reality it had been entirely accidental. Budget cuts, indeed! I thought as I surveyed them all sitting around trying to look important, but in reality, doing sweet fuck all!The fat one had grown in stature by now though, like an overweight Robin with his chest puffed out, proudly strutting around laying claim to have been the first one on the scene.“What’s this then?” he enquired with a smug look on his dial“It’s a soldering iron!” I answered, telling the truth. It was about a foot long, with a large glass chamber which stored the gas to fuel it, and was capable of reaching incredibly high temperatures, hot enough even to weld glass and melt or repair any soft metal. It was used mainly in the design and manufacture of jewellery, but we’d thought it ideal for heating crystal methamphetamine in a pipe or water pipe, but he didn’t need to know that!“Likely story! And what would you want with a soldering iron?” he replied. Who did he think he was? I’d had enough of his clever smartarse comments“None of your fucking business!” I answered, figuring I couldn’t really get into any more hot water than I already was.“Or could it be a device for storing and concealing GBL?” he quipped, looking extremely pleased with himself.“Oh you fucking idiot” I levelled, “You really think I would go to that length, and that expense to buy something that size, to store what? - 50ml of GBL?” Even the other plods on the sofa were now tittering amongst themselves at his stupidity, but as I’d been saying this, I’d had my eye on the 5 litre drum of the stuff sitting on the floor in the kitchen, which they’d been tripping over in their endless journeys back and forth to the fridge, where they had examined the entire contents, taking samples of liquids in the juice cartons. I came to the realisation that they didn’t know what it was, and I was pretty sure that in their haste to ‘leave no stone unturned’ they were overlooking what was literally right under their noses!Attention was then turned to my messenger bag which had been sitting on the sofa where Jacob had been sleeping. They opened it up and examined the contents. The bag itself had been a gift from Umut earlier in the day, a fake Armani which he had picked up in the market on Edgware road. It was a sweet gesture, although I never bought fakes myself, however my big leather satchel had got incredibly wet in a downpour the night before and it was now drying in the airing cupboard, so I had decided to use this one today, and had not long before stocked it with my essentials; My Louis Vuitton cigarette case, Du Pont lighter, sunglasses, Louis Vuitton credit card holder, An envelope with 15g of meph. which I’d been about to take out on a delivery, and my Dior wallet, and a wad of £50 notes in an envelope. They examined each item with avid interest.“What are you doing with so much cash?” The fat one asked, rifling through my wallet and running his grubby little thumbs through the notes.“I always carry £500 in cash.”“What about this other money – what, there must be about a thousand pounds here!” he cried.“£1400, I corrected - spending money for my holiday next week” I replied, suddenly realising that the chances of that happening were now pretty slim!“Who takes almost £2000 cash on holiday?” he cried incredulously, as his cronies gathered around to get a better look at the bundle of notes. Jesus who were these people?“Well obviously not you!” I answered “but then you probably don’t need it for all-you-can-eat-buffet at your budget-Barbie, full-board package holidays in Magaluf!”“I take my credit card” he muttered“oh yes, of course, but I don't suppose you're the sort of person who thinks of tipping staff, and mostly they don't accept credit cards” I answered as he lifted out my Credit card holder, flicking the cards onto the table, and bending to examine them.“Well it doesn’t matter now though, does it?” he answered smugly “We’re seizing all this – proceeds of crime! You won’t be seeing this ever again!”What on earth was he on about? Proceeds of crime indeed!Now I was starting to worry. Buoyed by the copious amounts of cocaine which had been coursing through my veins, it had occurred to me that I had been perhaps a little too keen to belittle this idiot, no matter what his obvious shortcomings might have been. Coming back to reality, I realised that I was in fact out of my depth completely, and had no idea where I stood legally, or even what the next moves would be. I should probably shut my trap, and wait to see what their next move would be. From then on, I maintained a stony silence, my only concession to glare at the fat prick of a policeman whenever he made any further discoveries.Eventually, the smug, weedy, little arsehole - Chris Pink was his name I was to find out later, who had originally attended with the fat one, decided there was no reason for me to stay here, and that he could “wrap it up” on his own, so after clamping a set of cuffs on me, I was frog marched out to the van. The fat one opened the back door, slamming my face into the steel edge in the process.“Whoops, sorry! No CCTV cameras around here sonny!” he quipped as he threw me into the van, with a smarmy grin on his double chinned dial, and slammed the door closed. I guess I was under arrest!The Holborn HiltonWe arrived at Holborn Police station a short while later, and I was escorted from the drive-in undercover car parking area, along a narrow corridor and into the reception, where the contents of my bag, minus the mephedrone, along with my phones and devices, were recorded, and I was allowed to retrieve two phone numbers before everything was placed into evidence bags and whisked away out of sight. Meanwhile the other investigating officers had arrived with the rest of the evidence they had retrieved from my flat, and they now spread it out in bags across the floor of the reception for all in sundry to see. At least it gave me an idea of what they had taken, however it didn’t look good! There were literally armfuls of stuff, but I was fascinated to see what they thought was incriminating, and I managed to get a good look at everything before they ushered me back to the desk, where the endless, pointless list of questions started – The same for everyone, rote learnt, monkey-see-monkey-do! It’s amazing how these people are absolute sticklers for routine and following the procedure when it suits them, but oh, so willing to skip it when it’s not something they can be caught or reprimanded for – Law or no law!“Name?”“Age?”“Date of Birth?”“Address?” All of which they knew or had already taken down at the time of arrest, and still managed to spell incorrectly. How difficult is it to spell Yorke, for Christ sake! It's one of the oldest, most English names in the book! I pitied the poor Romanians or Hungarians when dealing with these imbeciles! And then onto the more difficult questions…“Nationality?”“Well, since you’re staring at my NEW ZEALAND Passport, which incidentally, also shows you the spelling of my name, I guess it’s pretty simple to deduce that my Nationality is NEW ZEALAND!”“Well, you might have more than one passport” So why not ask that then?“Do you now, or have you ever in the past had any thoughts of suicide or self harm?” Really? What are your thoughts? You’ve just caught me doing some seriously illegal shit, so according to the way you’re behaving; my life is pretty much over. On top of that, I’ve just spent the past three hours with the mind numbing task of having to deal with people who are only marginally of a high enough IQ not to be classed as special needs, but who think they are incredibly clever and intelligent! You’re clearly on some massive power trip, and you wonder whether I’m having thoughts of suicide? Seriously? Damn right I do! I want to kill myself from depression at the utter stupidity of the people in this country who are supposedly charged with keeping its occupants safe! God save us, because the fucking Police force won’t! And if I was seriously thinking of topping myself, do you really think I would tell you! Just because someone says they are going to do something, doesn’t mean they will! I answered“No.”And the list went on, and on, and on in the same mind-numbingly boring routine – Interrogation for dummies, following the succession of ridiculously obvious questions, laughable in their content, but even more hilarious for the fact that those asking them could hardly read what they needed to say, having to skip the words they couldn’t pronounce! Jesus! Kill me now!My regulation phone call had resulted in no answer to both numbers. Now that was out of the way, they could tick the box to say I’d been offered a phone call, even though I hadn’t connected with anyone. Job done, numbers discarded, obligation over! Jacob should have been waiting to hear from me, and the second number belonged to Teem, a friend who I’d vaguely thought may be the best bet as a backup in my panic to jot down the numbers, but he was also ignoring me.To be honest, I hadn’t been able to think straight at the time. Nothing prepares one for these situations, and everything had happened so fast, with my life painstakingly unfurling before my eyes as if I were in a trance. What would become of me? Clearly they were going to lock me up for a long time! I’d been caught red-handed with huge quantities of almost every conceivable recreational drug imaginable, and could only ponder at how insanely stupid I’d been! Fear of the unknown now mixed with anger and disgust at myself for allowing this to happen. Paperwork over for the moment, I was escorted to the holding cells and thrown into an 8’ x 6’ room with a bench along the rear wall and a toilet bowl in the corner. The Steel door banged and echoed as they slammed it shut behind me, turning the key in the lock with a finality I had never before encountered. Alone with my thoughts in the silence, eventually I came to the conclusion that no amount of pacing the cell would offer a solution. I had to calm down, weigh up the options, and try to work out the best way forward. Sitting down on the filthy bench, I started to replay the events of the day which had brought me to this, going over and over in my mind every little detail, grasping for some glimmer of hope which would extricate me from the enormous hole I had dug for myself. A silly old man, alone in the darkness, with no friends who cared enough to even answer my phone calls, and nothing to rely on but a poor-peoples-solicitor, and my own wits – the later of which hadn’t been too dependable to date! The weight of evidence against me seemed insurmountable but I figured there was a slim chance my original story about the drugs belonging to Daniel would hold up. It had to be my best chance so far, at any rate.My mouth was so dry, no doubt dehydration from the cocaine I had hovered-up hours earlier. I was hungry and needed some water. After what seemed like eternity, the duty constable appeared to tell me they were going to test my saliva for drugs! This was starting to become an obstacle course, a veritable minefield which, from here on in was going to take every sense and skill I could muster, to ensure I came out the other end in one piece. Stupid, stupid STUPID! I’d been so busy chasing the dragon that I had paid scant regard to the consequences of my actions should I find myself in this situation, but now I would inevitably pay the price!After taking my fingerprints, they then moved onto the saliva test. Apparently they could test for cocaine and heroin, but nothing else. Why hadn’t I known that before today? And of course the only drug I’d been doing today was cocaine. I’d been so excited to test the new batch, straight off the plane from our little man in Peru that I couldn’t wait to unwrap the ounce sized bullet and devour a few lines! Damn! As I sat waiting for the fat, slovenly looking woman officer to come back with the swabs for the drugs test, I wondered about how to make them lie – My Mouth was so dry! Surely in the absence of saliva, there could be no saliva test? They had denied me water for the previous two hours, apparently because it altered the test result, and anyway, I figured I was in so much trouble anyway, that I couldn’t possibly get myself any further in the shit by testing positive to using the drugs they had found in barrow-loads in my kitchen, but the main problem was I just didn’t know what I needed and what not! Best to try and worm out of everything I possibly could at this point, just in case I needed it at a later date. The officer finally came back with an ice lolly stick inserting it under my tongue and telling me to leave it there until she removed it. I found I could quite easily rest it there, without putting it into contact with the inside of my mouth at all, and as my mouth was so dry, there was no danger of any saliva connecting with it. She came back again and checked it, but nothing had happened so she replaced it, went off again, no doubt to fill her face. Eventually after some 20 minutes or so, there was still no reading on the stick so she decided it would have to do, and recorded a reading of negative. Thank God – it might have been a small one but nevertheless it was the first win I’d had all day! Things were looking up!

