The Walking Dead

'You see, Mr Banks,' the voice wheedled, 'it's about my parents. They're old and they're not well, and I have a routine of visiting each weekend. It's something that's really important to them.'

'You go out on Monday, do your bit in the jury room. From what I've heard in court, it shouldn't take too long — not that I'm suggesting how your decision on the case will go — and then you can visit your parents.'

'You're not hearing me, Mr Banks. I go each weekend to see my parents because they're old and ill.'

He'd attended a course when he was in CID, before going over to firearms, that dealt with interview techniques. There had been a whole morning's lecture on the recognition of evasion, the telling of lies and half-truths. Because it had been interesting, the lecture's lessons had stayed with him. Looking up to the right, not the left, was an indication that a lie was told. More compelling than the eyes was the mouth; a tongue smearing the lips was a giveaway of an untruth. Having arms close on the body and folded was the sure sign of evasion…Little things, all part of the body language, trifling but telling Banks that his Principal was playing games with him. Then Wright twisted away and presented his shoulder to Banks, which was confirmation: the lecturer had called it a 'liar's posture'. It was eleven years since he had been on that course, and everything that had been told him then was crystal sharp.

'I sympathize with your situation, Mr Wright, but cannot do anything about it.' He thought he had closed the matter, leaned back and faced the window, the newspaper covering it.

'So the consequences will be on your head.'

'What consequences, Mr Wright?'

'Pretty simple — the collapse of the trial.'

'What — what are you saying?'

'Arithmetic, Mr Banks. We are ten. Ten jurors make the minimum quorum. Nine, and the trial collapses. That's the consequence.'

'The judge — if you didn't know it — has very comprehensive powers to level against anyone, forgive me, who flicks with his court.'

'Stomach-ache, try that. Migraine. Twisted back, can't sit. I can think up a few others, and it's millions down the drain. Do I get to visit my parents or do I not?'

Alarm bells clamoured. Consequences battered in Banks's mind. He could hear the inquest in court eighteen. Defence submissions that the case had failed…The prisoners' smirk…What did it bloody-matter to David Banks?

'Quite honestly,' Wright said, 'you'd have to lock me in a room and stand guard outside the door, because that's where I'm going. I'm going to see my parents, and if, Mr Banks, you prevent it, I will be handing in a sick note. What do you say?'

'Where are they, your parents?'

He was told. They lived in the Bedfordshire town of Luton.

Banks seemed then to shed the culture imposed by his warrant card. When his letter, two lines of it, was written and handed in, he would lose the card and his authorization to carry a firearm. It was ludicrous that, in the last hours of his service, he should play the pompous and dutiful servant of what he was about to reject. His career was gone; was in its last throes, and it concerned him not a damn that he had been lied to.

A final vestige of that culture remained. Banks said, matter-of-fact, 'Shouldn't be a difficulty, Mr Wright. Of course, I'll have to be with you. It'll be good to meet your parents. Don't mention it to the others.'

The juror sidled back up the aisle of the coach.

* * *

In the late afternoon, as dusk fell, Muhammad Ajaq crawled out through the gap in the back door, pulling his bag after him. For a moment he knelt on the wet concrete step, beside the base of the tilted rainwater butt, and looked back. She was there. He could see faintly that anxiety creased her forehead, and he reached through the hole, took her offered hand and squeezed it hard, then replaced the shifted plank. When he stood, he kicked it hard so that it was flush to the door. He left them, slipped away into the gloom and went out on to the road.