‘No, sir,’ said Lamont, turning towards the judge. ‘I received nothing for telling the truth.’ 4–7.
‘Then how much did you receive for telling lies?’ asked Sir Julian. 5–7.
As the court erupted, Sir Julian turned around to Clare, who handed him a large brown envelope. He opened it slowly and extracted three photographs, which he took his time considering.
‘Was last night one of the occasions on which you visited my learned friend?’
Booth Watson leapt to his feet.
‘Sit down, Mr Booth Watson,’ said the judge, ‘or I’ll hold you in contempt.’
Booth Watson hovered like a cat waiting to pounce, but finally slunk back down.
‘Let me ask you once again,’ said Sir Julian. ‘Did you have a meeting with Mr Booth Watson last night, which as you must know is against the law, while you’re still giving evidence?’ 6–7.
Lamont stared at Booth Watson, who kept his eyes down.
Sir Julian waited for some time before saying, ‘As Mr Lamont seems unwilling to answer the question, m’lud, I would be happy for my learned friend to confirm or deny whether such a meeting took place.’ 7–7. Extra time.
Booth Watson didn’t stir. Sir Julian placed the three photographs of the young William as a choirboy back into the envelope, before handing it to Clare. 8–7.
‘I have no more questions for this witness, m’lud.’
Lamont stepped out of the witness box and quickly left the court, without looking at Rashidi or Booth Watson. Final whistle.
Lamont had anticipated almost every one of Sir Julian’s questions, until he’d produced those photographs. But he hadn’t shown them to the court. Was he bluffing? Lamont had been about to call his bluff, and say that he hadn’t seen Booth Watson the previous night, but at the last moment he wondered if Marlboro Man had tailed him and witnessed him turning up for the clandestine meeting. If he had, it wouldn’t just have been Rashidi who ended up in jail, because Booth Watson would have been hauled up in front of the Bar Council for the last time. So Lamont had decided to follow another of Booth Watson’s pieces of sage advice: if in doubt, remain silent.
The oleaginous QC couldn’t have made his position clearer when they’d met the night before. If Rashidi got off the main charges, Lamont would be well rewarded. But if he didn’t...
Lamont realized that he still had one last chance to influence the jury and redeem himself with Booth Watson. Fortunately, the judge had halted proceedings until Monday morning when he would begin his summing up.
He’d already carried out in-depth research on all twelve of the jurors, just in case things started to go wrong. And things had gone badly wrong. However, all was not lost when Lamont discovered he could stitch up two of them for the price of one.
As the proceedings had been wrapped up for the day earlier in the week, he’d followed juror number three as she left the court, and was surprised when she dropped into a local hotel. Moments later juror number seven appeared and entered the same hotel. Lamont hung around on the far side of the road, in the freezing cold, for just over an hour, before juror number seven reappeared. He headed quickly off towards the nearest Tube station.
A few minutes later juror number three came out of the hotel, and began walking in the opposite direction.
It didn’t take Lamont that long to find out they were both ‘happily’ married, with five children between them, one of whom had recently announced her engagement in the Farnham Gazette. The other was hoping to be elected chairman of his local golf club at the AGM next month.
He already knew where they both lived, and the journeys they took home from court each day. He would be on the same train as juror number seven this evening.
17
‘It is your duty,’ began Mr Justice Whittaker, looking down at the jury, ‘when considering your verdict, to take into account only the evidence you have heard in this court. Anything you’ve read in the press, or opinions expressed by your family or friends, should be ignored. They have not heard all the evidence.
‘You are under no time pressure. A man’s future is in your hands. Once you retire, the only verdict I can accept is a unanimous one. Let me remind you the burden of proof is on the prosecution to show that the defendant is guilty, beyond reasonable doubt.
‘You will now retire to the jury room to consider your verdict.’ He nodded at the clerk of the court, who stood in front of the jury and declared, ‘I swear by Almighty God that I will keep this jury in some private and convenient place. I will not suffer anyone to talk to them nor will I talk to them unless it is to ask whether they have reached a verdict.’
He then led his twelve charges out of the court to the jury room.
The seven men and five women had already spent ten days together, and had got to know each other fairly well. Friendships had developed and rivalries surfaced, not least when it had come to selecting who should be appointed foreman. Mr Anscombe had triumphed over Mrs Parish, but Mrs Parish was turning out to be a sore loser.
Anscombe wasn’t in any doubt that Rashidi was guilty on all three counts. However, he felt as foreman it was his duty not to impose his views on the other members of the jury, but to listen attentively to all their opinions.
He had been a schoolmaster all his working life, ending his career as the headmaster of a local grammar school in Kent. But this wasn’t a staff meeting to decide if a boy should be put in detention, or even expelled. They were about to determine whether a man should be set free or sentenced to a long term of imprisonment.
Once they had all taken their places, he looked around the table, trying to remember everyone’s name, as he’d always done with his boys. Although he’d thought he’d got to know them quite well over the course of the trial, he was about to discover that in fact he didn’t know them at all.
‘It might be helpful,’ he began once they were settled, ‘if we were to take a vote and find out if we are all of one mind, and therefore able to reach a verdict fairly quickly.’
‘Couldn’t agree more, foreman,’ said a voice from the other end of the table. Several other members of the jury nodded, and there was even one ‘Hear, hear!’
‘Then I’ll begin by asking how many of you consider the defendant is guilty,’ said Anscombe. ‘So as not to exert any undue influence as your foreman, I will not vote at this juncture.’ He counted the raised hands and, attempting to conceal his surprise, wrote the number 8 on the pad in front of him. ‘And those who think he is not guilty?’
Two hands immediately shot up. Mrs Parish’s followed a few moments later.
As he wrote the number 3 on his pad he recalled the judge’s words: ‘The only verdict I can consider is a unanimous one.’
‘Shall we begin,’ said Anscombe, ‘by listening to the views of the three of us who consider Mr Rashidi is innocent on all three charges?’
Beth was waiting impatiently by the door when William arrived back from the Old Bailey.
‘Guilty or not guilty?’ she demanded.
‘Do you mean me or Rashidi?’
‘Rashidi, of course.’
‘The jury’s still out.’
‘And you?’
The expression on William’s face left her in no doubt this was not something that could be discussed on the doorstep. He led his wife through to the front room and waited for her to sit down before telling her what had happened in court, and the commander’s decision.
‘But why?’ she protested angrily.
‘He had no choice but to suspend me after Lamont, who was the senior officer in charge of Trojan Horse, all but accused me of stealing seven hundred pounds from a safe in the apartment.’