Teaser! First Three Chapters of 'Chasing the Dragon - Are You Chem-friendly?' - FREE!

PreludeHow could my life have resulted in this? Banged up in a police holding cell, awaiting a visit from the duty solicitor, with no idea what would happen next. One thing was clear – I was in trouble! Duty solicitors were for poor people, weren’t they? Well, like it or not, they would have to do! I had a myriad of lawyer friends who might have helped me, or at least organised a colleague who could, but their numbers were all neatly filed away amongst some 2000 odd contacts and ‘friends’ in my iPhone – None of them much use to me now! The police had confiscated two phones, two iPads and my MacBook during the arrest. I was allowed to record two phone numbers before all devices were slid deftly into evidence bags, sealed, labelled and squirrelled away to the darkest depths of the Holborn police station. My regulation phone call had resulted in no answer to both numbers. Jacob, my on-again-off-again pseudo-boyfriend should have been waiting to hear from me as he’d been with me at the time of my arrest, and the second number belonged to Teem, a friend and employee whom I’d vaguely thought may have been the best backup option in my panic to jot down the numbers, but he was also deserting me. To be honest, I wasn’t thinking at the time. Nothing prepares you for these situations, and everything had happened so fast, but at the same time it all felt like it was occurring in slow motion – my life painfully unfurling before my eyes as if I were in a trance. What would become of me?Clearly they were going to lock me up and throw away the key. I’d been caught red-handed and could only ponder at how insanely stupid I’d been! Fear of the unknown mixed with anger and disgust at myself for allowing this to happen. Eventually I came to the conclusion that no amount of pacing the cell endlessly would do me any good at all. I had to force myself to calm down, weigh up the options, and try to work out the next step forward. Sitting down on the filthy bench, I started to replay the events of the day which had brought me here, going over and over in my mind every little detail, grasping for some glimmer of hope which would extricate me from the enormous hole I had dug for myself. A silly old man, alone in the darkness, with no friends who cared enough to even answer my phone calls, and nothing to rely on but a poor-peoples-solicitor, and my own wits – the latter of which hadn’t been too dependable to date! The weight of evidence against me seemed insurmountable, but, ever the optimist, as I started to rewind, a small glimmer of hope seemed to emerge from the fog of panic. It was a slim chance, but it might just be my salvation. My mouth was so dry, no doubt dehydration from the cocaine I had hoovered up hours earlier. I was hungry and needed some water. After what seemed like eternity, the duty constable appeared to tell me they were going to test my saliva for drugs – eek! This was starting to become an obstacle course, a veritable minefield which, from here on in was going to take every sense and skill I could muster, to ensure I came out the other end in one piece. I never had been any good at orienteering, but now I had no choice but to learn - fast! Stupid, stupid STUPID! I’d been so busy ‘chasing the dragon’ that I had paid scant regard to the consequences of my actions should I find myself in this situation. Yes I felt sorry for myself - How could they do this to me? This wasn’t my fault! Other people’s foolishness had caused this, and now I would inevitably be left holding the baby! I hated babies!Chapter 1. The Birth of My DemiseThe birth of my demise was the move into the new flat in Belsize Park. Massimiliano and I had been conducting a long distance relationship for the past year, he living just outside Geneva, Switzerland, with me in the United Kingdom, but he had quit his job as an accountant, and was moving to London where we would finally be together. I was excited about the year ahead. As a freelance travel journalist, I was booked up for the forthcoming 12 months, but together we had also committed to producing two human-interest documentaries which had already generated considerable attention with the commissioners at three major television networks, and had the potential to change the world!. The travel TV show on which I had been working for a good six months had also piqued their interest, and they had asked for a taster. Given that we were about to depart on a tour of Cambodia for research on one of the documentaries, followed by a further two weeks filming the other in Israel, it provided the perfect opportunity to take the extra footage needed for this also. The plan was to fly to Phnom Penh for two weeks, then directly to Tel Aviv, meeting the crew who would fly out from London to join us, spend two weeks filming and editing on the fly, splicing together a short film which could then be submitted to the Marche de Cannes and if accepted, would be used to attract investment to produce the full length feature film.The Cambodia leg of the trip worried me. In the back of my mind I was also secretly hoping we would come away from it with enough content to submit a second short film to the Cannes Judiciary, killing two birds with one stone, and therefore justifying the eye-watering amounts of cash needed to fund the excursion, because at this point, to me it was shaping up as a complete folly which would cost us a small fortune with no guarantee of anything worthwhile in return. Max was adamant it would be phenomenal so I had reluctantly gone along with it, hoping he would be proved right, but I had grave reservations.Months earlier, in the infancy of our relationship, when we were first discussing the prospect of the Israel project, Massimiliano, Max to his friends, had also broached the subject of filming in Cambodia. It transpired that he had ‘met’ a real live Khmer Prince on ‘Gay Romeo’, or some such other gay networking site, who had been living in Rome since the Royal family had been exiled in the early seventies, around the time of the coup d’état of the Khmer Rouge. The two of them had discussed the possibility of filming there, and the Prince had offered his assistance in providing valuable access to the Royal Family, and other contacts not normally available to the general populous. Although I’d had the country on my bucket list of places to visit for quite some time, I had been initially dubious. It all seemed rather unlikely that any member of a Royal family, no matter how minor, from any kingdom should take an avid interest in a quiet, unassuming accountant from Switzerland, with very limited production or filming experience and wish to bestow all manner of favour upon him, in order to facilitate the creation of a film of which content, format, reason, or theme were unknown. What was his motivation? What was in it for him? If the offers were genuine, it was an amazing opportunity, given the access promised, and it definitely warranted further investigation, fantastic as it seemed, but I had my doubts! Not to be deterred, Max had been invited to visit the Prince in Rome to discuss the project and possible angles in more detail, but as the old adage states: If it seems too good to be true, it usually is, and this was no exception. For the moment I would reserve judgement until the facts became clearer, but I was adamant I would not be drawn into anything on a whim!Max and I had telephoned constantly throughout the week preceding his Rome excursion, and I was confident by the time he departed, that he was adequately armed with questions I needed answered to investigate all the opportunities exhaustively, so with excess-baggage quantities of Swiss chocolate as gifts, off he went, promising to call me once they had concluded the initial meeting. The phone rang at about midnight on Saturday, and He seemed in excellent spirits. He had met with the Prince for the first time and it turned out they were kindred spirits. Both, it seemed were incredibly ‘Spiritual’ and apparently the Prince had detected a special aura and exceptional ‘energy’ in Max, so had insisted Max undress before him in the hotel room to enable the energy to flow! I should have put a stop to this madness right then and there - even if it were true, none of these attributes afforded him the first bit of credibility in the world of film production, and it seemed they had overstepped major boundaries. This was not how business was conducted in the real world, and poor Max had been far too trusting and open to this guy, who was to my mind clearly not focussed on business! Max insisted the meeting had gone well, and indeed, I don’t know about the energies the Prince had detected but he was clearly hoping something would flow, as they were now discussing a further meeting, this time involving me. Despite my doubts, Max was still determined to pursue this, and insisted that the guy was legitimate and genuine, so, not wanting to burst his bubble, I went along with it, agreeing to a phone call with them the following afternoon, in which I could address my concerns. I didn’t hold out much hope of anything substantial coming of it, but I figured, ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’ as Mother used to say! Max was in awe of this guy, and hopeful of gaining something unique and significant, but one thing was certain; there was no way I would be stripping naked in front of someone I had just met in order to have my aura read - Prince or no Prince!The phone call between me and the Prince the following afternoon did little to allay my doubts, consisting largely of pleasantries and platitudes. There was no substance to anything he said and when asked specifics, he had an artful way of dodging the questions and steering the conversation in other directions, so in my mind I’d written the project off, but perhaps Max had been more successful in gaining useful information than me. The following Thursday I met him at Heathrow, and we travelled back to Islington by tube. He was so excited about Cambodia that the Israel project to which we had already committed, seemed to pale into insignificance by comparison. I listened carefully to his ideas for the full hours’ journey but still couldn’t see an angle, or even a reason to justify the vast expense it would inevitably entail. In explanation of the naked aura searching, according to the Prince, the people of Cambodia believed the King, and the Royal Family to be the spiritual link between the mortal people and the Gods, and therefore it was necessary for him to fully explore Max’s energy in order to ascertain his suitability for any commercial projects, thereby building trust before he was introduced to other members of his family. In short, looking back it was a blatant abuse of power and privilege to extract sexual favour, preying on Max’s celebrity aspirations, in fact no better than a Jimmy Saville or any other sexual predator in the headline news of the time. I could understand the need for trust, and security, but seldom in business did this involve naked aura searching!I also worried that we would be biting off more than we could chew. We had already pledged to produce the Israel documentary, Peoples