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THURSDAY, 20 MARCH 1997
MANCHESTER AIRPORT

As the UK Air flight from Malaga touched down I regretted leaving Spain. Staring out the Airbus's porthole, my mood reflected the weather: dull, cold and raining in the way that only happens in Manchester. It was not impossible that MI6 had tricked me into returning to the UK so it was a relief not to be stopped as I checked through passport control using my real passport, none the worse for its eight months in the petrol tank. Alex Huntley's passport was carefully stitched into the armoured padding of my leather motorcycle jacket - it might still prove useful.

It was good to be back relaxing in Cumbria, enjoying home cooking, walking elderly Jesse along the Eden and on the occasional sunny day taking the windsurfer out on Ullswater. But I could not stay there forever; it was time to think about getting a job and starting a new career. I'd already ruled out the obvious option for someone with a first-class degree and a couple of languages. Returning to the world of stripy shirts and champagne-quaffing hoorays would become overwhelming inside of a week. The new job would have to be as challenging and stimulating as working for MI6. That would not be straightforward.

Morrison told me in Madrid that the service had sorted out a job in `industry'. It transpired that this was in the marketing department of a motor racing team, owned by former world champion driver Jackie Stewart, in the Buckinghamshire new town of Milton Keynes. It sounded glamorous and interesting but I was not sure whether it would be suitable. Classmates who had gone into marketing from Cambridge were all cloth-headed lower-second geography graduates too thick to get anything better and I doubted that selling anything could match the exhilaration of running agents in Bosnia or the stimulation of matching wits with Iranian terrorists. And no one with two neurons firing would intentionally move from London to Milton Keynes, a sterile planned town that gave new meaning to the word `boring'.

MI6 arranged an interview with the company and, due to their behind-the-scenes string-pulling rather than the strength of my credentials, I was offered the job. But it was at a salary 25 per cent below my MI6 pay, in direct contradiction to Morrison's promise; MI6 had already reneged on their own `agreement'. A quick tour of Milton Keynes following the interview confirmed that its reputation was richly deserved. I didn't immediately accept the job, and decided to look around elsewhere. Knowing that it would be easier to forget my dispute with MI6 and settle into a duff job if I had the stimulation of living abroad in an attractive country, I decided to try my luck in Australia. Holidays there had always been barmy, and my New Zealand passport would give me full resident rights.

I took a Qantas 747 to Sydney on 19 April, intending to spend a fortnight looking round the job and housing market. After a week in the bright, vibrant and cosmopolitan city the prospect of returning to Milton Keynes to start on the bottom rung of a career in marketing seemed dire, so I telephoned Stewart Grand Prix declining their offer. They begged me to reconsider, probably at the behest of MI6 rather than any genuine desire to employ me, and told me they would ring back again in a week.

Because it would be a breach of the OSA to reveal my former employment with MI6, personnel ordered me to claim on my CV that I had voluntarily left employment with the FCO. Clearly this wouldn't work. No employer would believe that I had voluntarily resigned from a well-paid and stimulating job in the British FCO in order to start at the bottom on a lower salary in a private-sector job. There was no alternative but to tell the truth about my former employment and the manner of my dismissal. I had nothing to be ashamed of; my dismissal was illegal and there was no reason to lie to a potential future employer just to save blushes for MI6. But nevertheless, the job-search was not easy. The Australian economy was going through a rough patch and companies were laying people off. My CV would hardly be regarded as conventional at the best of economic times. Facing economic uncertainties themselves, companies were not prepared to take a punt on an unknown quantity like myself. As the rejection letters piled up, so did my anger at MI6. The idea of publishing a book reared its head again. Peter Wright had succeeded in getting Spycatcher published in Australia, so perhaps that precedent would be helpful to me? Starting with the `As', I methodically rang all the publishers listed in the Sydney phone directory. The initial response was discouraging, mostly: `We only deal with literary agents.' But my luck changed when I started on the `Ts'. The receptionist of Transworld Publishers in Neutral Bay put me straight through to a junior commissioning editor, Jude McGhee. She sounded interested and we agreed to meet the next day at the trendy Verona Caf‚ on Sydney's Oxford Street. The meeting went well and McGhee, a young New Zealander, invited me to Transworld's offices the following day to meet her boss.

