Find Them Dead

by James, Peter

  At least she wouldn’t be spending all of her first week of unemployment sitting at home, finding things to fill her time. Reading, gardening, lunching with friends and watching daytime TV. Wondering if she had the temerity, as the HR woman at Kempsons had suggested she should, to sign up for Jobseeker’s Allowance. But for the moment that was on hold, and she was on her way to begin her stint of jury service, albeit later than she had expected. This was due to a trial that had overrun, she’d been told.

  More importantly to her, she hoped these coming weeks might be a welcome distraction from her worrying about Laura. She was a good girl, constantly updating her on where in Ecuador she and Cassie were and what they were doing. But if Meg didn’t hear from her for longer than a day, she started to fret. There had been a major story in all the papers only last week about two girls on their gap year, of similar age to Laura and Cassie, who had disappeared while backpacking around Thailand over six months ago, and their mutilated bodies had just now been found in a dense forest.

  Meg’s best friend, Alison Stevens – who had helped her through that terrible time after Nick and Will died – had coincidentally done jury service herself a few months ago, and had been on a nasty child-abuse case, which had sickened her, all the more so as she’d got a one-year-old daughter – a late and unexpected addition to her family. And a work colleague had done jury service last year, which had been the trial of a conman who’d gone around Surrey posing as a gas-meter reader, stealing stuff from elderly people’s homes. Meg hoped she might get something less distressing than child abuse and more interesting than a phony gas-meter reader, today. And she had something to look forward to at the weekend. Colin’s Brother was running in a steeplechase at Plumpton Racecourse on Saturday, where he had won once before. She would be going along to cheer him on with the two partners Nick had shared the horse with. And to have a punt on him.

  The music ended and she heard the voice of the presenter. ‘A big trial starts at Lewes Crown Court this morning,’ he said. ‘Brighton solicitor Terence Gready faces charges in connection with one of the most valuable drug hauls ever seized by Sussex Police. Six million pounds’ worth of the Class-A drug cocaine concealed in a vintage Ferrari at Newhaven Port in November last year.’

  Meg listened intently. That sounded interesting. As she headed towards the station car park, she wondered if she was going to be on the Terence Gready jury. It would be great to be on something juicy, one she could be excited to tell Laura about – and that Laura would be keen to know all about – although she’d read the jury service bumph she’d been sent and had noted she was not permitted to speak about the trial or discussions between jurors to anyone, not even to close family. But hopefully she’d be able to give Laura a flavour at least.

  Ten minutes later, as she crested the steep hill leading from the railway station to the High Street, panting with exertion, the imposing building of Lewes Crown Court loomed above her on the far side of the road. A disparate mass of people, some in suits, many in casual clothes, were in a queue that stretched along the pavement from the steps to the columned entrance. Several photographers and reporters milled around.

  Meg walked behind a parked white van, and as she did so, heard the ping of an incoming WhatsApp message. Hopefully from Laura. She hurried across the road and joined the back of the queue, eager to check her phone. Like everyone else, she paid no attention to the white van, signed HALLIWELL PLUMBING with a motif of water spiralling down a drain, parked outside the elegant facade of the historic White Hart Hotel.

  But Jeff Pringle, concealed in the back of the van, was paying close attention to her, and to everyone else in the line. Very close – through the telephoto lens of his camera, the peephole masked by the black epicentre of the fake company’s logo. He was snapping each person in turn. This was just for back-up, in case anything happened to the photos that would be taken inside. Belt and braces. That was how his boss always operated.

  The ponytailed sixty-two-year-old was one of Terence Gready’s longest-serving and most trusted associates, managed by Mickey Starr. His normal role in the operation was organizing the drugs distribution network out of London. He handled, through a sterile corridor, the fifteen youngsters who travelled daily by train to the South Coast, distributing drugs, and replaced any of them who were busted – a regular occurrence. Gready’s solicitor, Nick Fox, had delegated him this role today because of his hobby as a twitcher – photographing rare birds – and, equally importantly, because of his IT skills.