of Israel, having spent countless weeks and months planning, establishing access to different contacts and sites, contracting crew and talent, and booking accommodation and transport links, the list went on, and I felt that as this was our first time working together, in a relatively new personal relationship, it would be churlish to overburden ourselves with the pressures of two major, on-location endeavours. I conveyed all this to Max, but he was afraid the Prince would go to someone else and we would lose a once in a lifetime opportunity.He promised all would become clearer when we met; it seemed the two of them had hatched a plan in which Max and I would fly to Rome in early January to meet with the Prince and his partner, and they would all seek to convince me of the virtues of this grand folly. I should have been stronger and insisted on more details, or in fact, just said no, but Max was so convinced of the merits, that I reluctantly agreed to join them on the 10th January. As the 19th was my birthday, and I had been planning a ski resort feature for one of the magazines to coincide with it for quite some time, Max and I resolved to meet in Rome and then both fly back to Switzerland together, where I would spend the week reviewing hotels in Geneva, and we would spend the weekend at the newly refurbished and reopened Crans Ambassador, in the ski region of Crans Montana, celebrating my birthday there on the Saturday night.The Gods were obviously against this from the start! My passport had just expired, so after the New Year celebrations were over, I trotted off to New Zealand House to renew it, but somehow managed to lose the expired document along the way. This posed a monumental problem. As I had managed to misplace or lose the previous four or five aside from this one, needless to say the New Zealand Consulate were not entirely impressed with my history, so were now insisting on having my passport photos verified by a New Zealand Citizen who had known me for longer than 5 years! Luckily an old school friend, Andrew Ross was now living in Kent, so after a day spent on the train to Rochester and back, I was able to re-submit my application, paying the requisite £200 surcharge for emergency issue. This gave me a passport valid for one year, with a nasty little note from the Consulate General advising that I had been a naughty boy, and that if this document were lost or stolen, another one would not be issued until exhaustive measures had been implemented to recover it!AS if this wasn’t enough of an omen, Max had booked my flight for 2pm on Friday afternoon, and thinking he was being helpful, added a train ticket on Gatwick Express, in reality less convenient than the standard Brighton line from Kings Cross, and five times more expensive. I left home in plenty of time, arriving at Victoria Station right on 11am to find absolute chaos as I ascended from the Underground. There had been a bomb scare five minutes earlier, resulting in all trains being cancelled for the foreseeable future. After flagging a cab, negotiating traffic on Vauxhall Bridge road on a Friday afternoon, and after a 55 GBP fare, I alighted to find that check-in for my flight had just closed and the next flight to Rome wasn’t till 4pm, meaning I would miss our dinner booking at 7pm, arriving rushed, stressed and ill-prepared, making it more difficult to extract the details needed to make an informed decision on the future of the project. I had phoned Max, suggesting that I fly directly to Geneva and meet him there on Sunday night, but he was crestfallen so again I capitulated, booked the flight at more than double the original price, and headed off to Rome.I disliked the Prince from the start, and I’m pretty sure the feeling was mutual. I’d like to say this sentiment was based on face value, without any preconceived ideas, but the fact is I had lost respect for him before I’d ever met him. He had overstepped fundamental business boundaries and in my mind I had already dismissed him as a fraud. I had arrived, as predicted, two hours late, to find them all waiting in the reception of our hotel. I was tired and irritable, and would have liked to shower, change and compose my thoughts before the introduction, but this was now out of the question, so dumping my case in the hotel room, we immediately went in to dinner. The food was mediocre to say the least, and the company of a similar calibre. The Prince had recommended the hotel and the restaurant, and then proceeded to dictate the choice of wine and menu, which rather stuck in my craw, considering we were paying, however it did give me somewhat of a glimpse of the personality of the man, and what to expect in future. To make matters worse, knowing I spoke no Italian and very rusty French, they conducted the entire evening in a mixture of the two, despite the three of them being fluent in English. Whenever I did manage to get a word in edgeways, and steer the conversation back to the matter for which we were all gathered, I was benignly dismissed with phrases like,“Once you are there I’m sure you will find an angle”, or “My dear, there are so many opportunities, you only have to open your eyes…” Patronising Pricks!The entire tone of the evening was one of the dear benevolent Prince being so kind as to take the privileged common folk on a tour of his beloved country, and of course give us access to people and places we would never encounter without his gracious intervention. This may in some part have been true, and who knows what his intentions might have been towards Max, but I couldn’t help asking myself why? There had to be some benefit for him, aside from just generosity and largesse from the goodness of his heart, but this was soon to become abundantly clear. As the plot unfolded, I soon learnt that we were to pay for return business class flights from Rome to Phnom Penh for the two of them, accommodation for all of us at the Raffles Le Royal hotel, one of the most renowned and exclusive hotels in the world, a car and driver for the entire two weeks, not to mention all meals, tips, passes, and everything to do with the permissions for filming etc. In return, he would introduce us to other members of the Royal Family, and show us around the country. In short we were to pay for a jolly old vacation for the poor fellows, at a time which conveniently coincided with family and state functions the Prince wanted to attend, but lacked the means to accomplish, and at the same time he would earn brownie points and status for single-handedly facilitating the introduction of film makers from London who would make a documentary to be shown worldwide, showcasing the excellent works his relatives were doing in improving the poor lives of the population of the country at large, thereby elevating his stature – in fact, nothing short of an exercise in propaganda and self-glorification!I was determined that there would be no point in re-documenting topics which had already been covered admirably by all number of filmmakers far more accomplished than us; the reign of the Khmer Rouge, Angkor Wat, or topics which I had no desire to investigate at all – the child sex trade in particular! If we were going to proceed, I wanted something which would put a positive spin on the country, sending a message of hope and encouragement to the world, not screaming poor, poor us, and flogging a dead horse on corruption, dictatorship, degradation and poverty, But I felt at this moment that the Prince was hell bent on showing us only what he wanted us to see. I also felt that to make the sort of film I had envisaged, we could do it quite easily on our own, without the need for five star accommodation, chauffeur driven cars, and money-grubbing, egotistical tour guides, however self-important they had made themselves out to be. This of course could all have been achieved at far less cost than the £20,000 or so that I envisaged the present arrangement would total, but again, I was a minority of one, with Max adamant that nothing could be realised without his bosom-buddy, the Prince.At the end of the weekend my opinion of the Prince had not changed, and if anything, had been cemented. To me, he’d showed himself to be arrogant, conceited, and flashy, a total show pony, but also manipulative, conniving and sly, using bullying tactics and a passive aggressive attitude to achieve his ends. I made a note to myself to keep a wary eye on him in any future dealings. To be frank, I didn’t trust him one little bit! After an extravagant weekend of wining and dining our illustrious Royal couple, at exorbitant cost, we departed for Geneva, and over the course of the next week, had time for extensive discussions together, without the influence of others to cloud our judgement. Although I stopped short of telling Max of my intense dislike of his friend, he certainly knew I had my reservations, but together we agreed not to be swayed into making something which would stop short of being exactly what we wanted, and as Max had his heart set on continuing, I folded. The prince emailed through an itinerary he had organized with a tour guide in Cambodia, and still not really having any idea what we were heading towards, I figured it best now that we were committed, to go along with it and see where it led us.Chapter 2. Downhill with No BrakesIsrael on the other hand, was coming together nicely, or so we thought. We’d had several conversations with the people in Nazareth, who were the subjects of our story, and they could not have been more helpful to us in arranging accommodation, transportation, and ideas of other contacts to interview and meet. Max and I were co-producers, and I had offered the Job of first cameraman to Joel, my closest friend in London, but in initial discussions with Simon, a prospective investor, it had been mentioned that if we had a reputable director it would help our cause in attracting the right amount of funding. He’d suggested Paul, who on paper seemed perfect. He had produced a number of similar projects before and directed a number of others, was an expert in sound production, and had won awards at major film festivals worldwide so Simon put us in touch and we arranged to meet.I’d invited him to a smart Mexican restaurant in Mayfair and initial impressions were less than ideal. To start with, he was fat! Back in Australia, in the 80’s era of business motivational boot-camps, positive mental attitude, lateral thinking and the like, I’d once attended a grooming and body language course, run by a former Miss Universe, and one thing she said, had stuck in my mind throughout my adult life:“Never hire fat people, because fat people are lazy people!”, she’d advised and although I know it’s not politically correct to use it out loud nowadays, in all my years of business, I have never seen an exception to this rule. He arrived at the restaurant over an hour late, wearing a stinking old raincoat, which on removal revealed massive dark sweaty circles under his armpits. His table manners were atrocious, and he took the word unkempt to a new level, however I wasn’t hiring him for his good looks so I resolved to see what he had to say. He seemed to know what he was talking about, even allowing for his outrageous name-dropping, and