Thursday, 1 May 1997, was a glorious Sydney autumnal day, bright blue sky, temperature in the low 30s and a pleasant breeze blowing in from the harbour. Disembarking the Cremorne Point ferry to walk the few hundred metres to Transworld's offices on Yeo Street, I hoped that the meeting would result in a contract. It would be a big breach of the OSA, but given the way I'd been treated, it seemed justified. They could hardly expect me to keep my `lifelong duty of confidentiality' if they couldn't keep to their own `agreement' for a fortnight. And if I meekly accepted without protest my dismissal, MI6 would carry on casually ruining the lives of its employees and trampling on the freedoms it was supposed to protect.

McGhee greeted me in Transworld's reception and showed me through to Shona Martyn's office. Martyn, also a New Zealander judging by her accent, was in her early 40s and pictures of her young family were displayed on her desk. She introduced herself as the Australasian non-fiction editor for Transworld and related some of her previous career as a journalist first in New Zealand and then with the prestigious Sydney Morning Herald. Over the next hour we discussed the bones of my story and I threw in a few anecdotes to highlight interesting points. I was careful to disguise names, dates and operational detail. Martyn didn't make it clear whether she was interested in the project or not. She sparked over some details, but the next moment she seemed as though she wanted to end the meeting. She had an oddly hostile approach for somebody who had been a journalist, and kept asking for proof that I had really worked in MI6.

`Obviously I can't give you that,' I replied impatiently after the third time of asking, `because if MI6 would not allow my personnel papers to be released to an employment tribunal, they obviously will not give them to you.'

`But you have to understand that under ethical standards of journalism, I need proof that you really did work for MI6,' she replied. `Besides, why do you want to publish this book?' she asked.

`It is in the public interest to expose bad management within MI6,' I replied, `in order to encourage them to correct their faults. If I just let them sweep this failing under the carpet, they will not mend their ways, and in the long run that is potentially far more damaging to national security.' Martyn nodded approvingly to that at least. `I won't gratuitously damage MI6 - I will not compromise any ongoing operations, I will use aliases for members of staff and I would like to submit a draft of the text to MI6 to allow them to censor any passages whose sensitivity I may have misjudged,' I said.

`Oh, I could not possibly allow that,' Martyn retorted, `that would be against all my ethics as a journalist and defender of freedom of expression.'

`So you wouldn't be prepared to allow me to submit the manuscript?' I asked again for clarification.

`Absolutely not!' replied Martyn emphatically.

As the discussion seemed to be going nowhere, I gave her an ultimatum. `Well, are you interested in this project or not?'

Martyn thought for a moment. `Can you give me what you have written so far, and I'll think about it?'

`No, I can't do that,' I replied, `because I haven't yet written a draft.' It was too risky to give her a copy of the text, even if I recovered it from its hiding place on the internet.

Martyn thought for a moment. `I'll tell you what, then, write down a synopsis outlining the contents of each chapter and I'll have a think about it,' she replied.

I was still suspicious and reluctant. It was one thing to break the OSA verbally, as it could never be proved in court, but putting pen to paper was another. If a written synopsis fell into the wrong hands, I'd be vulnerable to legal action. But the former journalist had just vouched for her ethics. It was worth the risk. `OK, I'll give you a synopsis, but I trust that you will show it to nobody.'

Martyn pointed to the steel filing cabinet in her office. `It'll be locked up in there. It will go nowhere.' She gave me her card and I left to get the late-afternoon ferry to Fisherman's Wharf.

That evening, back in my rented holiday apartment near Bondi Beach, I typed an anodyne and brief outline. The following day, unsure of my prospects for a book contract but confident that Martyn would honour her word, I dropped a sealed envelope at Transworld's office.

My money was running out and, with no job prospects in sight, my thoughts reluctantly turned to England. There were plenty of drawbacks to returning, but at least there was a job there. It wasn't a great offer but it would provide some marketable work experience for the future. Perhaps it would turn out better than expected. If it didn't, I could come back to Sydney. I rang up Stewart Grand Prix, accepted their offer and was given a starting date.

Back in Milton Keynes, things started brightly enough. I found a small flat in Wavendon, a village a few miles from work. A Carlisle Saab dealer, from whom my mother had recently bought a car, kindly helped out by lending one of their demonstration cars. With a flat, a job and a car, my lot was better than it had been for several years. The first day at work, however, confirmed my worst fears. Contrary to what Morrison had assured me, I was the junior employee in the department with no input into policies and no outlet to use my initiative or develop projects. It amounted to little more than a school-leaver's job; MI6 had reneged on another clause of their `agreement'. Moreover, I felt the cloud of my dismissal hanging over me, making it hard for me to feel settled and welcome. Over the next few weeks I made an effort to find something better and attended several interviews, but the knotty chestnut of explaining why I had left the FCO always reared its thorny head. After many wasted miles in my loan car, I wrote to PD/PROSPECT asking for his help. The reply arrived a few days later, not from the kindly and sensible Timpson but from another officer whose name was unfamiliar. He wrote, `The service has discharged all its obligations under the Madrid agreement by finding your current employment and we are therefore not minded to help you further.'

