The carved timber clock

When the mother of a man convicted of bashing a woman before attempting to set her alight informed the papers that his bedroom had always been unnervingly neat – the bed made with military precision, as it was put, and the hanging clothes precisely spaced in the wardrobe – she probably had no idea, my newsagent told me, that she was only further convincing the public of the guilt he continues to deny; and the detail of the carved timber clock was macabre, my newsagent thought. It would have been better to leave out any reference to the carved timber clock.