his IMDB revealed that he had worked for, and with, some of the big names in film and television. He was willing to take on the project for a reasonable fee and also had a protégé cameraman which he could bring to the table, so after a discussion with Max, we decided to hire them both. This meant that our crew was complete, and the final cherry on top was that my dear friend, Actor, and presenter Alex Legouix had agreed to front it for us if we could work around her commitments to other television shows, so we were in business.The closing date for entries to Cannes Film Festival coincided with the day the crew would be flying back to London, but the director was confident he could edit on the fly, producing something good enough to get us accepted prior to his departure, so this was the target. We would then submit the final edit on the morning of the first day of the festival, and Paul assured us that this was possible as he had done it numerous times before.By coincidence, the director and his cameraman had just moved into a new flat, a short walk down the road from me, and had invited us to their housewarming party, planned for a fortnight prior to our departure. Throughout our short association, if we had needed to meet it had always been in a café or restaurant, where the director had an irritating habit of always ordering the most expensive item on the menu. As he never had a penny to bless himself with, I was always left to foot the bill, which ordinarily I wouldn’t have minded so much, except that we were desperately trying to curb our expenditure, and this did nothing to assist in keeping to the budget. I also had firm views about maintaining boundaries between ourselves and staff, or contractors, but as we hadn’t yet met James, the second cameraman, and with Max in London on his last visit before moving, we decided to attend...The flat was Squalid! I have never been so appalled in my entire life. The kitchen surfaces had taken on a life of their own. They obviously hadn’t washed a single dish since moving four weeks earlier. The kitchen table was covered with pots and pans, plates and bowls; all adorned with dark hairy growths, and the aroma was one of musty Wellington boots. The glasses of ‘cocktails’ they handed us were sticky, with a cloudy film of grease around the rim. It was difficult to imagine how someone so slovenly could possibly produce anything of merit workwise, but with little less than two weeks before our departure and still so much to do, we decided it was too late at this stage to look for a substitute, and after all, his IMDb couldn’t possibly lie, could it? I was beginning to have grave doubts at this point, and frankly, resented having agreed to take this fellow on. I should have trusted my initial judgement. In all honesty, hiring him had done nothing to further our cause in attracting investment, rather looking like it had been a clever ruse on the part of Simon to get his mate a job, and he himself had been less than proficient in securing funding for us, instead trying to sting us for a £10,000 brokers fee upfront with no guarantee of anything at the other end, so he wasn’t exactly high on our Christmas card list at this stage either!The other worrying thing about Paul was that on closer inspection of the facts, he seemed to have fallen out with everyone, or been fired from every job he had ever held. When mentioning him in passing to a group of friends in the fashion industry, his name had been met with derision and contempt, with most warning us to steer well clear of him. The issue which should have aroused further suspicion was that he seemed to know every single, try-hard, fraudulent, free-loading wannabe in the London fashion and social scene, mostly people I had tried very hard to avoid over the years, and certainly not those with whom I wanted to be associated now! In actual fact, every single alarm bell was ringing about this guy, and there couldn’t have been any more indicators of impending disaster, but for some bizarre unknown reason, I ignored every single sign, and to this day, I have no idea why!On top of this, I was yet to be convinced that we even needed a director for the project we had planned, Max and I might have disagreed on details concerning Cambodia, but on Israel we were both singing from exactly the same hymn sheet, and had been right from the start. I reasoned that this position could more than likely have been shared by the two of us, and on top of this, Joel and I had worked together many times before so he knew exactly what I wanted and would have been more than capable of achieving our desired result, and stepping in to direct where needed in our absence. Max however remained convinced that we would achieve a better quality of footage with him at the helm, and also reasoned, quite rightly that Paul knew the Cannes submission procedure inside out, having followed it so many times before, therefore he knew what the judiciary would be looking for in the initial submission, and if nothing else could facilitate that. At any rate, it was too late to start firing people now, and we would find it difficult, with our hectic schedule of filming in Cambodia, to engage another second cameraman from London at this stage, as the two of them came somewhat as a package. The wheels were set in motion, flights, accommodation and logistics were all planned, so it was infinitely easier to keep the status quo. I was beginning to feel much like a train running downhill with no brakes – everything seemed to be happening in front of my eyes, without my control, and against my gut instincts, and I was powerless to resist!

Teaser! First Three Chapters of 'Chasing the Dragon' FREE!

PreludeHow could my life have resulted in this? Banged up in a police holding cell, awaiting a visit from the duty solicitor, with no idea what would happen next. One thing was clear – I was in trouble! Duty solicitors were for poor people, weren’t they? Well, like it or not, they would have to do! I had a myriad of lawyer friends who might have helped me, or at least organised a colleague who could, but their numbers were all neatly filed away amongst some 2000 odd contacts and ‘friends’ in my iPhone – None of them much use to me now! The police had confiscated two phones, two iPads and my MacBook during the arrest. I was allowed to record two phone numbers before all devices were slid deftly into evidence bags, sealed, labelled and squirrelled away to the darkest depths of the Holborn police station. My regulation phone call had resulted in no answer to both numbers. Jacob, my on-again-off-again pseudo-boyfriend should have been waiting to hear from me as he’d been with me at the time of my arrest, and the second number belonged to Teem, a friend and employee whom I’d vaguely thought may have been the best backup option in my panic to jot down the numbers, but he was also deserting me. To be honest, I wasn’t thinking at the time. Nothing prepares you for these situations, and everything had happened so fast, but at the same time it all felt like it was occurring in slow motion – my life painfully unfurling before my eyes as if I were in a trance. What would become of me? Clearly they were going to lock me up and throw away the key. I’d been caught red-handed and could only ponder at how insanely stupid I’d been! Fear of the unknown mixed with anger and disgust at myself for allowing this to happen. Eventually I came to the conclusion that no amount of pacing the cell endlessly would do me any good at all. I had to force myself to calm down, weigh up the options, and try to work out the next step forward. Sitting down on the filthy bench, I started to replay the events of the day which had brought me here, going over and over in my mind every little detail, grasping for some glimmer of hope which would extricate me from the enormous hole I had dug for myself. A silly old man, alone in the darkness, with no friends who cared enough to even answer my phone calls, and nothing to rely on but a poor-peoples-solicitor, and my own wits – the latter of which hadn’t been too dependable to date! The weight of evidence against me seemed insurmountable, but, ever the optimist, as I started to rewind, a small glimmer of hope seemed to emerge from the fog of panic. It was a slim chance, but it might just be my salvation. My mouth was so dry, no doubt dehydration from the cocaine I had hoovered up hours earlier. I was hungry and needed some water. After what seemed like eternity, the duty constable appeared to tell me they were going to test my saliva for drugs – eek! This was starting to become an obstacle course, a veritable minefield which, from here on in was going to take every sense and skill I could muster, to ensure I came out the other end in one piece. I never had been any good at orienteering, but now I had no choice but to learn - fast! Stupid, stupid STUPID! I’d been so busy ‘chasing the dragon’ that I had paid scant regard to the consequences of my actions should I find myself in this situation. Yes I felt sorry for myself - How could they do this to me? This wasn’t my fault! Other people’s foolishness had caused this, and now I would inevitably be left holding the baby! I hated babies!Chapter 1. The Birth of My DemiseThe birth of my demise was the move into the new flat in Belsize Park. Massimiliano and I had been conducting a long distance relationship for the past year, he living just outside Geneva, Switzerland, with me in the United Kingdom, but he had quit his job as an accountant, and was moving to London where we would finally be together. I was excited about the year ahead. As a freelance travel journalist, I was booked up for the forthcoming 12 months, but together we had also committed to producing two human-interest documentaries which had already generated considerable attention with the commissioners at three major television networks, and had the potential to change the world!. The travel TV show on which I had been working for a good six months had also piqued their interest, and they had asked for a taster. Given that we were about to depart on a tour of Cambodia for research on one of the documentaries, followed by a further two weeks filming the other in Israel, it provided the perfect opportunity to take the extra footage needed for this also. The plan was to fly to Phnom Penh for two weeks, then directly to Tel Aviv, meeting the crew who would fly out from London to join us, spend two weeks filming and editing on the fly, splicing together a short film which could then be submitted to the Marche de Cannes and if accepted, would be used to attract investment to produce the full length feature film.The Cambodia leg of the trip worried me. In the back of my mind I was also secretly hoping we would come away from it with enough content to submit a second short film to the Cannes Judiciary, killing two birds with one stone, and therefore justifying the eye-watering amounts of cash needed to fund the excursion, because at this point, to me it was shaping up as a complete folly which would cost us a small fortune with no guarantee of anything worthwhile in return. Max was adamant it would be phenomenal so I had reluctantly gone along with it, hoping he would be proved