Hash by Wensley Clarkson Page B

prisoners is 20 to 1, which seems quite good compared with some of the other prisons I have visited around the world. Incidents of attacks on warders are pretty uncommon, too. But it took the canny Billy to explain the significance of that. ‘The guards are nodifferent from us, really. Most of them were rejected as policemen. They’re badly paid and quite resentful about it, so they often sympathise with us, which means most of them are open to a bit of bribery and corruption.’
    Billy had access to a mobile phone whenever he liked and if that was ever confiscated, his cellmate Leon had three more hidden in their cell. Warders even brought in extra food for inmates if they were prepared to pay for it and there was a special annexed kitchen area near Billy’s cell where cordon bleu prisoners enjoyed cooking their favourite meals every evening. TV sets were even allowed in the cells.
    ‘It all helps keep things calm here,’ Billy said. ‘The guards are all right on the whole. No one seems to mind the backhanders from the inmates to them, although they’re not so keen on openly allowing drugs to be brought in.’ But Billy then added with a wry smile, ‘Mind you, I’ve had the best quality hash I’ve ever smoked here in Alhaurín. No one would dare sell bad stuff because we’re all in here together and we’d soon find out who cut it.’
    Yet despite the supposedly relaxed atmosphere in Alhaurín, it’s not always a pleasant place to be in, by any means. ‘There are a lot of prisoners here who should be in mental institutions. The Spanish just don’t seem to accept that people do have psychological problems and prison is no place for them,’ Billy told me.
    Before Billy turned up on the Costa del Sol twenty-five years ago, he was a London-based university-educated professional musician with great hopes of making it as a rockstar. Then he got caught up in a £10,000 hash deal and decided to head to the Costa del Crime. ‘The guy I bought the drugs from got arrested and I knew it was only a matter of time before the police came after me. I’d heard that Spain was easy to operate in so I booked a flight, packed a bag and turned up here. I’ve never been back to the UK since.’
    Billy quickly settled into the drugs, sex and booze lifestyle that dominates life for so many expats in southern Spain. ‘Dealing in big shipments of puff mainly was so easy out here back then. The cops were so badly paid they never even chased up cases,’ explained Billy. ‘They took the attitude that just as long as the criminals were only dealing in hash then they wouldn’t bother with them. In any case, all the cops I’ve ever met out here all love hash and I always made sure that my favourite policemen got as much as they wanted.’
    So for the following twenty years Billy built up a hash empire run through his own gang in the resort of San Pedro, just a few kilometres west of Marbella. ‘Those were great days. I had a good crew working for me and I was making a fortune, spending it all on wine, women and song and even paid for my kids to go to private school. I had a top of the range Mercedes and a house bought for cash. I felt I was untouchable. And you know what? I was, in a sense. I dealt hash like a banker deals in stocks and shares. I was relaxed, confident and never had to get heavy with anyone. Most of the time, my team of lads did all the direct contact with the buyers, so I hardly ever had to get my hands dirty. It was a good system.’
    Billy also made strong hash connections inside Morocco. ‘It was really civilised. I’d pop over to Tangier every six weeks or so, organise another shipment, pay over the cash and then get my people to meet the boats when they came in.’
    Billy reckoned that for fifteen years the hash trade in southern Spain was ‘safer than working as an estate agent’. He explained: ‘I looked on myself as a professional businessman. My wife and kids thought that was what I was. The money was