Find Them Dead

27 Thursday 9 May

When Meg finally reached the front of the queue and entered the building, a world-weary security officer, on the far side of an airport-style conveyor belt, instructed her to put any metal or electronic devices into a tray. She walked through the scanner and had her phone and car keys returned to her.

Her nerves jangled as she found herself standing alone in the wide, maroon-carpeted hall, along with a bunch of other slightly lost-looking people. She was rescued by a smiling, fair-haired young man brandishing a clipboard, who approached her, limping slightly. ‘Are you here for jury service?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she answered.

‘Do you have your summons?’ he asked.

Meg removed the pink document from her handbag and showed it to him. He flipped over a couple of pages on his clipboard, looking through a list, then ticked her off. ‘I’ll be taking you all up to the jury room in a few minutes,’ he said, indicating a group of around thirty people standing a little awkwardly, all total strangers but all here for a common purpose, many busy looking at their phones. Meg smiled at a woman and got a friendly shrug back.

She watched the steady procession of people passing through the scanner with interest, trying to guess what they were all doing here. A complete mix. Fellow jurors, defendants and their lawyers and friends and family, witnesses, police officers, reporters or just curious members of the public?

Finally, the man with the clipboard announced brightly to the group, ‘Right, jurors, this way please!’

Meg followed him, amid the throng of fellow jurors, up two flights of ornately balustraded stairs, then along past a wooden bench into a cavernous room with the feel of a school assembly hall, filled with rows of green chairs, the walls lined with noticeboards.

‘Can you all please take a seat!’ he said, pleasantly but firmly.

Meg sat down next to a man in a checked shirt, who smelled unpleasant. A young man in skinny jeans, with a precious hairstyle and a nervous tic, took the seat to her right and immediately began studying his phone.

She had dressed smartly for the occasion, but from what she had seen of the others in here, she was in the minority. There were a couple of older men in suits and ties, and one strange-looking woman who appeared to have dressed for a garden party, but most people were in casual attire. She needn’t have bothered going to such an effort, she realized. Maybe she’d come in more comfortable clothes tomorrow.

Some moments later, the man who had led them up stood in front of them and said, loudly, ‘Hello, jurors, I’m Jacobi Whyte, your jury bailiff. Thank you for your patience with the delayed start of this trial. I’m going to show you a video which will tell you what to expect today — you will all be handed a form which has everything on it, including how to claim your expenses, but it is very important you pay attention.’

Meg paid attention.

‘You have all been summoned for jury service randomly by a computer. If your name is called you will be one of fifteen people, and your names will be called at random. This is done in case any of you jurors are objected to. If you are not called, or objected to, an usher outside the court entrance will escort you back here.’ He paused. ‘Is everyone with me so far?’

Meg added to the sea of nods. The bailiff continued to spell out the obligations and the restrictions, and explained that, if they had employment, they would be paid £64.95 per day. Next, he reminded them that googling a defendant’s name carried a potential jail sentence and listed all the other dos and don’ts. He pointed to the room behind and up a couple of steps, telling them there were drinks vending machines in there, and informed them they would be hearing announcements shortly. He reminded them that it was an offence to take photographs in court, and that all phones taken into court must be switched off.

Then he played the video, which showed the courtroom they would be in and pointed out the places where everyone would be seated and who they all would be. When it ended, anxious to get away from the body odour of the man beside her as soon as she could, Meg grabbed a form, then went through to the rear and got herself a coffee from a machine. Then she took a seat and read through the form, which was titled WELCOME TO NEW JURORS, and began to fill in the details it required.

When she had finished, she handed it in to Whyte, then sat down on her own and looked again at a new WhatsApp that had just pinged in from Laura. It was a photograph of her and Cassie, both in shorts, T-shirts, sunglasses and baseball caps, standing with legs straddling either side of a narrow, paved path behind a red-and-yellow sign which read:

Laura was leaning sharply to the right, Cassie to the left.

The message read:

Meg smiled, wistfully. She was glad for her daughter, glad to see the genuine happiness in her face, and that she seemed finally to be over all the horror of the loss of her father and brother. But she was sad, at the same time, that they were currently so far apart.

She checked her emails, just in case there was any communication from the recruitment agency — there wasn’t. She took the novel she had brought with her and began to read.

But she only got a few pages in before she suddenly heard her name called out.