right, but I had grave reservations.Months earlier, in the infancy of our relationship, when we were first discussing the prospect of the Israel project, Massimiliano, Max to his friends, had also broached the subject of filming in Cambodia. It transpired that he had ‘met’ a real live Khmer Prince on ‘Gay Romeo’, or some such other gay networking site, who had been living in Rome since the Royal family had been exiled in the early seventies, around the time of the coup d’état of the Khmer Rouge. The two of them had discussed the possibility of filming there, and the Prince had offered his assistance in providing valuable access to the Royal Family, and other contacts not normally available to the general populous. Although I’d had the country on my bucket list of places to visit for quite some time, I had been initially dubious. It all seemed rather unlikely that any member of a Royal family, no matter how minor, from any kingdom should take an avid interest in a quiet, unassuming accountant from Switzerland, with very limited production or filming experience and wish to bestow all manner of favour upon him, in order to facilitate the creation of a film of which content, format, reason, or theme were unknown. What was his motivation? What was in it for him? If the offers were genuine, it was an amazing opportunity, given the access promised, and it definitely warranted further investigation, fantastic as it seemed, but I had my doubts! Not to be deterred, Max had been invited to visit the Prince in Rome to discuss the project and possible angles in more detail, but as the old adage states: If it seems too good to be true, it usually is, and this was no exception. For the moment I would reserve judgement until the facts became clearer, but I was adamant I would not be drawn into anything on a whim!Max and I had telephoned constantly throughout the week preceding his Rome excursion, and I was confident by the time he departed, that he was adequately armed with questions I needed answered to investigate all the opportunities exhaustively, so with excess-baggage quantities of Swiss chocolate as gifts, off he went, promising to call me once they had concluded the initial meeting. The phone rang at about midnight on Saturday, and He seemed in excellent spirits. He had met with the Prince for the first time and it turned out they were kindred spirits. Both, it seemed were incredibly ‘Spiritual’ and apparently the Prince had detected a special aura and exceptional ‘energy’ in Max, so had insisted Max undress before him in the hotel room to enable the energy to flow! I should have put a stop to this madness right then and there - even if it were true, none of these attributes afforded him the first bit of credibility in the world of film production, and it seemed they had overstepped major boundaries. This was not how business was conducted in the real world, and poor Max had been far too trusting and open to this guy, who was to my mind clearly not focussed on business! Max insisted the meeting had gone well, and indeed, I don’t know about the energies the Prince had detected but he was clearly hoping something would flow, as they were now discussing a further meeting, this time involving me. Despite my doubts, Max was still determined to pursue this, and insisted that the guy was legitimate and genuine, so, not wanting to burst his bubble, I went along with it, agreeing to a phone call with them the following afternoon, in which I could address my concerns. I didn’t hold out much hope of anything substantial coming of it, but I figured, ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’ as Mother used to say! Max was in awe of this guy, and hopeful of gaining something unique and significant, but one thing was certain; there was no way I would be stripping naked in front of someone I had just met in order to have my aura read - Prince or no Prince!The phone call between me and the Prince the following afternoon did little to allay my doubts, consisting largely of pleasantries and platitudes. There was no substance to anything he said and when asked specifics, he had an artful way of dodging the questions and steering the conversation in other directions, so in my mind I’d written the project off, but perhaps Max had been more successful in gaining useful information than me. The following Thursday I met him at Heathrow, and we travelled back to Islington by tube. He was so excited about Cambodia that the Israel project to which we had already committed, seemed to pale into insignificance by comparison. I listened carefully to his ideas for the full hours’ journey but still couldn’t see an angle, or even a reason to justify the vast expense it would inevitably entail. In explanation of the naked aura searching, according to the Prince, the people of Cambodia believed the King, and the Royal Family to be the spiritual link between the mortal people and the Gods, and therefore it was necessary for him to fully explore Max’s energy in order to ascertain his suitability for any commercial projects, thereby building trust before he was introduced to other members of his family. In short, looking back it was a blatant abuse of power and privilege to extract sexual favour, preying on Max’s celebrity aspirations, in fact no better than a Jimmy Saville or any other sexual predator in the headline news of the time. I could understand the need for trust, and security, but seldom in business did this involve naked aura searching! I also worried that we would be biting off more than we could chew. We had already pledged to produce the Israel documentary, Peoples of Israel, having spent countless weeks and months planning, establishing access to different contacts and sites, contracting crew and talent, and booking accommodation and transport links, the list went on, and I felt that as this was our first time working together, in a relatively new personal relationship, it would be churlish to overburden ourselves with the pressures of two major, on-location endeavours. I conveyed all this to Max, but he was afraid the Prince would go to someone else and we would lose a once in a lifetime opportunity.He promised all would become clearer when we met; it seemed the two of them had hatched a plan in which Max and I would fly to Rome in early January to meet with the Prince and his partner, and they would all seek to convince me of the virtues of this grand folly. I should have been stronger and insisted on more details, or in fact, just said no, but Max was so convinced of the merits, that I reluctantly agreed to join them on the 10th January. As the 19th was my birthday, and I had been planning a ski resort feature for one of the magazines to coincide with it for quite some time, Max and I resolved to meet in Rome and then both fly back to Switzerland together, where I would spend the week reviewing hotels in Geneva, and we would spend the weekend at the newly refurbished and reopened Crans Ambassador, in the ski region of Crans Montana, celebrating my birthday there on the Saturday night.The Gods were obviously against this from the start! My passport had just expired, so after the New Year celebrations were over, I trotted off to New Zealand House to renew it, but somehow managed to lose the expired document along the way. This posed a monumental problem. As I had managed to misplace or lose the previous four or five aside from this one, needless to say the New Zealand Consulate were not entirely impressed with my history, so were now insisting on having my passport photos verified by a New Zealand Citizen who had known me for longer than 5 years! Luckily an old school friend, Andrew Ross was now living in Kent, so after a day spent on the train to Rochester and back, I was able to re-submit my application, paying the requisite £200 surcharge for emergency issue. This gave me a passport valid for one year, with a nasty little note from the Consulate General advising that I had been a naughty boy, and that if this document were lost or stolen, another one would not be issued until exhaustive measures had been implemented to recover it!AS if this wasn’t enough of an omen, Max had booked my flight for 2pm on Friday afternoon, and thinking he was being helpful, added a train ticket on Gatwick Express, in reality less convenient than the standard Brighton line from Kings Cross, and five times more expensive. I left home in plenty of time, arriving at Victoria Station right on 11am to find absolute chaos as I ascended from the Underground. There had been a bomb scare five minutes earlier, resulting in all trains being cancelled for the foreseeable future. After flagging a cab, negotiating traffic on Vauxhall Bridge road on a Friday afternoon, and after a 55 GBP fare, I alighted to find that check-in for my flight had just closed and the next flight to Rome wasn’t till 4pm, meaning I would miss our dinner booking at 7pm, arriving rushed, stressed and ill-prepared, making it more difficult to extract the details needed to make an informed decision on the future of the project. I had phoned Max, suggesting that I fly directly to Geneva and meet him there on Sunday night, but he was crestfallen so again I capitulated, booked the flight at more than double the original price, and headed off to Rome.I disliked the Prince from the start, and I’m pretty sure the feeling was mutual. I’d like to say this sentiment was based on face value, without any preconceived ideas, but the fact is I had lost respect for him before I’d ever met him. He had overstepped fundamental business boundaries and in my mind I had already dismissed him as a fraud. I had arrived, as predicted, two hours late, to find them all waiting in the reception of our hotel. I was tired and irritable, and would have liked to shower, change and compose my thoughts before the introduction, but this was now out of the question, so dumping my case in the hotel room, we immediately went in to dinner. The food was mediocre to say the least, and the company of a similar calibre. The Prince had recommended the hotel and the restaurant, and then proceeded to dictate the choice of wine and menu, which rather stuck in my craw, considering we were paying, however it did give me somewhat of a glimpse of the personality of the man, and what to expect in future. To make matters worse, knowing I spoke no Italian and very rusty French, they conducted the entire evening in a mixture of the two, despite the three of them being fluent in English. Whenever I did manage to get a word in edgeways, and steer the conversation back to the matter for which we were all gathered, I was benignly dismissed with phrases like,“Once you are there I’m sure you will find an angle”, or “My dear, there are so many opportunities, you only have to open your eyes…” Patronising Pricks!The entire tone of the evening was one of the dear benevolent Prince being so kind as to take the privileged common folk on a tour of his beloved country, and of course give us access to people and places we would never encounter without his gracious intervention. This may in some part have been true, and who knows what his intentions might have been towards Max, but I couldn’t help asking myself why? There had to be some benefit for