The arrogant reply added to my anger. It would have been easy for them to use their contacts to help find something. `Stuff their lifelong duty of confidentiality then,' I thought to myself. A book contract could be my ticket out of Milton Keynes. I wrote to MI6 to ask how to submit a draft manuscript with a view to potential publication. By return post, they sent a strongly worded letter saying that it would be illegal even for me to write a draft and demanded an assurance that I had not started work on it. If they were not going to be reasonable, then it would have to be done secretly.

MI6 would be listening to my telephone at home, even though they had promised in their `agreement' not to intercept my communications. But my work PC had an internet connection and it was unlikely that they could get a warrant for that. One afternoon in early September, I fired off a two-line e-mail to Shona Martyn, asking her to get in touch if she was interested in pursuing the project. After two weeks she had not replied, so presuming that her answer was no, I thought no further of it.

A few days later, on 8 September, my landlady rang me at work in an agitated state. `I'm afraid your flat's been burgled this morning. I noticed the upstairs window was broken and when I checked through your kitchen window I saw the place had been ransacked.'

I rushed home immediately. A token attempt had been made to disguise the theft as a normal burglary; the contents of the fridge were strewn across the floor and and my bookcase had been overturned. But the identity of the culprits was not hard to guess as the only item of value that had gone was the laptop containing the draft. The TV, stereo, video-recorder and even small valuables had not been touched. The police arrived to have a poke around but they were not interested in taking any forensic evidence.

Contrary to their promise, MI6 intercepted my e-mail and my brief lapse in security sparked not only the burglary but much more significant events thousands of kilometres away. After intercepting the note to Martyn, it wasn't difficult for them to find out who she was. The e-mail address gave them the name of her Australian internet service provider, which in turn gave MI6 her name and street address.

On Friday 24 October 1997, Agent Jackson of the Australian Federal Police arrived at Transworld asking to speak to Shona Martyn. She agreed, granting him a two-hour interview during which she provided a full and detailed account of our meeting, handed over my synopsis and then signed a witness statement.

On Friday, 30 October, having a lunchtime appointment for a haircut in Wavenden, I popped home from work for a quick bite to eat first. As I was putting the kettle on, there was a knock on the door. It was the young constable from Buckinghamshire police, PC Ellis, who had investigated the mysterious theft of my laptop. With him was a burly plainclothes inspector. `Hello, Mr Tomlinson, there have been some new developments concerning your burglary and we want to ask you a few more questions about it.' Ellis seemed friendly enough, and introduced his colleague as Inspector Garrold of CID. `Would you mind if we came inside?' Ellis asked.

The same feeling of impending doom came over me that I used to feel when about to be tanned at school for some petty misdemeanour. If they were going to arrest me, they would have a search warrant, so the only thing to be gained by refusing them entry was a broken door. `Sure, come on in,' I replied, trying to sound indifferent.

`Would you mind taking a seat?' Garrold said in a tone that gave me no option but to sit down on the sofa. He and Ellis stood over me menacingly. `You are under arrest for breaking section 1 of the 1989 Official Secrets Act,' Garrold announced. He grabbed one wrist, Ellis the other, and I was in handcuffs.

More cars pulled up on the gravel drive outside and quickly my flat was filled with plainclothes officers, their mobile phones bleeping. Two joined Garrold in standing over me, menacingly. I caught glimpses of their gun-holsters under their sports-jackets, a sinister sight in the UK where police officers are rarely armed. The atmosphere became even more threatening when the friendly Ellis bade goodbye, a concerned look on his face. A little moustached Welshman opened up as soon as Ellis had left. `OK, Tomlinson, where's the fucking gun?' he demanded.

`What gun?' I asked, bemused.

`The gun, don't fuck us around, where's your gun?' he glared. Their insistence that I was armed added to the sense of unreality, as if it were another IONEC mock arrest.

`I haven't got a gun, never have had one, and I'm never likely to want one,' I replied with complete bafflement.

