“Alright, Johnson, put the book away. It’s nearly lock up time. You’ve got fifteen minutes to get back to your cell and settle down.”

The old wooden chair creaked as Barry levered himself up to do as he was told, and replace the book he had been reading on the appropriate shelf in the prison library.

“You seem to spend every moment you can here in the library, Johnson. What do you find so interesting?”

“For the moment, anything and everything,” responded Barry. “I’m barred from practicing my profession, Mr. Hughes, and I have to study something new so that I can work again when I get out.”

“And what would that be?”

“That’s the problem. I’m not sure. With a prison record lots of doors will be closed to me. Seven years of study have gone down the drain, plus more than that building up a business. All lost through my own stupidity.”

Prison Officer Hughes watched Barry leave the library. He had long since stopped feeling sorry for the prisoners in his charge, but he did recognize their moods, and Barry was very low.

Barry flinched as the iron door clanged shut, the sound echoing throughout the prison, followed by the icy metallic rattle of keys as one of them turned in the lock. He lay on his bunk in his prison cell staring sightlessly at the bright light in the ceiling. His confinement in this tiny clinical space, devoid of all comfort, had numbed both his mind and his body to the point that he was almost insensitive to the harshness of his surroundings, but not quite. If he ever reached the point where he became immune, unmoved by the artificial, brutal environment in which he was forced to live, he knew that he would be on the first step to losing his mind

He was neither asleep nor fully awake, but in his semi-comatose state Barry could still recall, as he often did, the words used by the judge whilst sentencing him. ‘We see here an example of how greed for wealth and power feeds on human weakness, often leading normally decent people, such as the prisoner before us, into a world where crime, corruption, blackmail, violence, and sometimes even murder are commonplace. Some of its victims disappear without trace, whilst others survive the nightmare of their visit to the darker side of life with a debt to pay to society in compensation for their sins.’

The cell had been his home for almost a year. He shared it with Joe Brannigan, a vulgar, uneducated man imprisoned for robbery with violence. He had severely injured a bank security guard with an iron bar, whilst trying to get away with the money. Joe was the type who started snoring the moment he fell asleep. He was snoring now. When he had first been put into this cell Barry had risked waking up Brannigan to complain about the noise. Brannigan had simply turned his head, opened one eye, glared at him contemptuously, and said, “Piss off.”

The day that Barry had been convicted and sentenced, he had hoped that he would be sent to a modern low-security prison somewhere in the country. The opposite had happened. Bulging prisons meant places were at a premium, and Barry had found himself confined in an old tired London prison, where he was in the company of hardened criminals, constantly wary of falling foul of the more violent characters. Even the system was corrupt, and amongst the prison staff there were several dubious characters. If he was lucky, he would have to suffer his confinement for no more than another three years. If he was very lucky, he could be out in two. In the meantime he lived in fear of his surroundings

Beyond the prison walls his beautiful wife was waiting. She had said she would. Barry also had two daughters, both grown up and married, and now two grandchildren, neither of whom he had ever seen. He had even missed his younger daughter’s marriage. A tear trickled down one cheek as his defences collapsed, and his thoughts followed what was now a well-worn track. Intense feelings of mental anguish, overwhelming regret, and utter frustration poured over him.

Suddenly, the light in the ceiling started to dim. Another harrowing day was drawing to a close. The mounting volume of his companion’s snoring drowned out many of the other prison sounds with which he had become so familiar. As he succumbed to sleep, Barry was assailed by images from the past, condemned to relive the events, which had led him to his present sorry condition. Sometimes, he was able to find relief in the few moments of pleasure his troubled mind allowed him when he recalled the happy times of the recent past. The period before he had lost control of his life, before he had unwittingly become involved in a murky world, where the search for wealth and power by any means reigned supreme, when through his own actions he had put himself and his family in mortal danger. All brought about, or so he chose to believe, by a chance meeting.

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