him, aside from just generosity and largesse from the goodness of his heart, but this was soon to become abundantly clear. As the plot unfolded, I soon learnt that we were to pay for return business class flights from Rome to Phnom Penh for the two of them, accommodation for all of us at the Raffles Le Royal hotel, one of the most renowned and exclusive hotels in the world, a car and driver for the entire two weeks, not to mention all meals, tips, passes, and everything to do with the permissions for filming etc. In return, he would introduce us to other members of the Royal Family, and show us around the country. In short we were to pay for a jolly old vacation for the poor fellows, at a time which conveniently coincided with family and state functions the Prince wanted to attend, but lacked the means to accomplish, and at the same time he would earn brownie points and status for single-handedly facilitating the introduction of film makers from London who would make a documentary to be shown worldwide, showcasing the excellent works his relatives were doing in improving the poor lives of the population of the country at large, thereby elevating his stature – in fact, nothing short of an exercise in propaganda and self-glorification!I was determined that there would be no point in re-documenting topics which had already been covered admirably by all number of filmmakers far more accomplished than us; the reign of the Khmer Rouge, Angkor Wat, or topics which I had no desire to investigate at all – the child sex trade in particular! If we were going to proceed, I wanted something which would put a positive spin on the country, sending a message of hope and encouragement to the world, not screaming poor, poor us, and flogging a dead horse on corruption, dictatorship, degradation and poverty, But I felt at this moment that the Prince was hell bent on showing us only what he wanted us to see. I also felt that to make the sort of film I had envisaged, we could do it quite easily on our own, without the need for five star accommodation, chauffeur driven cars, and money-grubbing, egotistical tour guides, however self-important they had made themselves out to be. This of course could all have been achieved at far less cost than the £20,000 or so that I envisaged the present arrangement would total, but again, I was a minority of one, with Max adamant that nothing could be realised without his bosom-buddy, the Prince.At the end of the weekend my opinion of the Prince had not changed, and if anything, had been cemented. To me, he’d showed himself to be arrogant, conceited, and flashy, a total show pony, but also manipulative, conniving and sly, using bullying tactics and a passive aggressive attitude to achieve his ends. I made a note to myself to keep a wary eye on him in any future dealings. To be frank, I didn’t trust him one little bit! After an extravagant weekend of wining and dining our illustrious Royal couple, at exorbitant cost, we departed for Geneva, and over the course of the next week, had time for extensive discussions together, without the influence of others to cloud our judgement. Although I stopped short of telling Max of my intense dislike of his friend, he certainly knew I had my reservations, but together we agreed not to be swayed into making something which would stop short of being exactly what we wanted, and as Max had his heart set on continuing, I folded. The prince emailed through an itinerary he had organized with a tour guide in Cambodia, and still not really having any idea what we were heading towards, I figured it best now that we were committed, to go along with it and see where it led us.Chapter 2. Downhill with No BrakesIsrael on the other hand, was coming together nicely, or so we thought. We’d had several conversations with the people in Nazareth, who were the subjects of our story, and they could not have been more helpful to us in arranging accommodation, transportation, and ideas of other contacts to interview and meet. Max and I were co-producers, and I had offered the Job of first cameraman to Joel, my closest friend in London, but in initial discussions with Simon, a prospective investor, it had been mentioned that if we had a reputable director it would help our cause in attracting the right amount of funding. He’d suggested Paul, who on paper seemed perfect. He had produced a number of similar projects before and directed a number of others, was an expert in sound production, and had won awards at major film festivals worldwide so Simon put us in touch and we arranged to meet.I’d invited him to a smart Mexican restaurant in Mayfair and initial impressions were less than ideal. To start with, he was fat! Back in Australia, in the 80’s era of business motivational boot-camps, positive mental attitude, lateral thinking and the like, I’d once attended a grooming and body language course, run by a former Miss Universe, and one thing she said, had stuck in my mind throughout my adult life:“Never hire fat people, because fat people are lazy people!”, she’d advised and although I know it’s not politically correct to use it out loud nowadays, in all my years of business, I have never seen an exception to this rule. He arrived at the restaurant over an hour late, wearing a stinking old raincoat, which on removal revealed massive dark sweaty circles under his armpits. His table manners were atrocious, and he took the word unkempt to a new level, however I wasn’t hiring him for his good looks so I resolved to see what he had to say. He seemed to know what he was talking about, even allowing for his outrageous name-dropping, and his IMDB revealed that he had worked for, and with, some of the big names in film and television. He was willing to take on the project for a reasonable fee and also had a protégé cameraman which he could bring to the table, so after a discussion with Max, we decided to hire them both. This meant that our crew was complete, and the final cherry on top was that my dear friend, Actor, and presenter Alex Legouix had agreed to front it for us if we could work around her commitments to other television shows, so we were in business.The closing date for entries to Cannes Film Festival coincided with the day the crew would be flying back to London, but the director was confident he could edit on the fly, producing something good enough to get us accepted prior to his departure, so this was the target. We would then submit the final edit on the morning of the first day of the festival, and Paul assured us that this was possible as he had done it numerous times before.By coincidence, the director and his cameraman had just moved into a new flat, a short walk down the road from me, and had invited us to their housewarming party, planned for a fortnight prior to our departure. Throughout our short association, if we had needed to meet it had always been in a café or restaurant, where the director had an irritating habit of always ordering the most expensive item on the menu. As he never had a penny to bless himself with, I was always left to foot the bill, which ordinarily I wouldn’t have minded so much, except that we were desperately trying to curb our expenditure, and this did nothing to assist in keeping to the budget. I also had firm views about maintaining boundaries between ourselves and staff, or contractors, but as we hadn’t yet met James, the second cameraman, and with Max in London on his last visit before moving, we decided to attend...The flat was Squalid! I have never been so appalled in my entire life. The kitchen surfaces had taken on a life of their own. They obviously hadn’t washed a single dish since moving four weeks earlier. The kitchen table was covered with pots and pans, plates and bowls; all adorned with dark hairy growths, and the aroma was one of musty Wellington boots. The glasses of ‘cocktails’ they handed us were sticky, with a cloudy film of grease around the rim. It was difficult to imagine how someone so slovenly could possibly produce anything of merit workwise, but with little less than two weeks before our departure and still so much to do, we decided it was too late at this stage to look for a substitute, and after all, his IMDb couldn’t possibly lie, could it? I was beginning to have grave doubts at this point, and frankly, resented having agreed to take this fellow on. I should have trusted my initial judgement. In all honesty, hiring him had done nothing to further our cause in attracting investment, rather looking like it had been a clever ruse on the part of Simon to get his mate a job, and he himself had been less than proficient in securing funding for us, instead trying to sting us for a £10,000 brokers fee upfront with no guarantee of anything at the other end, so he wasn’t exactly high on our Christmas card list at this stage either!The other worrying thing about Paul was that on closer inspection of the facts, he seemed to have fallen out with everyone, or been fired from every job he had ever held. When mentioning him in passing to a group of friends in the fashion industry, his name had been met with derision and contempt, with most warning us to steer well clear of him. The issue which should have aroused further suspicion was that he seemed to know every single, try-hard, fraudulent, free-loading wannabe in the London fashion and social scene, mostly people I had tried very hard to avoid over the years, and certainly not those with whom I wanted to be associated now! In actual fact, every single alarm bell was ringing about this guy, and there couldn’t have been any more indicators of impending disaster, but for some bizarre unknown reason, I ignored every single sign, and to this day, I have no idea why!On top of this, I was yet to be convinced that we even needed a director for the project we had planned, Max and I might have disagreed on details concerning Cambodia, but on Israel we were both singing from exactly the same hymn sheet, and had been right from the start. I reasoned that this position could more than likely have been shared by the two of us, and on top of this, Joel and I had worked together many times before so he knew exactly what I wanted and would have been more than capable of achieving our desired result, and stepping in to direct where needed in our absence. Max however remained convinced that we would achieve a better quality of footage with him at the helm, and also reasoned, quite rightly that Paul knew the Cannes submission procedure inside out, having followed it so many times before, therefore he knew what the judiciary would be looking for in the initial submission, and if nothing else could facilitate that. At any rate, it was too late to start firing people now, and we would find it difficult, with our hectic schedule of filming in Cambodia, to engage another second cameraman from London at this stage, as the two of them came somewhat as a package. The wheels were set in motion, flights, accommodation and logistics were all planned, so it was infinitely easier to keep the status quo. I was beginning to feel much like a train running downhill with no brakes – everything seemed to be happening in front of my eyes, without my control, and against my gut instincts, and I was powerless to resist!