The Welshman detected my bemusement and softened his inquisition. `We have information that you brought back a gun from your time in Bosnia. We want to know where it is.'

`Ah, now I understand!' I laughed. `That gun's rusting at the bottom of the Adriatic.' MI6 must have told the police that I had kept it, perhaps in order to persuade them to make the arrest as heavy-handed as possible.

Garrold ordered me to stand, removed the handcuffs, and strip-searched me. Finding nothing of interest, he pushed me back on to the sofa. For the next three hours, forced by the tightly clamped rigid handcuffs to hunch with my wrists by my chin and elbows in my lap like a stuffed chicken, I watched the latex-gloved officers dismantle my flat, checking behind every picture, lifting edges of the carpet, stripping the bed, rummaging through my dirty laundry. Every item of interest was sealed in a plastic bag and deposited in a large white box brought for the purpose. It filled steadily. First was my newly purchased Psion organiser, which I had left on the coffee table. Then all the computer disks. Myriad scraps of paper with innocent phone numbers scribbled on to them. My Spanish-English dictionary. Various home videos. My photo album. I was not at all worried until a bald-headed officer, searching my leather motorcycle jacket, suddenly piped up, `Got something here, sir.' The others clustered over my jacket. Prodding and pushing at the lining, baldy pulled out a small package, carefully wrapped in masking tape. My morale plummeted when I realised that it was my `Alex Huntley' passport, driving licence and credit card. I watched latex-gloved fingers carefully insert the package into a plastic bag, seal and add it to the growing pile.

Simultaneously, a search team from Cumbria SB descended on my parents' home in Cumbria and a third team confiscated the desktop PC at Stewart Grand Prix. My captor's mobile phones were ringing incessantly because the three teams were using them to coordinate the raids.

Just after 5 p.m., as darkness was descending, Garrold announced that it was time to go. My handcuffs were released briefly to allow a visit to the lavatory; then, handcuffed to another officer, I was led out into the courtyard and bundled into the back of one of the waiting dark-green Vauxhall Omegas. Garrold got into the driving seat and we pulled out of the courtyard to start the drive towards the motorway and, presumably, London. The remaining officers carried on working in my flat.

We arrived at Charing Cross police station at around 7 p.m., the journey slowed by the evening rush-hour traffic. We parked up in a central courtyard filled with patrol cars. Still in handcuffs, I was led through heavy doors and up a ramp to the main reception desk where they handed me over to the custody of the duty sergeant. My name, address and charge were logged, then he allowed me to make one personal call and contact a lawyer. Still handcuffed, I rang my father, who already knew what was happening by virtue of his own police raid. He tried to sound upbeat and positive, but I knew he was worried. I hoped that my mother was taking the shock OK. Then I phoned John Wadham and asked for his advice. He cancelled his evening plans so that he could come at once. Two PCs took me down to the cells to await his arrival.

As the cell door slammed shut, I felt calm about my situation. My previous experiences of handcuffs and clanging doorlocks in the TA and on the IONEC lessened the unfamiliarity of imprisonment. Massaging my chafed wrists, I surveyed my new surroundings. The cell was bare except for a dirty lavatory, a concrete bench with a plastic foam mattress and one grubby blanket. I rolled the blanket into a pillow and lay down on the mattress to await Wadham's arrival.

At 8 p.m., the flap in the door slapped open, two eyes briefly checked me, the bolt slammed back and two police officers entered the cell. `OK, let's have a Full Monty,' they ordered, then escorted me in handcuffs to the interview rooms where Wadham was waiting. We only spoke briefly. There was not much he could do, as we did not yet know what evidence SB had. He gave me a book, a biography of former prime minister Gladstone, and some fresh fruit, which would make the evening pass more easily.

I slept well that night despite the primitive bedding arrangements, aided by a sleeping pill given to me by the police doctor. The next morning, after a stodgy cooked breakfast reminiscent of army food, the duty sergeant escorted me back to the interview rooms where Wadham and two police officers waited. They introduced themselves as Detective Inspectors Ratcliffe and Durn of the Metropolitan Police SB. For the rest of the morning and until late in the afternoon, they grilled me relentlessly, the tape-recorder whirring in the background, gradually revealing their evidence against me. First, the copy of the synopsis I had given to Martyn and the transcript of her interview with the Australian police. Then the transcript of a second interview with her, which Ratcliffe and Durn had flown to Sydney to conduct themselves. Finally, the `Alex Huntley' documents. Just before 6 p.m. they charged me with breaking section 1 of the 1989 OSA. The duty sergeant refused bail and remanded me in police custody until a magistrate's hearing on Monday.

