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NEW CHARGES

utation had spread worldwide and these travellers had been told by friends back in their home countries to visit me. I wrote a letter of complaint to the governor saying that I was a foreigner and therefore should have the right to receive foreign visitors. He gave me a permission slip that allowed me to have visitors in my room. Many of the tourists didn't care about the tours, anyway; they just wanted to talk. I couldn't charge anyone for this, but many of them would buy me lunch or leave some money to help out with expenses. Occasionally, when the other tour guides were sick, I was called in to do the tours.

With my restaurant and the occasional tourist coming through the prison, I eventually managed to pay off all my debts. Whenever I had any spare money or leftover food from the restaurant, I would send it to Samir in La Grulla, where he was doing another ninety-day sentence. Samir continued to threaten to write a letter exposing the police he had worked for in the car-theft ring, if they didn't let him out. The police, worried about being implicated, had him transferred to Chonchocoro. I wanted to send him money there, but it was impossible. From what I heard, the police kept him in the isolation cells so that he couldn't communicate with anyone.

I kept a low profile and managed to stay out of harm's way for over a year. I would have been content to patiently wait out the remainder of my sentence, but one morning during the lista my whole world was shattered yet again. The major asked me to stay back after we had answered our names. He was a friend of mine and I could tell that he had bad news for me. When everyone had gone, he looked at me like someone had died and handed over an envelope.

'This is from the administration office.' He stood by while I opened it.

The envelope contained an official charge sheet with the name 'Thomas McFadden' written at the top. At first, I tried to hand it back, thinking that there had been some mistake. But the major refused to take it, and held up his hands to say it wasn't his fault. I read further down the page and saw the names of my co-accused: Jorge and Jose Luis Velasco. We were being charged for the commercial trafficking of two hundred grams of cocaine.