'Double Bubble - Inside Britain's Prisons' Now Available in Paperback and Kindle Edition

I'm Happy to Announce that my New Book 'Double Bubble - Inside Britain's Prisons' is now available in Paperback and Kindle Edition, after much controversy. This is the book HMP Maidstone tried to destroy. Governor Atkinson and his cronies were so scared of what I was going to write, that they blocked access to all my files, and then refused to answer my emails, so I've had to re-write most of it, hence the delay in launching. Ironically if He or his staff had bothered to read it, they would have found that there is very little in it about them anyway - I've saved the really damaging stuff for my next and final book in this series The Deported, which will be released in February 2018.Double Bubble is Everything you wanted to know about Her Majesties Prison Service, and probably some that you didn't! This book shatters all the public's illusions that life in Prison is one big holiday camp, and is the result of first hand research collected over 18 months inside HMP Pentonville, HMP Thameside, and HMP Maidstone. Find out how drugs and mobile phones really enter Britain's Prisons, what is really done to prevent deaths in custody, and why the current excuses of 'budget cuts and staff shortages' were a clever ruse by Prison Governors to ignore the governments cries for austerity measures. It also examines the Governments role in the atrocities experienced on a daily basis, and proves that to them, Prison is a dirty word, to be brushed under the carpet, and only trotted out periodically when they are short of votes during election campaigns! They are not interested in prison reform, prisoner rehabilitation, or reducing re-offending, and why would they be, when the Prime Minister's Husband is a major shareholder in the company that is one of the largest private prison organisations in the country!All three books in the series; Chasing the Dragon, Candy Flipping and Double Bubble are available now at www.cameronyorke.com. The perfect Christmas gift, and riveting holiday reading! Enjoy.The proceeds of these books will be used to fund a charity to support victims of Chem-sex, so please help get the word out there by sharing, re-tweeting, posting and telling all your friends to buy them! Thank you

'Double Bubble - Inside Britain's Prisons' - Book Launch 27th November! Here are some excerpts...

My head started spinning, eyesight going blurry and I thought I was going to faint. Surely there must be some mistake! Clearly my Lawyer and Barrister had no idea what they’d been talking about, and the fat Policeman had obviously been lying too! As she led me back down the corridor to the holding cells, the nice young court attendant asked me how it had gone, and was as horrified as me when I told her the result. My ears were ringing and my head throbbing. Maybe I had misheard the judge? Maybe the sentence he had passed hadn’t taken into account the discount for pleading guilty, and the 60% off for assisting the police? Maybe I would wake up any second, and realise that someone had just played a really sick joke on me! As much as I played these scenarios out in my head, I knew deep down that no such eventuality would ensue – the Judge had been very clear in his summing up arguments, and his comments were now echoing around my brain.“I have read all the notes on this case and I have taken into consideration all the submissions on behalf of the defendant.” He had announced. “Whilst I appreciate the character references offered from members of the community, and rather famous members at that, these only go to prove that you knew what you were doing, but you did it anyway. Although all of your references have attested that you are a fine, upstanding member of society, this only serves to show that you should have known better than to commit these crimes. It is therefore important to this court that we set you as an example to others that you are not able to flaunt the law and walk away with a slap on the wrist. I therefore sentence you to the following…”He had then proceeded to list each charge separately, passing judgement on each one individually, a total of nine counts – four years each for the first five charges, relating to my first arrest, and five years each for the remaining four charges accrued from the final raid. All to be served concurrently, meaning a total of five years for all of them, of which I would serve half if I were lucky, with the remainder on licence.Alistair, My Barrister joined me in the meeting room after I had been brought back to the holding cells and we discussed my options. The prosecution had mentioned deportation, something that had been completely new to me. I had been aware of the fact that they were going to try to deport me for overstaying my visa whilst on bail, but I’d had a pretty good idea that I would get off that one – it was such a ludicrous situation that I couldn’t understand any judge upholding it, but now they were talking about automatic removal, because my sentence was over 12 months. This of course opened up a whole new can of worms and had come completely from left field. Alistair had no idea about the legality of this, and advised me to engage an immigration lawyer to apprise me of my options. He then informed me that I still had my Proceeds of Crime hearing to fight, and that now the Crown Prosecution would be going after every asset I owned, claiming that it had all been obtained by criminal activity. At least I had extensive proof that it hadn’t, having declared everything over the past few years and paid tax on it, so I knew they couldn’t take everything, but apparently they would pluck a figure out of the air according to how much cash they thought they could extract, and the onus was on me to prove it’s legitimacy, only serving to prove that the basic premise of justice in this country was now completely flawed – One was in fact guilty until proven innocent, and not the other way around as we had all been brought up to believe.Some hours later, back in my cell, I related the news of the day to Mark, and re-did all the calculations in my head of how long I would stay here. With five years, I should be released after 30 months, less the two months already served, and the two months I had spent on tag – a total of 26 months – two years and two months! 113 weeks! 791 days! No matter how you looked at it, it was a long time to waste, languishing in prison. I felt sick as a wave of depression and utter futility washed over me. I lay on my bunk staring at the ceiling, wondering how on earth I was ever going to make it through the next 791 days until my release. It had been a long day. I’d been on the go since 6am, the stress and worry had taken its toll, and very soon I fell into an exhausted, troubled sleep.

'Candy Flipping' by Cameron Yorke, Wins Koestler Trust Award

I'm Thrilled to announce that my Book Candy Flipping has won the 2017 Koestler Trust 'First Time Entrant' award for Life stories, but it wasn't all plain sailing to get there! After an arduous few months dealing with belligerent, unhelpful and sometimes aggressively hostile prison staff to even submit the entry on time, it was only dogged determination and sheer bloody mindedness that overcame these hurdles to enter the competition, so it was an unexpected delight to hear last weekend that I had indeed won the award, and quite aside from the award itself, gave me immense self validation and belief in myself as a writer, as I had written it completely alone, with no one able to help with editing, or even read it to provide feedback prior to submission. Here is a snapshot of the journey so far.Having been hibernating down under in New Zealand for the past three months, I'd quite forgotten about the 2017 Koestler Trust Awards. I'd started writing the first draft back in August 2016, having been transferred back to HMP Thameside, after a brief but painful stint at HMP Maidstone. By this stage I had already completed my first book in this series, Chasing the Dragon, A Memoir about Chem-sex in London at the time, and the events which had led me to be there in the first place. A couple of months into my sentence I'd been unceremoniously and needlessly transferred to Maidstone suddenly, with no warning, and had worried and fretted for the entire eight weeks I'd been away as the Manuscript had been left on the Prison computer system, and not only had all my efforts to contact staff to have a copy sent to me been futile, but I also worried that they would purge all the old accounts and the entire 125,000 words would be deleted. I needn't have worried on that note, as they are not that efficient, but it was a relief to be transferred back after my scheduled 'Proceeds of Crime' hearing at Blackfriars Crown Court, and to finally be reunited with said document, but also to have the opportunity to edit it in cell, and to commence it's sequel, Candy Flipping, which I'd had a vague idea I might enter in the Koestler awards if it was good enough.Each morning at 3am I would rise and set to work, typing on the in-cell computer whilst my cellmate lay asleep on the top bunk two feet behind me. Every day I would beaver away for five hours whilst the rest of the prison was dormant, until unlock at 8am, and would snatch any spare few minutes when I found myself alone in the cell, which of course was not often, to continue. I was amused to read months later in a Prison officers handbook I was editing ready for re-print in the print-shop where I worked, that Staff should be on the lookout for inmates who hid themselves away in their cell and refused to socialise or engage with others, as it was a sign of depression of suicidal thoughts but clearly the staff on my wing had not noticed, or seen anything wrong with my behaviour, even though, I must have fit the mould of a manic depressive exactly, as for those months I was a total recluse, with a single minded goal at hand. Part of the reason for this was that I was terrified I would again be transferred - they could come for you at any time without warning, like the KGB in soviet Russia, and I lived in abject fear of it happening again, so I was determined to make the most of what few days or weeks I might have.Eventually in January 2017, after a good few arguments, much passing the buck amongst Prison Staff and Directors, a letter to the Governor, and then a letter to Liz Truss, the then Justice Secretary, who graciously replied with the legal requirements necessary, I was able to have Chasing the Dragon emailed out to an assistant who was then able to format it and publish it on Amazon and Kindle. I figured I should strike while the iron was hot, so I included the file name of the completed first draft of Candy Flipping to be mailed out as well. This meant of course that The Director of Education for the Prison, Andy Charalambous had to read the entire two manuscripts to ensure they didn't violate Prison Protocol - namely that there were no inmate or Prison staff full names mentioned, but as neither were about Prison, this was not an issue, although If he had no knowledge before, he now knows every minute detail of the sexual antics of a group of gay men during a three day crystal meth fueled orgy - I bet there were a few moment when he must have blushed at the narrative! The Prison expose is about to be published on 29th November in the third book in the series - Double Bubble - Inside Britain's Prisons!During