Waiting For the Knock

"I was being betrayed by the one person who had been closest to me for most of my life. I had to carry on knowing I couldn’t trust him. I couldn’t distance myself, as he knew too much about my activities.

All I could do was soldier on but keep a close eye on him.

I remembered the old saying: those people closest to you are best placed to stab you in the back. This couldn’t have been more apt, as Hymie showed his true colours.

I ignored the doubts I had about him, because admitting it would mean I’d misjudged him.

I rarely misjudged people. Yet Hymie had just proven that even the closest could turn cold in an instant.

Trust was a luxury I couldn’t afford to lose. Or so I told myself."

--------


"Spirits were cleaner. One load could turn six figures, easy. Less volume, more value.

That’s what made it worthwhile.

But with spirits came more eyes, more interest, and more jail time if it went wrong.

This wasn’t kid’s stuff anymore. You needed to know
your paperwork inside out. You needed your drivers drilled, your warehouses airlocked.

You needed nerves like wire and a contact list that didn’t fold when
the pressure came.

It was a different league, and I was ready to play in it."

--------

"I also learned that he had obtained £1,000 from one of his co-defendants by threatening to talk to Customs and drop other people in the shit.

That was the kind of man I feared most in our case – not a grass, but
the kind who would be if the price was right.
Me? I’d never pay. I wasn’t about to let someone like that hold power over me. Men who play that game cross a line,

and in prison everyone knows what crossing that line means. The consequences take care of themselves."

--------

"Behind the scenes, the knives were out. Lord Butterfield had completed his report,

damning and direct. Customs had abused their position.

He recommended they be stripped of their power to prosecute.

That part, at least, went through.

Operation Gestalt, led by the Met, had dug into the filth. Over 20 serving and retired Customs officers were under the microscope, men who had spent decades barging through doors, planting charges, building cases on whispers and shadows.

The list of allegations was staggering: fraud, perjury, perverting the course of justice, misconduct in a public office.

They had enough to prosecute. They had the files. They had the proof.

And then .... silence."

--------

"Next on the agenda was an induction: a grim little classroom session where we were supposed to learn the rules, expectations, and general do’s and don’ts of prison life.

What followed was the most surreal half hour I’ve ever sat through.

It wasn’t an induction. It was a suicide workshop.

The screws didn’t sugarcoat it. One of them, deadpan as you like, calmly explained what they considered the most practical way to end your life if you chose to do it. Preferred, like it was a room service option.

The emphasis wasn’t on death itself, but on efficiency. On avoiding inconvenience. On keeping things tidy. He spoke carefully, politely, as if offering advice that might come in handy later.

There was no humour in it. No cruelty for effect. That might have made it human, in a sick way. This was clinical. Rehearsed. As if the words had been said many times before.

As if they’d been refined.

They explained that some methods caused unnecessary mess. Others created work. This way, they said, was quieter. Cleaner. Easier for everyone involved. They talked about it like professionals managing a process."

--------

"The day had finally come. I walked up the stone steps of the High Court, each footfall measured. Outside the entrance, leaning against the wall beneath the carved crest of justice, was one of the chief investigating officers from my case. Mid-sixties now, greying hair.

A cigarette rested between his fingers, casual as ever, as if he wasn’t the architect of two years lost behind a prison wall.

He saw me, flicked the ash, and held out his hand. I looked at it for a moment. Then I took it.

His grip was firm, practiced. The kind of handshake that says we’re both men who’ve done things.

“No hard feelings?” he asked.

I held the smile just long enough.

“No, of course not.”

There was a pause, a flicker in the air between us. The truth neither of us needed to say.

We’d both worked angles. We’d both blurred lines. I broke the law and paid for it.

He bent it and, so far, had got away with it."