'No, I'm not. It's a new war and a new enemy, and maybe they are brave and principled. I don't have the answers — others do, but not me. Daff, I feel like I'm flawed.'
'What do you want me to say?'
'Don't know.'
'Well, I'll offer this. If you're in shit, get clear of it. If you're in a quagmire, crawl out of it. Hack on in there, Banksy, don't let the bastards destroy you. Always believe it, something'll turn up.'
'If only it were that easy. I'll see you, Daff.'
At the top of the stairs to the basement he met the crowd of Delta, Golf and Kilo guys and was ignored. Without him, with their briefing finished, they went to draw their weapons.
She sat on the bed and her silent sobbing shook her. From the next room, she could hear the beat of Kathy's music. Beside her, on the duvet, was the brown-paper package with one end torn open and the banknotes exposed.
She had found it an hour earlier when she had brought the ironing upstairs and two pairs of his socks had fallen as she had stacked his clothes on the wardrobe's shelves. The socks had dropped among the shoes at the bottom. It was so obviously hidden and not intended that she should discover it. She had, and she had ripped back the paper. It was more money than she had ever seen. She knew of no reason, other than a criminal one, for so many banknotes to be in her house.
The door clicked downstairs. His voice called, 'Hi, love, you up there? Everything fine? Mum and Dad send their love.'
She heard his footsteps on the stairs and pushed the package further away from her, so that he would see it better when he came into the room.
She wiped her eyes and twisted to face him, contempt coursing through her. She saw his face go ashen.
Chapter 9
He handed the envelope to the jury bailiff. The man studied it, a frown knitting his forehead. He seemed to hold it with suspicion, but he read what was written: By Hand — for the personal attention of Mr Justice Herbert, Court 18. There was hesitation. 'Is this something I can deal with?'
Jools said tartly, 'No. If it were I would not have addressed it to Mr Justice Herbert.'
'Actually, in the hour before his court sits, he's rather busy.'
'I'd like it delivered to him now.'
'And when he's busy he has a short temper. Are you telling me this is urgent?'
Jools looked sharply around and behind him, but the remainder of the jury seemed not to have noticed his conversation with the bailiff. 'Look, it's not some bloody complaint about the food or the chairs we sit on. It's urgent and should get on to his desk soonest — like now.'
'Right, then. Be it on your head.'
All the way to the door, the bailiff examined the envelope as if still doubtful of its importance, then was gone. Could not be called back. Jools thought he had cast the die. He was sure that nothing in his life would be the same again.
He felt sick. Vomit had risen from his stomach and was lodged in his throat. He swayed. His eyes, bleary and bloodshot, ached…as well they might. He had been up half the night as Babs had scalpelled the truth from him; In the bedroom, her voice stiletto sharp and quiet, his murmuring early evasions and late honesties, she had cut the story out of him. When she had finished, he had been tossed aside. He had spent what was left of the night on the living-room settee, and when he was about to leave she had hurled the package, now retaped, into his midriff. He had clutched it against his chest, under his anorak, all the way to Snaresbrook Crown Court. It was now in his locker, hidden under his coat.
He swayed and felt weakness in his knees. Through the night, as truths were dragged out of him, she had belted him: 'You disgust me, you make me cringe with shame…Don't give me the craven excuse that there was a threat to Kathy, me, you. Policemen exist to protect us from such threats…It's not too late. You took the money and now you will hand it in to the court's authorities and come clean…If you have not done that by the time you come home this evening I will be straight down to the nearest police station and you will be looking at a charge, from your vantage-point in the cells, of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, or whatever they call it…Why didn't you just throw it back in that awful little man's face? Isn't there an iota of decency, pride, self-esteem, in you?…And you're a person responsible for overseeing the way children are brought up, your own and at school — God, what a damn Pharisee you've turned out to be, and unfit to have children in your care…There is, if you didn't know it, a clear division between what is right and what is wrong, but since you don't seem to understand that, it falls to me to kick you down the right road…Do you think I could ever look myself in the face, stand in front of a mirror, if I knew that our debts were paid off with that money? Do you? Well, think again. I'd prefer to starve in the street, destitute, and Kathy with me, than spend a penny of it…Get out of my sight because I don't want you in my room and most certainly not in my bed…So, there will be consequences — well, the police will look after us, and my trust lies in them, not in the word of criminals…' Always had had a way with words, his Babs.
'Hey, Jools, you been on the juice last night?' Baz had sidled close to him, and grinned.
'More like a right junket.' Fanny giggled. 'What did you have? A gallon or two?'
He reeled away from them and slumped on to a chair.
Fanny came to him and crouched beside him. She said softly, 'Don't mind them, Jools, they're just silly and spiteful. Is it that you're ill or is it Angst in the mind? You can tell me — I only share secrets with my cat.'
He thought her a dear and chaotic woman, with rather an admirable chest that was a usual attention point for him in post-lunch court sessions, but was damned if he would confide. 'There was no alcohol involved. I merely happen to have slept poorly,' he said sharply.
The hands of the clock on the wall advanced. The time came and went when the bailiff would normally have urged those who needed it to make a last visit to the toilets. The others had now retreated to the hard chairs round the walls and were buried in newspaper word teasers and crossword puzzles, except Fanny, who knitted from a pattern. Their bailiff had come back into the room, had hovered with an expression of crisis on his face, then had been called out, had returned again, then gone once more. By now they should have been gathering up their notepads and filing into court. Jools felt the earlier tiredness and sickness ebb out of him, replaced with a sensation near to exhilaration. None of them except him knew the cause of the delay. It was as if, and none of them had seen him do it, he had pulled the pin from a pineapple-shaped grenade, rolled it studiously across the floor, and it had wobbled to a stop in the centre of the room. The bailiff was back with them and coughed heavily, not to clear his throat but to attract attention — Jools was counting down the seconds till the explosion.
'I regret, ladies and gentlemen, that we have a delay this morning and I cannot say for how long it will be. Our judge asks for your patience. A matter has come to his notice that he has to deal with. As soon as he has an answer to a difficulty that has arisen, he will call you in. I am afraid I am not at liberty to discuss the matter, the difficulty, with you.'