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NEW CHARGES

‘Adios, inglés,’ he said, putting his hands up against the screen to say goodbye. By that time, the guards had placed wire gauze across the interview room bars so that inmates couldn’t pass drugs through so easily.

‘Adios, Ricardo,’ I replied, matching my fingertips against his. I knew from his eyes and the way he said goodbye that he wouldn’t come again. I think his telling me about his dream was also his way of saying that this was his final visit. Dreams like that may seem silly to most people. But if you’ve ever been in prison, you know they’re not.

Once Ricardo had left, I felt very alone. However, because I now had new charges pending against me, I quit the tours completely and tried to avoid too many dealings with the other inmates. Instead of going out, I spent almost all the time in my room. The only prisoners I socialised with were foreigners, including a new arrival called Roberto.

Roberto had been busted for international trafficking at El Alto Airport. He was twenty-nine when he arrived at San Pedro, older than me, but I always thought of him as being younger, like a kid brother. He looked and dressed like a university student. He had glasses and black, curly hair and talked about star signs all the time. He read books on astrology and believed in destiny. I don’t know why, but I felt sorrier for him than I did for all the others. It was probably because Roberto wasn’t a real criminal. He wasn’t even a proper drug trafficker. Well, not a professional one, anyway.

There’s a rule that you learn in South America if you stay there long enough: if someone offers you a stack of money to smuggle drugs on to a flight, don’t do it if the amount is anything less than two kilos. You’ll be the sacrifice to get five other passengers through with the main shipment. If you’re going to take the risk, then you might as well organise the whole thing yourself. That way, no one can set you up and you get to take all the profits yourself.

You’re an idiot if you traffic drugs, anyway, unless you’re prepared to face up to the consequences. Most people aren’t. Prisons around the world are filled with stupid tourists who thought they could pay off their holiday or put down a deposit on an apartment back home by doing just one run. Statistically, their reasoning is correct; most mules do get through. But what if you are the unlucky one who gets busted? There are no credit points for having been a law-abiding citizen your