The desk sergeant, though different from the one who had been on duty the night before, was apparently under instructions to make the prisoner aware of the enormity of his crime. He made a big production of returning Charles’s bag, his pocket contents, shoelaces and belt. All of the sergeant’s slow actions were accompanied by a litany of reproof and when finally allowed to depart, Charles slunk out of the police station like a beaten schoolboy leaving the headmaster’s study. The first thing he did was find a pub and down a couple of large Bell’s. To his annoyance, he found some lines of verse repeating in his head. I know not whether Laws be right, Or whether Laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol Is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, A year whose days are long. Really, after sixteen hours in a police cell, it was a bit much to be quoting The Ballad of Reading Gaol! He stared out of the pub window at the grey November clouds, trying not do it with ‘a wistful eye’, nor to think of what he was looking at, ‘that little tent of blue / Which prisoners call the sky’.
What do You think about A Reconstructed Corpse (2012)?