`At least Ratcliffe did not try to charge you for the Huntley passport and driving licence,' Wadham explained to me sympathetically after the duty sergeant had left us for a moment. `They could have charged you under the 1911 OSA for that, which carries a maximum sentence of 40 years.' Several months later Wadham learned that MI6 had pressed the police hard to charge me under this act. Thankfully, Ratcliffe argued that the charges would not stick because I had not knowingly stolen the documents.

Although the prospect of prison was unpleasant, I was not unduly worried. Indeed, I felt a sense of relief. By arresting and charging me, MI6 were blatantly exposing their hypocrisy in preventing me taking them to the tribunal. If the courts were `secure' enough for them to prosecute me for breaking the OSA, then why were they not `secure' enough for me to take them to an employment tribunal? My arrest would get considerable media coverage and it would be more embarrassing and damaging for MI6 in the long-run than it would be for me. Indeed, there were positive aspects of the arrest: until then I had been referred to as `Agent T' in newspaper reports because MI6 had used an injunction to suppress publication of my real name. Now my name would be in the public domain and I would be able legally to tell friends, relatives and future employers about my previous career and the shoddy way I had been treated. It was quite a relief to leave the shadows, even if it was via a dark prison cell.

Later that evening the duty sergeant unlocked my cell and took me to the forensic laboratory where police technicians took my fingerprints and photographs and a DNA sample by scraping the inside of my cheek with a spatula. The data would be stored on the police's central computer. `If you are acquitted of the charge then you can apply to have these records destroyed,' explained the technician, `but until then, welcome to the criminal fraternity,' he added with a smile.

The remainder of the weekend was spent in the dirty cell with Gladstone for company. I wondered what MI6 hoped to achieve by prosecuting me. Passing the synopsis to Martyn had done no harm - it probably had sat gathering dust in her filing cabinet until Federal Agent Jackson visited. Even if she had shown it to the top dog in the KGB, it was anodyne and innocuous. Prosecuting me would not solve the dispute, it would just exacerbate it. Even if they gave me the maximum sentence of two years, I would be out of jail relatively soon, and then what? On release I would be without a job and a lot more pissed off.

On Sunday afternoon I was permitted a short visit from my father, who had driven down from Cumbria bringing a change of clothing and a wash-kit so that I could be presentable for my bail hearing the following day. Wadham came later that evening to discuss the appearance. `I've found a good barrister to argue your case,' he announced. `Owen Davies is a flamboyant character, who has a good reputation for taking on political and human rights cases. He's really keen to take you on - it'll make a change from representing death-row inmates in Jamaica,' John added encouragingly.

Inevitably I/OPS would have been working over the weekend to ensure that Monday's media would report my arrest with favourable spin, so we batted back by drafting a short counter-spinner. It was a prudent move, as the Monday morning early edition broadsheets and the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 all initially quoted the MI6 line that I had been arrested for `selling secrets'. It was only when they received our own release that they moderated their line to report that I had merely shown a short synopsis to an Australian publisher.

On Sunday night, I asked the duty sergeant to open me up early in the morning to give me time to wash and shave. Permission was granted but the request `forgotten', so the next morning I was handuffed and escorted to Bow Street magistrates court unshaven and unwashed. It was a trivial but demeaning little ploy to ensure that I looked as disreputable as possible.

A Group 4 security van picked me up from the police station and in the cells at Bow Street their officers strip-searched me again. `You'll be up in the dock in about 15 minutes,' the young guard informed me, `would you like anything to drink?' I sat down, sipped the sickly sweet tea and tried to read Gladstone.

At last the door clanked open and the Group 4 guards entered the cell to re-handcuff me. My cell was at the end of a long corridor, and as we passed cell after cell captive faces pressed up against the tiny door hatches to see what was going on. `Cor, he's all right,' screamed one female. `Put `im in in here with me, and I'll sort him out for ya'.'

`Shut up, Mary,' the guards chuckled, slamming shut her hatch as we passed.

Wadham was waiting in the corridor outside the court with a begowned barrister. `Hi, I'm Owen Davies.' He extended a hand to greet me, his tanned wrist adorned with the sort of beaded bracelet favoured by beach bums. `Why is he handcuffed?' Davies demanded of my guards as he realised I couldn't reciprocate the greeting.

