Printed-out screenshot from Twitter (now so low down the wardrobe door I have to crouch to read it):

Tasha Chai-Latte @ChaiLatteDIY

Crochet is totally the new colouring-in! So much awe for @KnittingKatherin for her amazing designs. #bemindful #crochetyourway

69 comments, 32k retweets, 67k likes.

Another two Post-it notes beneath:

She has 15 million followers. The marketing and PR teams are basically peeing themselves with excitement. Unfortunately this means I’ve had to explain YouTube to Katherin, and she’s even worse than you with technology (she has one of those old Nokias that only drug dealers use), plus odious Martin from PR ‘live tweets’ from all Katherin’s events now, but still. It’s exciting! My lovely oddball Katherin might actually be in with a shot at a bestsellers list! Not the bestsellers list, obviously, but one of the niche ones on Amazon. Like, you know, number one in crafts and origami, or something. xx

. . . Will wait until I’ve slept before attempting to reply to this one.

July

17

   Tiffy

It’s still light when I get home. I love summer. Leon’s trainers are missing, so I guess he walked to work today – I’m so jealous he can do that. The tube is even more gross when it’s hot.

I scan the flat for new notes. They’re not always that easy to spot these days – there’s usually Post-its on pretty much everything, unless one of us has got around to doing a clear-up.

I spot it on the kitchen counter eventually: an envelope, with Richie’s name and prisoner number on one side and our address on the other. There’s a short note in Leon’s handwriting next to the address.

The letter from Richie is here.

And then, inside:

Dear Tiffy,

Twas a dark and stormy night . . .

All right, OK, no it wasn’t. It was a dark and grotty night at Daffie’s Nightclub in Clapham. I was already plastered when I got there – we were coming from a friend’s housewarming.

I danced with a few girls that night. You’ll get why I’m telling you that later. It was a really mixed crowd, lots of young guys out of uni, lots of those creepy types who hang around the edges of the dance floor waiting for girls to get too drunk so they can make their move. But right at the back, at one of the tables, there were a few guys who looked like they belonged somewhere else.

It’s hard to explain. They looked like they were there for a different reason from everyone else. They didn’t want to pull, they didn’t want to get drunk, they didn’t want to dance.

So I know now they wanted to do business. They’re known as the Bloods, apparently. I only found that out much later, when I was inside and telling guys here my story, so I’m guessing you’ve never heard of them either. If you’re a pretty much middle-class person who just happens to live in London and goes about their business going to work and everything, you’ll probably never know gangs like this exist.

But they’re important. I think even then I could tell that, looking at them. But I was also very drunk.

One of the guys came to the bar with his girl. There were only two women with the group, and this one looked bored out of her mind, you could just see it. She caught my eye down the bar and started to look a lot more interested.

I looked back. If she’s bored of her bloke, that’s his problem, not mine. I’m not going to miss the chance to make eyes with a pretty lady just because the guy standing next to her looks tougher than the average bloke in Daffie’s, let me tell you that.

He found me later, in the bathroom. Pushed me up against the wall.

‘Keep your hands off, you hear me?’

You know the drill. He was shouting right in my face, a vein pulsing in his forehead.

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ I said. Calm as a cucumber.

He shouted a lot more. Pushed me a bit. I stood firm, but I didn’t push back or hit him. He said he’d seen me dancing with her, which wasn’t true. I know she wasn’t one of the girls I’d danced with earlier in the night, I would have remembered her.

Still, he’d wound me up, and when she turned up later, just before the club closed, I was probably more inclined to chat to her than I would have been, just to piss him off.

We flirted. I bought her a drink. The Bloods, out there at the back, talked business and didn’t seem to notice. I kissed her. She kissed me back. I remember I was so drunk I felt dizzy when I closed my eyes, so I kissed her with my eyes open.

And then that was it. She just sort of faded back into the club somewhere – it’s all hazy, I really was plastered. I couldn’t tell you exactly when she left, or I left, or whatever.

From this point on, I can’t verify everything. If I could, obviously I wouldn’t be writing this to you from here, I’d be chilling on your famous beanbag with a cup of Leon’s milky coffee and this would probably just be a funny anecdote I’d tell at the pub.

But anyway. Here’s what I think happened.

They followed me and my mates when we left. The others got night buses, but I didn’t live far, so I walked it. I went into the off-licence on Clapham Road that stays open all night and bought cigarettes and a six-pack of beers. I didn’t even want them – I definitely didn’t need them. It was nearly four in the morning and I was probably not even walking straight. But I went in, paid cash, went home. I didn’t even see them, but they can’t have been far away when I got out of there, because according to the camera in the store ‘I came back in’ two minutes later with my hoody pulled up and a balaclava on.

When you watch the footage, the guy does have a similar build to me. But as I pointed out in court – whoever it is, they’re doing a better job of walking properly than I did. I was way too drunk to be able to dodge the bargain bins and get the knife out of the back of my jeans all at the same time.

I had no idea any of this had happened until two days later when I was arrested at work.

They got the kid at the till to unlock the safe. There was four thousand five hundred pounds in there. They were smart, or maybe just experienced – they didn’t speak any more than they had to, and so when the kid gave evidence she hardly had anything to recount. Other than the knife pointed in her face, obviously.

I was on CCTV. I had a previous criminal record. They pulled me in.

Once I’d been charged they wouldn’t grant me bail. My lawyer took me on because he was interested, and he felt confident in the only witness, the girl at the till, but they got to her as well in the end. We were expecting her to stand up there and say the guy who came in the second time couldn’t have been me. That she’d seen me in the off-licence before and I’d been perfectly nice and not tried to nick anything.