  He tightened focus on the lady who had just joined the queue. Shoulder-length brown hair nicely styled, cool sunglasses, a smart, dark two-piece. Probably a lawyer, he decided, watching her pull her phone out of her handbag, peer at it for a short while and smile. Nice smile, Jeff thought.

  Then, suddenly, she turned her head and appeared to be staring straight at him. ‘Lovely, darling!’ he murmured and snapped away. Perfect! A full-on frontal view was always best for the Google facial recognition software.

  He glanced at his watch: 8.55 a.m. All the jurors for the trial starting today should be either in the building or the queue. They would have been told to arrive by 9 a.m. If he had missed any, he’d pick them up later, no problem. Right now, he was anxious to get to the public gallery quickly, to secure a front-row view if possible, before too big a crowd gathered. He didn’t want to risk having to wait outside.

  He emailed the photos to Rio back at the office, climbed into the front and drove the van off to a car park. As he locked it and began making his way towards the court, he had on his person a much smaller camera. So small and well disguised, no dumb security officer would spot it in a million years.

  And nor would the judge.

  27

  Thursday 9 May

  When Meg finally reached the front of the queue and entered the building, a world-weary security officer, on the far side of an airport-style conveyor belt, instructed her to put any metal or electronic devices into a tray. She walked through the scanner and had her phone and car keys returned to her.

  Her nerves jangled as she found herself standing alone in the wide, maroon-carpeted hall, along with a bunch of other slightly lost-looking people. She was rescued by a smiling, fair-haired young man brandishing a clipboard, who approached her, limping slightly. ‘Are you here for jury service?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she answered.

  ‘Do you have your summons?’ he asked.

  Meg removed the pink document from her handbag and showed it to him. He flipped over a couple of pages on his clipboard, looking through a list, then ticked her off. ‘I’ll be taking you all up to the jury room in a few minutes,’ he said, indicating a group of around thirty people standing a little awkwardly, all total strangers but all here for a common purpose, many busy looking at their phones. Meg smiled at a woman and got a friendly shrug back.

  She watched the steady procession of people passing through the scanner with interest, trying to guess what they were all doing here. A complete mix. Fellow jurors, defendants and their lawyers and friends and family, witnesses, police officers, reporters or just curious members of the public?

  Finally, the man with the clipboard announced brightly to the group, ‘Right, jurors, this way please!’

  Meg followed him, amid the throng of fellow jurors, up two flights of ornately balustraded stairs, then along past a wooden bench into a cavernous room with the feel of a school assembly hall, filled with rows of green chairs, the walls lined with noticeboards.

  ‘Can you all please take a seat!’ he said, pleasantly but firmly.

  Meg sat down next to a man in a checked shirt, who smelled unpleasant. A young man in skinny jeans, with a precious hairstyle and a nervous tic, took the seat to her right and immediately began studying his phone.

  She had dressed smartly for the occasion, but from what she had seen of the others in here, she was in the minority. There were a couple of older men in suits and ties, and one strange-looking woman who appeared to have d
ressed for a garden party, but most people were in casual attire. She needn’t have bothered going to such an effort, she realized. Maybe she’d come in more comfortable clothes tomorrow.

  Some moments later, the man who had led them up stood in front of them and said, loudly, ‘Hello, jurors, I’m Jacobi Whyte, your jury bailiff. Thank you for your patience with the delayed start of this trial. I’m going to show you a video which will tell you what to expect today – you will all be handed a form which has everything on it, including how to claim your expenses, but it is very important you pay attention.’

  Meg paid attention.

  ‘You have all been summoned for jury service randomly by a computer. If your name is called you will be one of fifteen people, and your names will be called at random. This is done in case any of you jurors are objected to. If you are not called, or objected to, an usher outside the court entrance will escort you back here.’ He paused. ‘Is everyone with me so far?’

