Fox raised a hand, calling him up short. ‘Terry, be very careful what you say.’ He nodded at the two barristers. Gready heeded the warning. He knew that if he gave any hint that he might have been involved in any way, his defence counsel would be compromised and no longer able to act for him.

Primrose Brown, notebook in front of her, looked across the table at him, very seriously. ‘Terry, I’m afraid that evidence from Michael Starr has holed you below the waterline. It is very damning, and I could see that the jury were with him. In all my years at the bar, I honestly cannot remember many more convincingly damning witnesses.’

He looked at her with fury. ‘You’re a top criminal brief and you’re throwing me under a bus on the evidence of one total shit who’s switched allegiance?’

‘I’m not throwing you under any bus, Terry. I’m just suggesting we need to reconsider our strategy. We’ve hung a big part of our entire defence around you and Starr never having met – on your assurances.’

‘I’ll fucking kill—’ He halted in mid-sentence, realizing that anger wasn’t going to get him anywhere. He looked at the three of them and didn’t like what he saw in their faces.

‘Let’s just review everything calmly, Terry,’ Nick Fox said. ‘That Financial Investigator is smart, and Starr was pretty convincing. We’re not in a good place right now.’

‘Really, Nick? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work that one out,’ he retorted, bitterly.

After an uncomfortable silence Brown said, ‘Nick is right, Terry. On what we’ve heard so far, to be brutally honest, we’re going to struggle to get an acquittal. Your best bet might be to change your plea.’

‘Change my plea? To guilty?’

She nodded. ‘I’m afraid we are looking at the likelihood of a long custodial sentence, but we might be able to work on the tariff, using your previously good character to reduce the length of sentence.’ She picked up her pen and unscrewed the top. ‘Let’s start with all the charities you support.’

Gready shook his head. ‘No way, Primrose, you are wrong. You are being defeatists – all of you. We’re not rolling over, paws-up. We are going on the attack!’ He caught Fox’s eye. Nick knew something neither Primrose nor her junior did, nor anyone else in the courtroom apart from themselves: that they had two jurors in the bag, including the foreperson.