Ben’s Bit – part five – The Reasonable Dr Grey

The man is calm. His dark-rimmed, circular glasses focus the intensity of his study at me, rather than taking in the light that bounces off my prison uniform, whose monotone colour, resembling a modern warship, bears his name.

“Do you think it’s normal for a person in your position to refuse bail?” Dr Grey asks, reasonably.  He knits the fingers of his hands together into an unconscious tight fist, in a movement that reminds me how physically close together two entirely different gestures can be. “It was, after all, a first offence?” he says.

He’s not a reasonable person, though the system, no doubt, judges him to be so. He’s a very person. Very educated, very fair . . . very capable of judgement.

I have no doubt that I am in the presence of evil, very here.

I put…