  Meg added to the sea of nods. The bailiff continued to spell out the obligations and the restrictions, and explained that, if they had employment, they would be paid £64.95 per day. Next, he reminded them that googling a defendant’s name carried a potential jail sentence and listed all the other dos and don’ts. He pointed to the room behind and up a couple of steps, telling them there were drinks vending machines in there, and informed them they would be hearing announcements shortly. He reminded them that it was an offence to take photographs in court, and that all phones taken into court must be switched off.

  Then he played the video, which showed the courtroom they would be in and pointed out the places where everyone would be seated and who they all would be. When it ended, anxious to get away from the body odour of the man beside her as soon as she could, Meg grabbed a form, then went through to the rear and got herself a coffee from a machine. Then she took a seat and read through the form, which was titled WELCOME TO NEW JURORS, and began to fill in the details it required.

  When she had finished, she handed it in to Whyte, then sat down on her own and looked again at a new WhatsApp that had just pinged in from Laura. It was a photograph of her and Cassie, both in shorts, T-shirts, sunglasses and baseball caps, standing with legs straddling either side of a narrow, paved path behind a red-and-yellow sign which read:

  ECUADOR IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WORLD

  LATITUDE 00° 00’ 00”

  CALCULATED WITH G.P.S.

  Laura was leaning sharply to the right, Cassie to the left.

  The message read:

  Mum, we are actually standing on the Equator! One foot in the Northern Hemisphere, one in the Southern. And the water really does go down the plughole clockwise in the Northern and anti-clockwise in the Southern, we just tried it! And I got an egg to stand upright on a point, but Cassie couldn’t do it!

  Meg smiled, wistfully. She was glad for her daughter, glad to see the genuine happiness in her face, and that she seemed finally to be over all the horror of the loss of her father and brother. But she was sad, at the same time, that they were currently so far apart.

  She checked her emails, just in case there was any communication from the recruitment agency – there wasn’t. She took the novel she had brought with her and began to read.

  But she only got a few pages in before she suddenly heard her name called out.

  28

  Thursday 9 May

  Richard Jupp sat at his desk in his chambers, sipping a strong coffee he’d brewed himself, both his dogs lying at his feet. The coffee was supplied by a criminal law solicitor called Gerry Maye. Maye was smartly – in Jupp’s view – diversifying from his law practice into coffee importing. Due to reductions in legal aid rates, a large number of law firms had gone to the wall during the past couple of years. It made him gladder than ever that he was a judge, on a comfortable salary and with a good pension ahead.

  The round clock on the wall read 9.55. Five minutes to the start and the defendant’s QC, Primrose Brown – a clever barrister who he knew and liked – had just informed him via the clerk of the court, Maureen Sapsed, that a new financial report had only just been received by the defence counsel. More evidence linking Gready to offshore accounts.

  Maureen, garbed in the traditional black gown and now nervously standing in front of him, was efficient in the extreme, and always did her very best to keep all court business flowing. But, like himself, she was often driven to distraction by the inefficiencies that dogged the entire legal system. Like all major public services, the court system had been affected by the austerity measures brought in over a decade ago.

  The under-funded and therefore under-manned Crown Prosecution Service was in a constant state of false economy. The cost of putting together any major trial was immense. Getting all the witnesses, police officers, prosecution advocates and defence counsel together for a specific date was always a nightmare of scheduling. With a never-ending backlog of trials waiting in the wings, adjourning a case was never a simple matter of putting it back a few days. All the players involved had myriad other commitments. An adjournment would often mean months before all the elements could be assembled again. And with it came another problem. If the accused had been remanded in custody, they could be kept there, by law, for a maximum of six months. There had to be good grounds for an extension.

  Sometimes, he said, only partly in jest, that he felt like a shepherd trying to herd cats. It was a major headache to hold all the different, diverse and moving pieces of a trial together.