my 'Hermit' days, The one task I had left my cell for was to complete a one day course on CV writing, which gave me access to a system called Virtual Campus,installed at immense taxpayer expense in all British Prisons, to theoretically enable inmates to undertake online courses, write CV's and Business plans, and then access them once released, in order to improve their chances of rehabilitation and resettlement, but in reality, a massive joke which had never worked because the staff were basically too lazy to implement it, however this was a massive asset to me as it meant that if I were in fact to be transferred out of HMP Thameside, I would presumably be able to access my work at the next establishment, however as with most systems within the Prison system, what should happen and what does happen were two vastly different scenarios!My Transfer came as usual, unexpectedly, and just as suddenly as the last time, however this time I was fairly secure in the knowledge that I had safeguarded my work, and that even if I couldn't access it at Maidstone - Gods waiting room, before one is pushed off the White Cliffs of Dover and banished forever under the guise of a deportation order, I would at least have it waiting for me on my release. Once I was once again settled back on my previous wing, I set about putting the wheels in motion to be able to continue my literary endeavours. I had been employed as an Education Champion in my last stay, so I applied to return to that, thinking I might be able to get a bit of editing done in between mentoring IT students in Word, Excel, Access and Powerpoint. I already knew that this employment lark here was going to take quite some time, so realising that the deadline for submissions to the Koestler Trust awards was only some six weeks hence, I had a word with the wing staff, about getting access to a computer while waiting to be allocated to a job. They promised to speak to the Head of Education, so when nothing happened, I began to badger them, knowing I was running out of time. In the end they let me off the wing and told me to go over and talk to the Education Head directly - Picking up a telephone receiver had evidently become too hard for them to manage themselves!Sean Reynolds, the education Head was a Young, dynamic, 'can-do' type of guy, and readily agreed to allow me all the time I needed to complete the edit and send it off, in fact he couldn't have been more helpful, stating that these programs should be promoted and encouraged within the Prison education system. To him I will be forever grateful, as at the time I was battling with depression and anxiety, so in enabling me to focus on something, to me, as important as this, went along way to keeping me stable, however the Allocations staff were not so accommodating! Once they got wind of this arrangement they very quickly allocated me as peer mentor in the gardens, a position which was neither wanted nor needed as the garden staff were supposed to be undertaking a City and Guilds horticulture course, but in reality, all they wanted with a garden job for was to sit in the sunshine in summer or congregate around the heaters in the winter, and they had no interest in education whatsoever. Once again I found myself having to circumvent the system, but this time I was able to enlist the help of the Gardens Officer, Justin, in liaising with Sean to bypass allocations and spend mornings in the computer room and afternoons in the gardens. this cut down my editing time, and with the deadline looming it put me under extra pressure, but it was better than nothing, and only made me more determined.Eventually at literally the eleventh hour it was as close as it was ever going to be. The edit had been rushed and not as polished as I would have liked, But I printed it out, and rushed it over to the education department for Sean to very kindly courier (at prison expense as well!) overnight in order to ensure it arrived on time. I knew it could have been better, and wished I'd had time to go over it once more for a final polish, but it was not to be and I'd done everything I possibly could have in the time I'd had.I then tried to continue working on it, maintaining my morning typing routine as long as possible, and as I'd thought, after another week I had it exactly as I'd wanted it, and I knew now that it was finally ready for publication, even if the submitted version wasn't as perfect as I'd have liked, and in fact it was just in time, as allocations finally caught onto my rort a week later, just 30,000 words into my third book, and sacked me from the gardens, banning me from the Computer room, and eager to teach me a lesson, allocating me to the print shop, seemingly to fold boxes. Lucky for me, the Print Shop also had a design area and they soon put me to work proof reading documents, and designing in-house posters and brochures, which took up about 15% of my time so I was able to continue as before, this time on an iMac with a 24inch screen! It also meant that I could design all my book covers in Photoshop and inDesign, and before my release, Kevin, the Head of the design department very generously burnt all my work to a CD and deposited it in my stored property where it was waiting for me on departure, which is more than I can say for all my other work!Sadly, by this stage, Sean Reynolds had resigned and was succeeded by a fat, bellicose box ticking baboon of a man in the form of one Paul Fry, who had obviously had a sideways promotion to HMP Maidstone, a move which usually signals the end of ones career - It's God's waiting room for Prison Staff as well as Foreign Nationals! He was immediately suspicious of my literary endeavours, and frightened of what I might write about him and his staff, so banned me from using any computers, blocked my Virtual Campus account and to this day has refused to allow me access to any of my work, including my Koestler Trust entry, my CV, my Business plan which was part of the SWEDI Business startup course I'd completed at HMP Thameside, and the first 16 chapters of Double Bubble. I'm sure he will be fascinated to read all about himself in my new re-written version which is unsurprisingly more colourful than the original!Ironically the chapters he is with-holding are the ones about HMP Thameside, and are very mild, and the 140,000 words dealing with his ineptitude and the entire Foreign National's Prison and Home Office Deportation policies and practices are all safely back on my laptop having been recovered from the CD which Kevin burnt for me, and I carried out unobserved. Furthermore, HMP Maidstone have since banned the writing of books by inmates whilst in their prison, which flies in the face of all Sean Reynolds positive initiatives and ethos, and is exactly the kind of backwards thinking which has put the system in such turmoil today. It's now in the hands of my lawyers and I'm suing them for theft of intellectual property, and loss of earnings. They have deliberately obstructed my attempts at gaining meaningful employment and thwarted the progress of the publication of my latest books, and cannot be allowed to get away with this truculent and obstructive behaviour.Edd, my Assistant in London had looked at the results online when they were first announced in August and hadn't seen my name listed anywhere, so we had both, rather despondently assumed that they hadn't liked the content, or that I just plain wasn't good enough. Chasing the Dragon had been published on Amazon some months earlier, but having had to leave all the work to someone else, and having not even been able to check the final look of covers or format before publishing, it hadn't been what I would have chosen for myself, and of course, pressing the 'publish' button is only the start of the process. There is then the arduous and time consuming task of promoting, marketing, developing a website, sending out review copies, chasing publicity... the list goes on, and no one does it with quite the same gusto as one who is personally attached, so needless to say, it was all done in a rather haphazard way, if at all. Sales were however trickling through and those who had written reviews had been quite favourable, so I had put the Koestler Trust experience behind me, and ploughed on regardless, basically re-writing Candy Flipping from my original HMP Thameside first draft, and publishing it on my release on the 15th September, when I also re-launched Chasing the Dragon with a new cover and a better format (And a sneaky extra edit!)I, then set about attacking Social Media, re-designing my website and learning everything I could about book publishing and marketing. I'd been released with no money and no resources apart from my old iPhone and iPad which had been returned by the police, so had to make do with free versions of everything, and make up for it with extended hours of labour to make it all work, and finally after nine weeks of hard slog, it was all starting to pay off. My social media platforms were growing rapidly and sales were gaining traction for both books.I woke last Saturday morning to the sound of my iPhone pinging with a WhatsApp message from Edd, and opened it to see a picture of an envelope. Having no idea what it was, I told him to open it, and to our amazement and delight there was the letter advising that I had won, together with a cheque for £25.00 and the feedback notes from Judges, Author Shaun Attwood, and Television Personality Louis Theroux. The prize, and of course the cheque are very nice, but I think the most thrilling and satisfying part of the package were the Judges comments as I realised that to date this was the first professional opinion I had received about any of my my books, so to have positive comments staring back at me off the pages was sheer delight. I was also pleased that I had already rectified the constructive criticism they had proffered as well, and finally I feel as if I can hold my head up, and honestly call myself an Author. I'm not proud of this period of my life, the events leading up to my arrest and the subsequent Prison term, but after all those months of struggling to make my time inside count, and not be wasted, and fighting the system every step of the way to do so, against, small minded, insular minions who will never amount to anything, I feel as if I've succeeded in my own small way, and that all that work was not for nothing.the Judges comments were:"Most professionally written entry. Reads like a Brett Easton Ellis book. Strong command of original language, gripping action and dialogue, strong use of cumulative sentences, verbs...""Thank you for sharing this very detailed account of your life. You have a very clear voice and make good use of Metaphor and Semantictic 'Like a seagull on a rubbish tip', 'Like flies around a septic sore' and a wide range of vocabulary. the dialogue of Police is well differentiated from that of other people... Writing to this length is a breat achievement - Well done!"Chasing the Dragon and Candy Flipping are both available in paperback and e-book at www.amazon.com/author/cameronyorke or on my website www.cameronyorke.comThe next book in the series, and the one HMP Maidstone are still trying to kill, Double Bubble - Inside Britain's Prisons will also be available on the same sites from November 29, 2017 and proceeds from all three of these books will be used to fund a charity to support victims of Chem-sex addiction. I hope you enjoy them all!