When she could no longer bear to look at her former colleagues, Jackie turned her eyes to the jury. Nine men, six women. A spread of ages from early twenties to middle fifties. They looked for the most part like solid, respectable citizens. The sort of people for whom her first crime was being a lesbian, a state from which any other crime might naturally flow. When she’d been led into the dock on the first morning, they had looked at her curiously, weighing her up as if calculating the likelihood of her guilt. But as the prosecution had steadily built its case, they had shown an increasing reluctance to look at her, contenting themselves with furtive glances. She began to wonder if she’d been right to listen to her solicitor’s advice about her clothes. The series of smart, feminine suits and dresses she’d chosen for the trial made her look too normal, she feared. Almost as if she were one of them. Perhaps they’d have been more open-minded about the evidence placed before them if she hadn’t disturbed them with that subtle threat. Maybe they’d have been less unnerved by her if she was standing there with her copper hair cropped short, wearing a Glad to Be Gay sweatshirt. Then they could have treated her more like Exhibit A.

Wearily she sighed, and tried to raise her spirits with a glance at the one person she could be certain still believed in her innocence. In the front row of the public benches, her fine, white-blonde hair falling round her head like a gleaming helmet, Claire Ogilvie sat taking notes. Her neat, small features, dwarfed by the huge glasses she wore, were fixed in concentration, except when she looked up at Jackie. Then she would give a small, encouraging smile, which against all odds and logic kept a flicker of hope alive in Jackie’s heart. In the five years they’d been together, she’d never had to rely so much on Claire. Whatever happened at the end of the trial, she’d never be able to repay that debt.