`We've instructions from above that he has to be handcuffed to appear in court,' replied the young guard sheepishly. Making me appear handcuffed, unshaved and in three-day-old clothes would make me appear more villainous to the assembled press gallery than if I was clean scrubbed and in a fresh suit.

`Well, we're not having that,' retorted Davies. He shooed the guards away for a confidential word with me. `Before you even go in the dock, we'll insist that you appear without handcuffs. They are just trying to swing the magistrate against you.' I had never been in trouble before, had no history of violence and had been arrested for nothing more than writing out a few words on five sheets of paper, yet I was being treated like a master criminal or a terrorist. Davies and Wadham returned to the court to argue that I should not be shackled, and I was led back down to the cells.

Davies won the first skirmish. Twenty minutes later, my handcuffs were removed at the door to the court and I walked to the dock with my dignity. The packed court fell silent. Glancing up to the public gallery, I tried to pick out my father but he was lost in a sea of unfamiliar faces. To my left the press gallery was packed with reporters, their faces familiar from television. A press artist was already starting to map out a sketch of me that would be used to illustrate the story in the following day's newspaper articles. Alongside Wadham and Davies to the right were the prosecution barristers, amongst them one of the MI6 legal representatives. I wondered what satisfaction he could possibly get from bringing this prosecution against a former colleague.

The court clerk asked me to stand to confirm my name and address, then Colin Gibbs of the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) opened the case, arguing that bail should not be granted because I would certainly attempt to abscond. Although Gibbs admitted that my passports had been confiscated, he launched into a flattering though greatly exaggerated account about my training in the use of disguise and ability to cross borders illegally. After 15 minutes of character assassination, Owen Davies stood up to argue for bail. My father had offered the title deeds to his house as a surety and I had offered my own. It was absurd to imagine that, facing a maximum two-year sentence, I would abscond and have my flat and my parents' home confiscated. But as soon as the examining magistrate started his summing-up speech it was clear that he had decided to remand me in custody. `I have no doubt that you would be a danger to national security if you were given bail,' he intoned gravely, as if he had already made up his mind before hearing Davies' arguments. The guards indicated for me to come down off the dock and brought me back down to the court cells.

Wadham and Davies came down to see me afterwards to offer their sympathies. Peering through the door hatch, John spoke first. `It's no surprise, really, that you didn't get bail. Magistrates are scared stiff of the OSA.'

`We'll try again next week,' added Owen, his mischievous eyes twinkling. `Look on the bright side. You'll be a lot more comfortable on remand in jail than in a police cell - at least there you'll get a shower.'

And so my life was about to take a new twist that just a short while ago would have been inconceivable. As the Group 4 prison van drove me south towards Brixton jail, it passed over Vauxhall Bridge, within sight of my former employer. As I peered out of the porthole window at the building where I had spent happier times, I rued the chain of events which had led to my situation. In just a few years, I had gone from being the holder of an EPV certificate in the most sensitive part of the British government, trusted with secrets denied to all but the highest officials, to becoming a scruffy dishevelled prisoner heading for one of London's dingiest and most notorious jails.

`Oi you, Basildon. Follow me.' I looked up at the tattooed screw who had just entered the smoke-filled cell where I had been held since arrival at Brixton jail an hour earlier. Two other newly remanded prisoners were sharing the cell with me. One was an Italian, clutching a two-day-old Gazzetto dello Sport, who spoke not a word of English and was bewildered by what was going on around him; the other, his face puffy, sweaty and cement-grey, sat on his hands and rocked gently backwards and forwards, his silence broken only by the occasional gasp. `Yeah you,' the guard indicated to me. `Basildon, that's you, innit? James Bond's brother.' The guard laughed with a hacking smoker's cough at his obscure joke. And so, for the duration of my time in Brixton jail, I was named after a famous brand of writing paper. `Bring your bag, and don't try any kung fu, or any other 007 stuff.' I picked up the small case containing a few extra clothes which my father had brought down and followed him down the corridor to start the reception process.

