As cells go, it was one of the more comfortable ones. There were two chairs as well as a table. And there was a bed in the corner. The bed was two foot six inches wide and six foot long exactly. It was made up on the simple principle of spreading a very thin straw palliasse over a shelf of very thick boards. At the foot of the bed were two rough blankets and a pillow, thin like the mattress, and stuffed with the same creaky straw. Altogether it was the kind of bed to be slept on rather than lingered in.
Over the end of the bed, and so high that even standing on the bed itself you couldn’t look out, was the window. Six massive metal bars like park railings ran up and down across its width and there was a wire mesh stretched across the bars so that birds couldn’t fly in and things couldn’t be thrown out. It was not the bars alone that made the window depressing; it was the thickness of the walls the alcove of the window revealed. If you stopped and thought about it, it wasn’t like being in a room at all. It was like being buried in a solid block of stone.
But there was more than an extra chair that distinguished this cell from the others in the same gallery. There were the privileges that went with it. For a start, there were the meals. In all the other cells, the food was the same. It was prison food. There was none of the Bisto smell about it. But in a remand cell there is no kind of restriction. You simply have your meals sent over from the restaurant opposite. Or from the Ritz or the Savoy, for that matter, if you can afford it.
And it is not only a question of meals. There is the business of visitors. Within reason there is no limit on the number of visitors a remand man can receive. And this is as it should be. A man in remand isn’t guilty. He’s only suspect. And he can’t be kept in prison too long either. The Barons had all that out with King John years ago. So there he is, the man on remand, not yet in Hell and certainly not in Heaven. It’s a kind of well‐ventilated, carefully supervised, rather chilly Limbo that he inhabits.
Percy had only just seen his last visitor. It was Mr Barks, his solicitor. He seemed a nice man, Mr Barks. He had been picked on in court and made to represent Percy, just like that. He was all right, he was. What was more, he was Mr Barks of Barks, Barks and Wedderburn and Barks – though which one of the Barkses, Percy wasn’t quite sure. Top dog of the whole lot of them probably, from the look of him. Very much the gentleman, with horn‐rimmed spectacles and a watch chain and an umbrella with a gold band round it. And, considering he was doing it practically for nix, very conscientious and helpful. He’d been along twice already, and this was his third visit. The only thing about him was that he was a bit brusque. He didn’t treat Percy very nice. When Percy told him, naturally, that he’d never set eyes on the Bentley that They were talking about, and that he’d bought the Lalique Lady and the coach lamps and the bedside rug in an all‐night coffee‐bar from someone he didn’t know, Mr Barks had been quite rude to him. If Percy wasn’t going to tell him the truth, Mr Barks said, he’d chuck up the whole case. He was there to help Percy, he went on, not to listen to a lot of lies that wouldn’t deceive a child. And the way he went on you’d think he’d got a right to speak to Percy like that. But Percy saw through him. Mr Barks wasn’t there really to help him. That was simply his line of talk. Underneath it all he was just one of Them. After he had heard Percy to the end, he said that they were going to plead guilty. And when Percy said that he didn’t want to, Mr Barks told him quite curtly that he knew more about the law than Percy did. So that was that. Percy was guilty because Mr Barks said he was. That was justice.
‘Just you wait till I’m on the level with a solicitor of my own I pay money to,’ Percy kept telling himself. ‘Then we’ll see. No more pleading guilty then. Not guilty, m’lud: that’s what it’ll be when I’ve got a solicitor of my own, someone I pay money to.’
All the same, he couldn’t help laughing. It wasn’t half funny the way Mr Barks talked about it all. He didn’t say ‘you,’ he said ‘we.’ ‘We’re going to plead guilty,’ was what he’d said, just as though it was Mr Barks with his rolled‐up umbrella who was pleading guilty to stealing the Bentley.
Then an unpleasant doubt crossed Percy’s mind. Suppose Mr Barks were pleading guilty only because it was the quickest way of getting things done. Suppose he had said to himself: ‘There’s nothing in this for me. Let’s plead guilty and get back into the money.’ That wasn’t a nice thought, was it? It still seemed possible that for twenty‐five pounds or so, Mr Barks might be persuaded to change his plea. Percy decided to put it to him next time he saw him. He hadn’t actually got twenty‐five pounds. But he could find it.
Not that he was worrying. Luckily for him, he wasn’t the worrying sort. Mr Barks had promised to try some sort of First Offenders racket that he said he knew how to operate. It sounded all right the way he put it. It just didn’t sound likely, that was all.
The funny thing was that Percy had got Them foxed. From the way They behaved you could see that They didn’t know anything. They’d got him there, where They wanted him, the man They were looking for, the non‐stop car bandit, and They were so dumb They didn’t know Their luck. He wanted to laugh at Them for it. It was funny, wasn’t it, when you came to think about it?’
‘In any case I’m O.K. this time,’ he told himself. ‘If it’s First Offenders, I’m O.K. And if it’s three months, who minds that? Do it on my head. I’m O.K. either way.’
Three months! The words came back to him as a kind of echo. Who minds? Well, there was one person who’d mind all right. And that was him. And also Jackie. She’d be wondering whatever had become of him. She’d think he was unfaithful or something. He couldn’t bear that. Not when he wasn’t. And how did he know what Jackie would be doing with herself ? There were a lot of very undesirable characters round Victoria way. She might get herself into bad company with him not there to protect her. She might be unfaithful to him. That was what hurt. That was what maddened him. Not to be able to get out even for five minutes to explain.
Through the iron grille of the door he saw the blue back of a warder passing.
‘They don’t know the harm they’re doing keeping me here,’ he told himself. ‘I’ll go after Them. I’ll get damages. They don’t know the harm They’re doing.’