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SAMIR

slightly towards his nose. I shook my head.
‘I can’t.’ I hadn’t touched cocaine since being set up and I had no desire to. I was too scared.

‘You can’t or you don’t want to?’ He placed his hand firmly on my shoulder.

‘I can’t,’ I lied, not wanting to give him an opening. There was a way, but he didn’t need to know that.

‘Yes, you can. If anyone can, you can. You know all the guards.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Come on! We’re having a party tonight.’ Samir’s eyes sparkled and his face got that mischievous look again.

‘What party?’ The others turned towards us and started listening to our conversation.

‘The human rights party.’
I laughed. ‘But you haven’t got any alcohol. How can you have a fiesta without alcohol?’

Samir smiled broadly for the second time that day. ‘OK, then, inglés. I’ll get the drinks, if you supply the dessert. What do you say?’ He winked at me and held out his hand.

It seemed a safe enough bet. There was no way that anyone could get alcohol past the guards, not even me. Maybe you could persuade one of them to sneak a few grams of coke in, but not alcohol; even a single can of beer would be difficult to hide. And enough for eight of us? Impossible.

‘Whatever, Samir.’ We shook hands.

What I hadn’t reckoned on, however, was that there was already alcohol in La Grulla. A whole mountain of it, in fact. The seventh cell.

Everyone was in on the plan. Even so, I don’t know how the Brazilian picked the padlocks. There were two of them and they were the expensive type, made of thick, heavy-duty steel. But he did. He was back in the yard inside of sixty seconds: about the same time it took him to hotwire a car. Two of the others distracted the guards while the rest of us transferred as much alcohol as we wanted into our rooms. It was going to be a big party.

It was then time to keep my end of the bargain. I sent Pizza Boy to get some toilet paper from the shops. I gave him directions on how