Every eye was on him. Not a cough, a shuffle or fidget disturbed him.
He concluded:
'Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you have listened to me with due attention, but I will take the liberty of going again over the chief points I have made. These are matters of great importance and there should be no misunderstandings…It has been brought to my notice that a conspiracy exists to bribe one or some of you to bring in a verdict of not guilty for the accused, and that a reward of money has been offered. This is police intelligence. Because of that intelligence, it will be necessary for you to face restrictions on your movements and freedoms, which I greatly regret.
'We have been together a long time now and I urge you with due emphasis not to consider providing a spurious excuse and abandoning the trial in its final hours. You have shown such dedication that I am confident I can depend on you and, in anticipation of your cooperation, I am sincerely grateful to you all…
'Now, I am repeating myself because this is at the heart of the matter, you should draw no conclusions regarding this case from what I have just told you. There is no evidence that either Mr Oswald Curtis or Mr Oliver Curtis is in any way implicated in any plot to suborn you. As far as I am concerned; they are completely innocent of any such involvement. I cannot emphasize that more strongly. Ahead of us now are the closing speeches of the prosecution and the defence. Then I will offer you my guidance, and you will retire — either at the end of this week or the start of next — to deliberate on your verdict but you will not infer, from certain precautions put in place round you, that any of these allegations of bribery or intimidation reflect on the accused. They do not, and are not a part of this case, which you will decide only on the sworn evidence that has been put before you. You have to dismiss these allegations — which is all they are — from your minds. Right, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we will now adjourn but I have to ask you for your patience. Please, you will wait in the jury room until certain arrangements are in place, and we will resume our hearing in the morning — but do not forget what I have said. You will judge this case only on the testimony you have heard in the courtroom — nothing, absolutely nothing else…'
'The bastard, the fucking little bastard, I'll—'
'Please, Mr Curtis, refrain from that sort of language and from shouting.'
'He's took my money. I'll fucking have him.'
'You're in danger, Mr Curtis, of being heard throughout the entire building.'
'He's got my money, and the fucking Nobbler has! We're fucking screwed.'
The barrister, Ozzie Curtis's 'brief', took the force of it and Nathaniel Wilson was thankful for a minimal mercy. He stood with his back pressed to the cell door: As if he was in a trance of disbelief, Ollie Curtis sat on the bed's vinyl-coated mattress, stared up at the barred window and had nothing to contribute, unlike his elder brother. The rant had started at the moment that the barrister and Wilson had been admitted by a poker-faced prison guard. That bastard would have been pissing himself once the door was shut and the bolt pushed across. Wilson wondered if it was the wasted money that hurt his client most or the knowledge that the jury — if it held together and stayed firm — would now, inevitably, convict.
The barrister said wistfully, 'The problem is, Mr Curtis — and it's his skill — that our judge was at pains to exonerate you from any blame. He could not have said more. Of course, when I was in with him, I did all the stuff about a jury inevitably being prejudiced and went for a mistrial, but I was turned down and he's covered that ground. Areas of appeal, should this trial go against you, are considerably reduced…Our judge knows his stuff.'
'And it will fucking go against us.'
'I fear so, Mr Curtis.'
'And that bastard took our money. What you going to fucking do, Nat?'
'Well, what I'm not going to do, Ozzie, is rush upstairs, use my mobile and have that traced. It's a difficult situation, Ozzie, needs thinking about.'
'I want that fucking man having good fucking grief, and you're going to fix it.'
Nathaniel Wilson did not answer. The barrister rapped on the door for it to be opened. He was not involved. Wilson was in the quagmire up to his damn neck. He thought of the man who sat in the back row of the jury box, with the stubble on his face and the sandals on his feet, and wondered how he could have been so stupid as to cross his client, take Ozzie Curtis's money, then play-act at being a hero. And his mind turned, with rare longing, to a life outside the little flat that he shared with his wife over the office. Ozzie, thank the good Lord, had retreated and now leaned his forehead against a wall of the cell, spent. Later, when he had the security of fire breaks to mask his communications, he would contact Benny Edwards. He reckoned the man who had turned in the money to be as great an idiot as any he had known, with 'good fucking grief' ahead of him.
The bolt was drawn back. The same impassive officer let him and the barrister out.
The door had opened and there had been the pad of footsteps in the corridor. Now Ibrahim Hussein heard the toilet flush.
The sounds broke the quiet of the cottage. Hours earlier, he had seen his leader leave by car and head away slowly up the track. Khalid had driven and the girl had been with them and Jamal. Later, Syed had wandered off along the track and would now have settled himself in the clump of trees half-way up it from where he would have a view of the cottage, and its approach, and be able to see across the fields round it. The guard, Ramzi, was slumped in an easy chair, reading a magazine featuring colour photographs of body-builders with grotesque muscles. The clock in the hallway, by the front door, ticked noisily. Time passed in the life of Ibrahim Hussein, from the town of Jizan in Asir Province, and he did not know how much would pass before he walked. He reached out for his Book and thought his hours were best occupied in learning better the printed pages. His door opened and he started. The Book fell to the carpet.
'Please, would you come with me?' The heavy-built body of the man filled the doorway. 'Would you, please, bring that jacket — the leather one — with you?'
He lifted it from the back of the chair and followed. He was led into the room at the far end of the passageway and had to duck his head under a blackened beam. The table was in front of him.
On the newspaper that covered it was a waistcoat. Pouches had been sewn over its pockets, and the sticks lay in them. Flies swarmed incessantly over plastic bags tied to the pouches with fine string and their buzzing overwhelmed the clock's ticking. In the bags he could see, among filth, heaps of close-packed nails, screws and ball-bearings. Wires ran from the sticks to two batteries, and another wire came. from the batteries and was linked to a button switch. He gazed at the waistcoat, in awe of it.
He was told briskly: 'Please, I want your arms out.'
The waistcoat was carefully threaded over them. The weight settled on his shoulders, was a burden, and Ibrahim had to flex his upper-body muscles. Fingers were tugging at the material, straightening, raising, loosening it. He was in the tailor's shop on the Corniche; his father sat and watched with smiling pride because a sole surviving son had come of age; a tailor who was a distant cousin of his father fussed over the fall of a robe that was held together with pins and had yet to be finished to perfection, new clothing for the start of a student's first term at the medical school. Cased in plastic gloves, fingers probed and poked, then more tape was bound tight over the most protruding joins with the shiny silver detonators.
'Is it comfortable?' The question was asked with less respect than the tailor, the distant cousin of his father, would have given, but it was the same question. Then, in the flush of youth, the excitement of going away and beginning his studies, he had pirouetted and the robe had swung free at his hips and knees; his father had clapped. He did not know what he should answer, and the flies rose from the bags and flew into his eyes, nose and ears. He. was told, 'It has to be comfortable. If it is not comfortable, you will walk with discomfort and bad walking is recognized. A man who walks well is not noticed, but he must be comfortable — or he betrays himself.'