When court eighteen finished for the day, when Mr Justice Herbert's clerk had yelled, 'All rise', and the jurors were led back to their room to shrug on their coats, the solicitor would hurry into the Snaresbrook corridor and dial a number, let it ring four times, then cut the connection, unanswered.
The team, activated, would follow wherever the target led them.
'So, Mr Curtis, you would have the jury believe that you are the unhappy victim of what would be, in effect, a conspiracy of lies by the prosecution's witnesses. The conspiracy, which you claim has put you before the court, involves sworn — and therefore perjured — evidence from a young woman who is sure she saw you, evidence from the owner and staff working in the jewellery shop, evidence from reputable police officers of which several have commendations on their records for outstanding conduct…and they all lied. I am being blunt, Mr Curtis. That seems to be the defence you are offering to these very grave charges. I see you shrug. I take that as the answer you are providing. They are all lying. You alone are giving the members of the jury the truthful version of events. No more questions.'
Jools saw the theatrical roll of the barrister's shaggy eyebrows, as if the whole thing was a game. But not a bloody game to anyone who had been in that shop and who had faced the open barrel of a pistol and a revolver: Jools didn't think it was a bloody game. His eyes followed Ozzie Curtis's back as the horrible bloody man was taken from the witness stand to the dock — could look at him then because the damned intimidating eyes gazed the other way.
He heard the judge: 'We've had a long and concentrated session, and I don't think we should start with the evidence of Mr Ollie Curtis before the morning. Ten thirty tomorrow.'
The clerk sucked in breath to make herself better heard: 'All rise.' Another day gone.
Actually, quite a good day — one of the best.
A day of good entertainment…not in court but at the lunch break.
A wholesome spat, if he did not feature in it, always entertained Tools Wright. The argument, materializing from nowhere, had been worthy of one of those bickering catfights in the staff common room. The dispute had featured Rob, the foreman, and Peter, the moaner. The first complaint Peter had thrown at Rob had involved the quality of the rice pudding served to them: was it not Rob's function, as jury foreman, to lodge the matter with the catering manager? Rob had said, 'You want a damn nanny? Well, you can find one for yourself. My job, as leader of the jury, is with the case we're hearing, not wet-nursing you and your bloody dietary groans.' Seconds out. No holding. Blows above the belt, please. A good clean fight, gentlemen. The bailiff had rung the bell, end of the round, and called them back. But it had been good spectator sport, and the pleasure of it had lasted Jools Wright through the afternoon as Ozzie Curtis had wriggled and lied and pleaded loss of memory through the prosecution barrister's final and impeccably polite onslaught.
He loved a catfight, claws and teeth, when he was a spectator. Didn't love the ones at home.
Couldn't abide them when he was the receiver and Babs on the attack.
She didn't do teeth, claws and insults. She hit with endless silences, occasional tears, and her ability to move around in a room as if he did not exist and had no place in the house. Perhaps she knew, perhaps she didn't know, of Hannah and the weekends, but it was not spoken of. Nor had their financial state, getting worse, been recently discussed. Tears were in another room. Weeping usually followed his bald statement that he would be going to see 'Mum and Dad' for the weekend because 'they're not getting any younger and it's the right thing to spend what time I can with them before they're gone'. He had no intention of leaving home, couldn't bloody well afford it. He was, he didn't deny it to himself, a low-life, a deceiver, a man who did not deserve trust — and he lived for the days when he was gone early through the front door and on his way to court eighteen, and for the weekends when Hannah shagged him. Could have been worse…
From the locker allocated to him, he took his green anorak and zipped it over his shirt, then slid the navy rucksack on to his shoulder. Because he had enjoyed his day, Jools called cheerfully from the jury-room door, "Bye, everybody. Have a nice evening. See you all tomorrow.'
He noted it as one of those daft afternoons when the sun shone between darkened clouds. It lit the brightness of his shirt and highlighted the gaudiness of his socks, but he had to pull up the anorak's hood to protect his hair from the shower. The socks might get really wet if the rain came down any heavier. He lengthened his stride down the Snaresbrook driveway and hoped he wouldn't be kept waiting at the pedestrian lights across the main road. Then there'd be the charge in the open up the hill to the station.
He knew nothing of counter-surveillance procedures, nor had any reason to wish he had been taught them. He did not look behind him as he went for his train, and would not look beside him and along the platform when he waited for it.
Jools Wright was in ignorance of the world in which he moved, an innocent, and would have been bemused had he been told that the price of innocence could be costly.
Chapter 5
He left his room, checked that the door's lock had fastened, and slipped soft-footed down the corridor. In his recent life, that of the Scorpion, Muhammad Ajaq had slept some nights in the homes of wealthy merchants or professional men, some nights in the compounds of the leaders of minor tribes, some nights in the sheds used by herdsmen under the palms by the banks of the Euphrates river, some nights in the cover of dried-out irrigation ditches, some nights on the sand with a blanket round him and the stars for company. But, he had never slept in a hotel.
Ajaq knew nothing of hotels.
Going down the corridor, he was refreshed by sleep. It was his ability to rest where he could find it, and dreams did not disturb him. He had not used the bed in the room — in compound guest wings, in a shed, a ditch or in the open air he lay on the floor or on a carpet or on fodder or in the dirt. It was his belief that on a floor or on the ground his reactions would be faster: he would wake more quickly if a threat gathered round him. The room was on the first floor of the building, at the back and overlooking a walled yard, and he had kept the window up, and would have gone out through it if danger had come close. From his sleep, he felt strong, alert.
His tread was light, but the boards under the carpet squealed as he went.
He paused at the door, stiffened, as if he had no taste for what he must now do…Then he tapped on the wood panel where paint had flaked off.
'It is your friend. Please, let me inside.'
A footfall came to the door, then stopped. He imagined the boy's fear, but did not know for how many hours he had been in the room without contact. He watched the door's edge, heard the click of the lock and saw the door open, but a chain held it. The room was darkened, no light on. Then the boy was staring back at him. Relief flooded the face. The chain was unhooked.
The bed was rumpled where the boy had lain on it and a copy of the Koran was on the pillow. The leather jacket was discarded on the thin, shoe-worn carpet. Ajaq could smell the fast food, and could make out the stains at the boy's mouth. He went inside and closed the door behind him, threaded his steps over the carpet and round the bed, then drew back the curtains. Light from a street-lamp beyond the yard wall seeped inside.