Find Them Dead

39 Saturday 11 May

After her earlier thrill at being selected for the Gready trial, so far serving as a juror had turned out to be a bit of an anticlimax, Meg was thinking. But hey, hopefully next week would be more exciting. For sure it would be interesting.

She looked down at the list of names of her fellow jurors and a brief description of each of them to help her remember them. A disparate group of people, none of whom seemed to have anything much in common with any of the others. They’d spent much of Thursday closeted in the jury room, apart from being allowed to leave the court building and go into town during the lunch period. Most of them passed the time reading, doing emails, some with headphones listening to music or watching films or television on their hand-helds. As well as talking, some of them increasingly argumentatively. A recurring complaint had been the lack of convenient parking in Lewes.

One particularly annoying juror, a woman in her early fifties, Gwendoline Smythson, told them she cycled the five miles to court from her country home. She had suggested they all do that and then they would have no problem with parking.

Meg had pointed out that would have meant a fourteen-mile cycle ride each way, much of it along perilous main roads. Another juror, who lived near Hastings, indignantly said it would mean a thirty-mile trip each way — again, much of it along main roads.

The one juror who made Meg smile was Hari Singh, a chef. He worked in a modern Brighton restaurant. He’d arrived on Thursday morning with a bag full of samosas, one for each juror. It had amused her to see the stiff, hesitant reactions from the two crusties on the jury to his act of generosity and kindness.

Late afternoon on Thursday they were informed by the jury bailiff that the trial would resume on Monday morning. But by then tensions were rising among the jurors, firstly over whether the person they elected as foreman should be called, as they were now known, the foreperson. And secondly — and more vociferously — over who should have the role.

The retired cop, Mike Roberts, a former Hampshire Police senior homicide detective, had volunteered to take it on. In Meg’s view, he would be good: he had both experience of the law and a calm authority about him. But Hugo Pink, with his arrogant self-importance, had thrown his hat in the ring. So had the retired actuary, Harold Trout, who was insisting he had the best credentials.

For God’s sake, Meg thought, what the hell did it matter? She hadn’t as yet put herself forward and was slightly disappointed none of the other female jurors had. Maybe she should enter the fray herself on Monday. Laura would have fought like hell to have been in that position if she was one of the twelve, she knew.

But at this moment, swigging her second or perhaps third glass of Taittinger champagne and finishing a sumptuous seafood lunch in the owners’ enclosure at Plumpton Racecourse, feeling decidedly — and very pleasantly — tipsy, all of that was forgotten.

She was enjoying the company of Nick’s mates and their partners who shared the ownership of Colin’s Brother, and looking forward to the race, the Butler’s Wine Cellar Hurdles, due to start in just over a quarter of an hour, at 3.35 p.m. A short while earlier they’d stroked the horse and chatted to the jockey, who was bullish. He’d ridden to victory in this same race last year and said the thoroughbred was on peak form. The going — good to soft — was the one in which Colin’s Brother performed best.

Knocking back the rest of the contents of her glass, she said to her friends, ‘Just going to check out the odds on our nag with the bookies.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ Peter Dean said. ‘I’ve a good feeling about our chances today.’

‘Me too!’

Dressed like a true racegoer, in her smart Barbour, designer jeans and ankle boots, and accompanied by Dean, sporting a trilby hat, his enclosure pass hanging from his neck along with binoculars in an ancient leather case, they walked out into a cloudy, blustery afternoon with the threat of rain in the air. As they hurriedly threaded their way through the crowd of people, many similarly garbed themselves, holding race cards or folded copies of the Sporting Times, kindly Peter Dean asked, ‘So how are you doing?’

The former family doctor had, for some years, been the Coroner for Suffolk. He understood the pain of bereavement like few others of Meg’s circle of friends.

‘I’m OK — looking forward to a new challenge, whatever that might be. But I’m really missing my baby!’

‘When is she coming home?’

‘Not until the end of August. Then in October she’s off again to Edinburgh Uni.’

‘To study to become a vet, right?’

Meg nodded.

‘Must be tough to have to let her go. But you’re lucky, you know, Meg. She’s a good kid.’

She gave him a wan smile. ‘She is.’

‘Listen, this summer you must come out for a day on our boat on the Thames!’

‘I’d love to.’

They reached the bookmakers, each of them with a line of punters queuing to place bets. ‘See you back in the enclosure?’ she said.

‘I’m going to go up in the grandstand to watch the race with Daniel,’ he said.

‘I’ll find you guys there.’

The first stall bore the name PHIL HOMAN at the top of a tall board. The names and odds of each horse in the race were listed below, and at the bottom were posted the words EUROS TAKEN.

The bookie, a tall man in a flat cap and greatcoat, was taking a bet from a punter, whilst shouting an instruction to his clerk sitting out of sight behind him. Meg looked at the list of runners. Colin’s Brother, no. 3, was showing odds of 2:1. She could see that the next stall, headed WILLIAM HILL, was showing only a marginally better 10:4. The next one along showed the same. Clearly, she thought, she wasn’t going to make a fortune on this race if the horse did come good.

As she continued walking along the bookies’ stalls, looking at the constantly changing odds they were posting, she was alarmed to see the next two were also shortening the odds to 2:1.

Then, to her pleasant surprise, she saw that the last one, JACK JONAS, was showing no. 3 at 4:1.

She joined the back of the queue, digging her purse out of her handbag and watching his board. It was an extravagant bet she was about to place, but last year she’d got back over £1,000 on the win, so if she lost a little of that today, what the hell. Nick would have been proud of her boldness. And if she won, she had decided, she would put the money into Laura’s bank account to help with her start at uni.

Jonas, a wiry, chirpy man in his fifties in a pork pie hat, was taking cash, handing out tickets and calling to his clerk behind him as each bet was placed. She stared at the posted odds, nervous they would shorten before she could put her own bet on, and she was relieved when she finally got to the front of the queue.

Before attending to her, he turned to his board and shortened the odds on two horses, but to her relief, left Colin’s Brother still showing 4:1.

‘Yes, darling?’ he said, turning back to her.

Holding out the wad of banknotes she’d withdrawn from a cashpoint yesterday, she said, boldly, ‘Number three, one hundred and fifty pounds to win.’

‘Number three, Colin’s Brother, one hundred and fifty to win,’ he shouted briskly to his clerk and gave her a betting slip. ‘There you go, darling!’ Instantly, his attention was on the next person in the queue.

She turned away and headed back through the throng. After showing her pass to the steward on the gate for the private enclosure and entering, she stopped to tuck her ticket, headed JACK JONAS, in her purse. It was only then she noticed there was a second, flimsy slip of paper beneath it.

A receipt, she presumed at first, but then she saw the shadow of handwriting on the reverse. She turned the slip over and read the words, written in ink in very neat handwriting.

Then stood, stock-still, shaking.