My knowledge of prison life was limited to what I'd seen on occasional television dramas and odd snippets of wisdom from Winston and Shaggy, who had done time for cannabis dealing. I decided that the best approach would be to adopt the `grey man' tactic advised to us on SAS selection. Stay quiet but attentive, do not speak to anybody unless spoken to and cooperate quickly with all instructions. Reception took most of the day, each stage separated by a long wait in a smoke-filled holding-pen with my fellow new inmates. `Mondays are always busy,' explained one screw as he escorted me through to the search-room, `because of all the drunks and druggies who've been pulled in over the weekend.' In the searchroom there was an airport X-ray machine, photographic equipment and a large rubber mat on which the screws ordered me to stand. `Right, Basildon, your prison number is BX5126, which you'd better memorise right now,' explained the screw, ''cos all your mail has to have that number on or else it goes straight in the bin.' Like my school number and army number, BX5126 soon became indelibly ingrained in my memory. `Empty your pockets and that bag on the table,' he ordered, `then get back on the mat.'

My possessions were minutely examined. Wallet, money, credit cards, phone cards, stamps and anything else tradeable were confiscated and recorded in my personal file. My sponge bag was emptied, the razor was confiscated and recorded, but the toothpaste, shampoo and aftershave went straight in the bin. `We don't know what might be in them. They could be full of crack for all we know,' explained the screw. All the fresh fruit my father had brought for me went the same way. `Right, let's have a Fully Monty then,' the screw ordered. My pile of clothes was passed through the X-ray machine before they allowed me to dress again. After photographing and finger-printing, the screws escorted me to another holding-pen to await the medical exam.

Many prisoners come into jail in poor mental and physical health. Often they are drug addicts and need a methadone fix to ease withdrawal, or may be suicidal at the start of a long sentence. A medical check is obligatory before they can be assigned to a wing for their own safety and the safety of the other prisoners.

The two officers in the medical centre already knew who I was. `I can't believe they've nicked you,' commented the orderly as he examined my forearms and wrists for injection scars or suicide attempts. `They've really shot themselves in the arse putting you in here just for writing a book.' The burly young guard, watching over the examination in case of troublesome prisoners, chuckled in agreement. `Fuckin' madness. But look on the bright side, at least you'll be able to add another chapter to your book when you get out ...'

A glance at a wall clock showed that I finally cleared reception at about 1830. Clutching a black bin liner containing the few possessions I'd been allowed to keep, I followed two screws down a long corridor. Judging by the smell of stale cabbages that reminded me of the kitchens at Barnard Castle School, I guessed that they were taking me to the dining area to get something to eat. `Get yourself some scoff in there, Basildon,' the screw ordered, indicating a dining-room filled with tables and benches. About ten other prisoners were already eating from metal trays. There was silence, apart from the occasional grunted request for the plastic salt cellar or for left-over food. I queued up for my rice, beef stew and buttered white bread, and sat down with my metal tray on my own. Like the other prisoners, I felt subdued and unsociable and ate in silence. The Italian, still with his Gazzetto, was staring quizzically at his tray of uneaten food. Next to him a Nigerian, immaculately dressed in a brand new suit, read from his bible, his lips moving to the words. In the corner was a distinguished-looking and smartly dressed guy, perhaps in his late 60s, who judging by the anger written on his face had been given a sentence with which he sharply disagreed.

Nearest to me was the heroin junkie who had been doing cold-turkey in my holding-pen. He smiled weakly at me. `Have you got a fag?' he begged in a hoarse whisper.

`Sorry, I don't smoke,' I replied quietly, not wanting to disturb the silence.

`Lucky bastard,' he replied. `You're far better off in jail if you don't smoke. And even better off if you don't do drugs.' His chuckle at his self-deprecation was cut short by a spasm and for a moment I thought he was going to throw up.

`Tomlinson, come here,' the tattoed officer who had first christened me `Basildon' barked from the exit door. I stood up and made my way to him, leaving my tray on the table. `All right, Basildon, you've been put on the book, so we have to cuff you to take you down the wing.' Expertly, he grabbed my wrist, handcuffing me to his own wrist, and another burly, bearded screw did the same with the other wrist. As they conveyed me out into the damp air of a foggy London evening for the short walk to the neighbouring block, I wanted to ask what `the book' was, but decided to play the grey man and kept quiet. As we passed 20-foot wire fences topped with barbed wire, illuminated by the depressing yellow of sodium strip lighting, the guards must have guessed my thoughts. `Sorry about this, Basildon, but we `ave to do it, you're on the book, you see. Do you know what that means?'

`No ...' I replied, guessing it was something bad.

`Well it means the Governor's decided that you're a Category A prisoner, as opposed to a B, a C or a D, and that means that you are a highly dangerous threat to the state. It's a bit ridiculous making a bloke like you an A-cat, if you ask me,' the tattoo explained.