  For all these reasons, the decision facing Richard Jupp, just five minutes before the start of Regina v Terence Arthur Gready, was whether to go ahead or adjourn due to the late arrival of this new evidence. He knew that obtaining financial information from overseas was an imprecise science, but that was a problem for later. There were two elements to the trial – the first being whether Gready was involved in the importation of six million pounds’ worth of cocaine and four similar importation charges, as well as a much wider network of county lines drug dealing.

  But the second element and the main focus of this trial was whether Terence Gready was actually the mastermind behind a vast drugs empire.

  A major factor for any judge was whether any decision he or she made would leave an opening for an appeal. But in his opinion, there would be ample time during the following days for the defence to study the late financial documents. It wasn’t enough to justify an adjournment of probably many months. And the defence counsel, if they were sensible, wouldn’t challenge this. The trial had already taken long enough to come to court, with the defendant locked up on remand. Everyone wanted to get going.

  Jupp looked up at the clerk. ‘We start, regardless of this, Maureen. But I want a written explanation from the SIO for the lateness of this evidence.’

  ‘Yes, Your Honour.’

  ‘How’s the audience looking?’

  He was referring to the public gallery. There was a general rule-of-thumb about the numbers attending court cases out of pure interest. The ‘chart busters’, as he liked to call them, were Death by Dangerous Driving cases, which always attracted the biggest crowds, often filling the courts to capacity. Next came murder trials. And a long way third were sex cases.

  ‘Pretty full,’ she said. ‘The case has had a lot of local media coverage.’

  Jupp didn’t like a full gallery. Dozens of strangers staring at him and, more importantly, at the jurors. Intimidating them. Especially during trials when a large contingent of the public gallery was made up of family and friends of the accused. Which this one almost certainly was.

  He glanced at the clock. ‘OK, let’s rock and roll!’

  29

  Thursday 9 May

  Moments after the clerk left Richard Jupp’s chambers, an usher knocked and entered. Thirty-year-old Matt Croucher, neatly turned out in a grey suit beneath a black cloak, his ID card hung on a lanyard around his neck, said, ‘Ready, Your Honour? Don’t forget your wig!’

  Jupp grinned a thank-you, removed the
short, grey wig from the tin and, checking in the mirror, aligned it on his head, then followed him out of the room and up the short flight of carpeted stairs to his entrance door to the court.

  Croucher knocked loudly, twice, as was the tradition, then opened it with a bold sweep, announcing, ‘All rise!’

  As everyone stood, silent, Jupp walked past the screened-off area for vulnerable witnesses, revelling in the expectant atmosphere, the same as at the start of every major case. It often felt to him similar to the moment the curtain rose at the start of a play, and indeed in his view, to some considerable extent, court cases were theatre. Both in the antiquated costumes worn by some of the players, and the fact that many barristers were, in secret, frustrated actors.

  But courts were theatres where, unlike make-believe tragedies such as Hamlet, the bodies on the stage were often all too real. A theatre where, when the final curtain descended, there were no bows. Just the grim reality of the sometimes-crushing verdict. Theatre in which a legally innocent person – at the time of the trial – might be fighting for their reputation, career and liberty.

  As was the defendant facing him now, in the enclosed glass dock, accompanied by a security guard. A short, harmless-looking man, wearing a blue suit, white shirt and dark tie – no doubt as instructed by his barrister, Jupp thought with a smile. Ensuring clients dressed in a manner to make them look as innocent as possible was something he had always emphasized during his time at the Bar, when briefing clients for their court appearance. Navy blue was the friendliest suit colour. Theatrical costume, again.

  In the front row below Jupp was the formally wigged and gowned prosecutor, Stephen Cork, with his junior, Paul Williams, behind. The other side of the court there was Primrose Brown QC, and her junior, Crispin Sykes, behind her. A formidable QC from the same Inn of Court as himself, Primrose and he once both belonged to the same chambers. But their friendly acquaintance would play no part in this trial.