`But who the fuck ever asks us?' the beard laughed.

The cells in C-wing were arranged on three landings around a central atrium, with metal mesh nets across each storey to prevent suicide or murder attempts, and I was assigned cell 32. The wing had just been refurbished and the paintwork on the cast iron stairs was still bright. `Make yourself at home,' grinned the guards, as they unlocked my handcuffs in the cell. `You're lucky being on the book, you won't have to share with some other cunt.' They slammed the door behind me, leaving me on my own for the first time. My new home was tiny, about 11 feet by 7 feet, with two bunks against one wall, a barred window overlooking an exercise yard and a sink and open lavatory against the other wall.

I made myself as comfortable as possible by unpacking the few clothes and books reception had allowed me to keep, and storing them neatly in the small wall-cupboard. My plastic knife, fork and spoon, issued to me in reception, went on the narrow windowsill. The previous occupants had been heavy smokers and the floor was littered with the butts of roll-up cigarettes. There was a mop and bucket in the corner, so I cleaned them up as best I could. Then I had my first wash for three days and made up the top bunk using the clean but frayed bedding. After three nights in a police cell, sheets and a pillow were a blissful luxury and I slept well.

We were unlocked just before 9 a.m. the following day. Not sure what to do next, I watched for a few minutes from my door. The other prisoners were scrambling down the metal stairs to the kitchens on the ground floor, so I joined the rush to queue for a fried breakfast, served on a metal platter, which we took back to our cells to eat. I muddled through the routine of the rest of the day as best I could. Nobody explained the myriad little rules and vocabulary of prison; it was just a matter of watching and learning. We were unlocked again at 10 a.m. for daily exercise, a one-hour walk around the prison yard which my cell overlooked. It was a chance to get a look at my fellow prisoners as they traipsed in small groups around the yard or huddled against the surrounding fences to smoke rollups. Some were laughing and joking, others were looking morose and depressed. Some of the prisoners had heard on the radio that I had been remanded to Brixton and came over to talk. None could believe that I had been nicked for a writing a book. `It's a bleedin' liberty, that is, `commented one shaven-headed cockney, his forearms covered in the livid scars of suicide attempts.

As the day progressed, I picked up the terminology of prison. I learnt that `association' was a one-hour free period per day when we were allowed out of our cells to take a shower in the landing shower-blocks, watch television or just chat with the other prisoners. `Canteen' was not a cooking pot as it had been in the army, but the weekly opportunity we were given to buy fruit, sweets or tobacco from the prison shop. It was necessary to ask permission from the screw in charge of my landing, a cheerful cigar-smoking, whisky-reeking Indian, before moving to another landing. I discovered that we could attend various workshops and courses for up to two hours a day. There was a broad choice and I put my name down to learn to play a musical instrument and started to think that maybe my time might not be too unpleasant.

But the authorities had other ideas. That evening, during evening association, two screws came to my cell and escorted me down to the Governor's office on the ground floor. They stood behind me as the Governor, a surly Scot, addressed me disparagingly from behind his heavy metal desk. `Tomlinson, as you know, we've made you a Category A prisoner. If that decision is confirmed by the Home Office, then you'll have to move from Brixton jail. We're not equipped to deal with the likes of you in here ...'

I was confirmed as Category A early the next day, Wednesday, 5 November. Two screws came to my cell, strip-searched me, ordered me to change into a prison-issue tracksuit and handcuffed me. `Where am I going?' I asked.

`We can't tell you that, Basildon, we'd have to kill you if we did.' I did my best to smile at their joke, though it was one I had heard many times in the past few days.

I spent two long hours waiting in a holding cell in reception until at last the door was opened and my escorts ordered me to stand up to refit my handcuffs. `Sorry about the delay, there was a problem with the escort helicopter,' one of them explained.

I presumed he was joking, but later I learned that helicopter escort was standard for all A-cat prison transfers. They led me out into the grey autumnal afternoon, to a waiting van - this time from HM Prison Service rather than Group 4 Security.

`In yer get,' the screw ordered, pushing me up the steps and into one of a row of tiny cells barely big enough to sit down in, and closed the door on me, trapping my left arm which was still cuffed to his wrist. When he was sure I was secure, my wrist was released and the door swiftly bolted. A few minutes later, the van's engine rumbled into life and we started to move. Through the tiny porthole of darkened and reinforced glass I watched the South Circular Road unfold eastwards, but gradually lost my bearings as we headed into unfamiliar parts of east London.